Resilient Kids - on track through optimism, coping skills and personal mastery

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1 Resilient Kids - on track through optimism, coping skills and personal mastery A. Review - The Optimistic Child B. Summary of the elements of teaching resilience C. Examples from Resilient Kids resource D. About Open Doors 1 Resource RESILIENT KIDS an interactive CD-ROM program for ages 5-18 created and developed by Open Doors, comprising Primary CD-ROM, Secondary CD-ROM and Teachers Manuals; also available as a Parent Pack for home use. A. THE OPTIMISTIC CHILD: A Revolutionary approach to Raising Resilient Children (Houghton Mifflin 1995) By Martin E.P.Seligman, Ph.D.,with Karen Reivich, M.A., Lisa Jaycox Ph.D. and Jane Gilham, Ph.D. A Review by Peta Dale B.B.Sc. (Hons.); Dip. Psychotherapy Seligman presents the idea of childhood psychological immunisation against depression. As with immunisation against physical disease, there is an understanding that the dis-ease of depression can be prevented through encouraging a sense of optimism and personal mastery. Based on the results of the Penn Prevention Program and his study of Learned Helplessness, Seligman brings in the theory of Erickson s stages of development and Aaron Beck s Cognitive Therapy into a well-formulated program. A new emphasis in Self-Esteem In straining to quickly achieve self-esteem in children, Seligman believes that there has been an emphasis on how the child feels at the expense of what the child does mastery, persistence, overcoming frustration and boredom, and meeting challenge (p.27). This has left children without confirmation in the real world. The possible inconsistency between what the child is told and what is experienced about the self, can lead to confusion and mistrust. Such affirmations of self-worth are empty without concurrent success in the world. The feeling of self-esteem is a by-product of doing well (p.33). It cannot be separated from action. Seligman writes that we have also been misled in believing that feeling good about ourselves can come about through trying to avoid bad feelings. In fact, this avoidance can itself lead to depression. Feeling anger, sadness and anxiety can be useful as indicators to the need for change and as a driving force towards mastery and action. It is necessary to fail, feel bad and to try again repeatedly until success occurs. When we impulsively protect our children from failure, we deprive them of learning mastery skills. Optimistic Thinking Mastery skills involve the way the child thinks, particularly when failed. The child questions Why did I fail? or Why did I succeed? The basis of optimism is in the way that child thinks about causes: The Permanence of bad events, the Pervasiveness of bad events and who and what is at fault, the Personalisation of the events.

2 EXPLANATORY STYLE Optimistic Pessimistic 1. Permanence It takes time to find No-one will ever want a new best friend when to be friends with me at you move to a new this school. school. (temporary) (permanent) 2 2. Pervasiveness I m no good at I m completely hopeless kicking a football. at sports. (specific) (global) I m smart. I m only good at maths. (global) (specific) 3.Personalisation I got grounded because I got grounded because I hit my sister. I m a bad kid. (behaviour) (general) The child who thinks in a pessimistic way tends to use terms like always and never, seeing bad events as permanent. Optimistic thinking involves using sometimes or lately to explain a bad event. When considering the pervasiveness of bad events, pessimistic thinking is global, encompassing many situations, while optimistic thinking is specific. Seligman suggests that there is a need for the child to take realistic responsibility and consider behaviour rather than general self-blame. The pessimistic explanations of failure undermine trying and produce hopelessness while optimistic explanations are the basis of seeing failures as challenges with associated activity and hope. There are many exercises presented for changing the child s explanatory style, developing skills for disputing unrealistic interpretations and for boosting social skills and problem-solving skills. These rules of thumb are given for caregivers: 1. Don t solve every problem for your child. 2. Don t be overly critical of the child s attempts to problem-solve. 3. Model a flexible problem solving strategy yourself. Parents and teachers are given The Five Steps to Problem-Solving: 4. Slow down 5. Perspective taking put yourself in other s shoes. 6. Goal setting. 7. Choosing a path of course of action. Compare pros and cons. 8. If it doesn t work try another plan. Parents, teachers and coaches are enormously influential in modelling social skills, problem-solving skills and imposing their explanatory style on children (p.108). This means that awareness of one s own explanatory style is essential for imparting optimism.

3 B SUMMARY OF THE ELEMENTS OF TEACHING RESILIENCE Self Esteem what is it actually and how is it achieved? Self esteem is: a by-product of doing well a side effect of achievement, not the cause 3 Children need to achieve in order to feel good about themselves, not just be told by adults that they are great. They need to achieve through overcoming problems and proving themselves in all manner of day to day ways. Promote the doing-well side of self-esteem, and the feeling-good side, which cannot be taught directly, will follow. STAGE 1 Identify and accept all feelings Read uncomfortable feelings as signals to take action Uncomfortable feelings should not be avoided. Seligman indicates that painful feelings are necessary for learning optimism and for escaping helplessness. Rather than avoid, deny or minimise strong feelings, emotions can be recognised as valuable messages or signals that require thoughtful consideration and action in order to resolve. Persistence expectation Another reason to identify, tolerate and act on uncomfortable feelings is in order to experience mastery. In order to master a task it is often necessary to fail, feel bad and then try again until there is success. Persistence is required in spite of feelings of failure. A failure is not a catastrophe. It s a building block to success. Normalise the changing nature of our emotional life The normal changing nature of feelings is important to emphasise with young people. Sad times don t last. You can choose to do something abut the way you feel. This setback is temporary I can take this action to try to change the way I am feeling. STAGE 2 teach the skills of reality based optimistic thinking in response to problems. Seligman suggests that there are four basic skills of optimism. Thought catching Evaluating your automatic thoughts Generating more accurate explanations De-catastrophising A. Thought catching the skill of recognising the kind of thoughts that tend to pop into our minds when we fail in some way. B. evaluating these automatic thoughts - acknowledging that the things you say to yourself are not necessarily accurate.

