--- title: Olympiad: thinking traps and what helps first ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: thinking traps and what helps first ★★★», a lesson of the reflection course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Thinking traps are thoughts that feel like facts but bend the truth, and they are loudest at night: "always" and "nev --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Reflection](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/) / Olympiad: thinking traps and what help… # Olympiad: thinking traps and what helps first ★★★ Lesson 32 of the reflection course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/0/) — Thinking traps are thoughts that feel like facts but bend the truth, and they are loudest at night: "always" and "never" thinking ("I ALWAYS mess up"), worst-case thinking (one bad mark becomes "I'll fail everything"), mind reading ("they all think I'm weird"), fortune telling ("the new school will be awful") and blaming yourself for things you didn't control ("Mum and Dad split up because of me"). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/1/) — Each trap has a test question: "Is it really always?", "What's most likely, not worst?", "Did they say that, or am I guessing?", "Can I know the future?", "Was it mine to control?"; a trapped thought usually fails its test, while a true worry passes it and deserves a plan. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/2/) — Picture Amira after she missed the penalty in the cup final: at 11 p.m. she thinks, "Everyone hates me, I've ruined the whole season, I'm useless at football"; that is three traps in one sentence (mind reading, worst-case and all-or-nothing), and the true version is smaller: "I missed one penalty, I feel awful, and we lost a match." - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/3/) — When something hard happens, help usually comes in an order: first be safe and get calm (slow breathing, a drink of water, a grown-up nearby), then tell someone you trust what happened, then put right what can be put right, then take small steps back to normal life, and over time look back at what you learned. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/4/) — Not every hard thought is a trap: "I miss Grandad" is simply true, and so is "I was unkind to Leo"; the aim is not to argue with true sadness or fair guilt, but to stop the traps from piling extra pain on top. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/5/) — A thinking trap is a habit of thought that bends the truth, making things seem worse, bigger or more certain than they are. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/6/) — All-or-nothing thinking uses words like "always", "never", "everyone" and "nobody"; one example the other way is usually enough to show it is false. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/7/) — Worst-case thinking, also called catastrophising, jumps from a small problem to the most terrible outcome; asking "what is most likely?" helps. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/8/) — Mind reading means being sure you know what others think without asking them. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/9/) — Fortune telling means being sure how the future will turn out, usually badly, though nobody can know the future. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/11/) — Worries usually feel bigger at night, when the mind is tired and there is nothing else to think about; many look smaller in the morning. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/12/) — After something scary or upsetting, the first step is to be safe and calm down; breathing out more slowly than you breathe in can help the body settle. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/13/) — Telling a trusted adult, such as a parent, a teacher, a school nurse or a counsellor, is the step that opens most other help. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/15/) — Feelings are not facts: feeling stupid does not make you stupid, and feeling guilty does not always mean you did something wrong. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/16/) — Some sad thoughts are true, like missing someone who has died; they are not traps, and grief has no timetable. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/32-olympiad-thinking-traps-and-what-helps-first/17/) — If sadness or worry stays for weeks and gets in the way of sleeping, eating or school, it is a sign to get extra help from a grown-up or a doctor. - ← previous: [Olympiad: reading hidden feelings in hard times ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/31-olympiad-reading-hidden-feelings-in-hard-times/) - ↑ back to [Reflection](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/reflection/)