You Can Do It Education

As part of their ongoing professional development, on Tuesday, all Prep-Year 5 staff undertook an inservice in You Can Do It Education. Each week classes are timetabled to complete lessons covering the foundations of Getting Along, Confidence, Persistence, Organisation and Resilience. One of the focus topics discussed was the importance of developing Emotional Resilience in Children.

DEVELOPING EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE in CHILDREN

Emotional resilience is essential to help deal with the daily confrontations with difficult people, making wrong choices, getting bad results, encountering negative situations that are beyond our control and struggling with day to day things that are boring, difficult or what we consider a waste-of-time.

As adults we generally face such difficulties with varying levels of resilience. Teaching children the skills to support the development of resilience is an important facet of growth and development.  As I have mentioned previously in this newsletter it is not a negative event that causes us to feel down or worried but rather how we think about the event. Negative Habits of Mind greatly fuel emotional discomfort. These negative habits of mind include self-downing, the need to be perfect, the need for approval, the I can’t do it or I can’t be bothered mindset and being intolerant of others. Eliminating these negative mindsets can be challenging. Over the next few weeks I would like to share some strategies from the You Can Do It Program which may help eliminate or balance these negative mindsets.

To Eliminate ‘Self-Downing’

Explain to children that they are made up of many characteristics – some good, some not so good.  Have children come up with five good things about their skills, talents, and personality and five things that could be improved on.  You can help children if they get stuck.  Then, you should explain that because they possess good qualities, it never makes sense to think “I’m hopeless” or “I’m a loser” when something bad happens.  Instead, encourage them to think, “When a bad thing happens, I do not lose my good points.  I am still me – capable and likeable”.

Other suggestions for eliminating the tendency of self-downing when something bad happens:

• Try to see your child in a positive way.
• Show interest and excitement about non-curricular areas of his/her skills, interests and personal strengths.
• Expose your child to a variety of extra-curricular activities where they are likely to be successful.
• Keep a record with your child of all of their positive characteristics.
• Acknowledge your child when they do not appear to be getting overly down when something adverse happens.
• Model by thinking out loud how you do not put yourself down and are self-accepting when something bad happens (e.g. “I wasn’t elected to be on the committee.  While this is disappointing, I will not put myself down by thinking ‘I’m hopeless’.  After all, I’m still me – a capable and likeable person”). 

Being emotionally resilient helps us to “tough it out” and stay on top of a situation emotionally, rather than letting it take control of us.

Mr David Druery, Head of Staff and Students P-5