4 The way in which we explain the things we do or the things that happen to us can have a bearing on how we go on to handle the situation. A person s Explanatory Style tells a lot about how resilient they are likely to be, whether they will tend to be more optimistic or more pessimistic. Explanatory Style permanence, pervasiveness, personalisation A pessimistic person believes that setbacks are unchangeable (permanence aspect) and will undermine many areas of his or her life (pervasiveness aspect). Believes that she or he not circumstances, nor chance, nor others is the sole cause of these setbacks (personalisation aspect). 4 Children learn some of their explanatory style whether basically optimistic or basically pessimistic - from parents and teachers not only through the way you explain causes in yourself, but the way you explain causes in them. Review the way you explain causes in your students. Eg: You re careless with your work and you never pay attention in class, no wonder you can t pass a test! Instead - Eg: You did not complete the revision sheet and I noticed you did not contribute much to the discussion group yesterday. These things have contributed to your failing this test today. C.Generating more accurate explanations - when bad things happen and using them to challenge your automatic thoughts. ie: re-framing our automatic thoughts - Teach children how to think accurately about problems which are real and which are not. Then to see that there are many contributing causes to any problem and to take responsibility for what they have contributed without blaming themselves for things that are out of their control. D. Decatastrophizing. Ask yourself 3 questions. Each question helps you de-catastrophise: 1. What is the worst possible thing that could happen? 2. How likely is this? If it were to happen what could you do to improve the situation? 3. What is the best possible thing that could happen? STAGE 3 Skills for dealing with our social world. We can t always change the situation children find themselves in, but we can change how they think about it and how they act by teaching skills of - Perspective taking Tolerating failure Short and long term goal setting Assertiveness and negotiation Resilience vs Risk taking Building resilience skills in young people is an important part of preventing undue risk taking as a response to unresolved emotional pain. Depression, often stemming from unresolved grief and loss, is also a major factor in other teen risk taking behaviour, such as early sexual involvement, abuse of drugs and alcohol.

5 C Resilient Kids Resource - interactive CD-Rom (Prim and Sec) Tapping into your feelings and accepting them is a basic first step towards handling the issues that crop up in life. The initial stage of the Resilient Kids program concentrates on learning to identify feelings and owning and accepting all feelings. Early Steps age eg: Feeling Faces putting names to our feelings and identifying what makes us comfortable and uncomfortable eg: Where do you feel it? Progressing to learning the connection between feelings and body sensations. Where in the body do you feel anxiety, sadness, happines, etc. eg: I m the boss of my feelings The importance of ownership my feelings are my own and I am in charge of them. I am the boss of my feelings. I choose how I react to them. eg: See Saw feelings - a home/school activity The normal changing nature of feelings is important to emphasise with young people. To a child it can seem that down times will last forever. They have not yet developed a perspective that understands down times are part of a whole picture of our changing emotional life. eg: Feelings Change normalise the ups and downs of everyday life through stories.

6 Self awareness is one of the keys to understanding and changing our behavioural patterns, particularly for breaking unhealthy patterns of thinking and acting. By teaching children to be more self aware about their own feelings we are also skilling them to listen for the feelings of others. This is an invaluable aid to good communication especially where there are problems to be solved between people. teachers practising the skill of empathy can assist children to understand their own feelings. On The Move - ages 8-12 eg: I can deal with this Building the skill of de-catastrophising by exploring how different situations may make you feel and how that can be handled. 6 Changing Pace - ages eg: Taking Steps I can learn to listen to my body, listen to my feelings. When I feel unsure, unsafe, uncomfortable, upset, unhappy, etc I know my feelings are telling me to take action about something. Part of that action means seeking support. Activity generates hope. To The Max The skills are the same for all ages. Support Networks Teaching the skill of having and using a trusted support network is important and needs to be revisited across all years of schooling. We need to model for children and teens how we seek support when we need it. Normalise this aspect of problem solving - it is ok to ask for help I can name at least 5 trusted adults in my life that I could talk to about different stuff there is nothing so awful I can t talk to someone about it I can ask a trusted friend to help me find an adult to talk to I can help my friend find an adult to talk to I can use the support of others to help me make my own decision about what to do Change the picture Difficult things will continue to happen. But a child s response to difficulty will be the difference. Emotional pain can and does lead many young people into cycles of risk taking behaviour in an attempt to compensate for unmet needs. Resilience strategies combined with appropriate support can change this picture.

7 Encourage the development of an attitude towards self that says I can manage my world - I am capable of handling disappointment, difficulty and failure I can use these things to build success. I can make plans, review my plans and try out different plans I can take a moment to sort myself out I can learn new ways to react to difficulties I can become more self aware I can tune in to my internal voice I can read my body signals I can read other people s body language I can change the way I react and behave I can let go of things I can t change and I can get help and support along the way. Such an understanding GENERATES HOPE 7 D About Open Doors Counselling and Educational Services Inc Helping them choose well Open Doors is an independent not for profit organisation which has worked in the field of crisis counselling and preventive health education since Open Doors education programs for primary and secondary schools are informed by our client case experience strengthened by wider research developed by an interdisciplinary team of teachers, psychologists and psychotherapists value based used in over half the schools in Australia (Government, Catholic, Independent) and 15 other countries Sex education, life skills, resilience, well being Wonder of Living DVD series - sex education Resilient Kids CD-Roms (Prim, Sec) Working It Out comic - life skills Looking For You DVD - relationships and identity Conversations With Your Child DVD - Parent education Student Wallet Cards - Resilience, 4teenz Open Doors Counselling and Educational Services Inc PO Box 610 Ringwood Vic 3134 Phone Fax info@opendoors.com.au