Negative self talk — My 3 year old says she doesn’t matter.

This is a long one but please hang in there.

My 3yo (turns 4 in a month) has the most egregious self-talk. Over the past 6 months, she has said little things here and there that were slightly concerning but nothing too alarming. However, the past 2 months have been absolutely heartbreaking for me. Here are some examples of some of the things she will say. - “I’m not the best [her name]” - “no one likes me” - “I don’t matter” - “there’s nothing good about me” - “you don’t love me” (when I hold boundaries) - “I want to be a pilot when I grow up but I can’t do anything! What am I going to do? I’m not good at anything!” (This happened yesterday. She was genuinely distressed and crying.)

I don’t know what to do. I am a full proponent of positive parenting (please do not come for me for this or say I’m too easy on my kid - I’m not a permissive parent, I’m an authoritative parent). I have literally raised my voice at her maybe 3 times in her entire life. We do mantras every morning (“I am strong! I am brave! I am smart! I am kind - to myself, and to everybody else!”). I give her specific praise and often point out when she didn’t give up or say things like “wow! You hadn’t learned how to do that a while ago, but you kept practicing and now look at you!”. I encourage her to feel pride when she does a good job and will say things like “wow girl! You should be so proud of yourself! Do you feel proud?”.

And yet, I feel like I’m still failing her as a mother. I was a hypersensitive kid and had an incredibly hard time with emotions and self-love. I’m sure there is a genetic component at play here, but my biggest fear is my child growing up and feeling the way I felt. Even worse, I am terrified if we don’t get a handle on this now, she will grow up and try something that I tried and it will be my fault. I was still in undergrad when I had her and I’m filled with guilt that maybe it’s because I was still in school the first 2 years of her life and I didn’t engage enough on those topics with her then.

One of the docs I work for offered to refer a child psychologist they know, but the wait is months from now. She is already in OT and they don’t know what to do other than maybe speech therapy. Please tell me someone has had success in dealing with these things.

Edit: thank you all so much. it’s comforting to know my kiddo isn’t the only one, and that others have overcome it with theirs. I’m going to take the psych referral (or look for one available sooner) & get her in speech until then. So many good ideas below and you bet I will be trying every single one!