2.2 Develop children's resilience, starting with psychological flexibility

Hello parents and friends!

Welcome to the "Good Parents of China" series of courses.

The topic we are studying in this issue is "Resilience", and today we begin to study the second lecture, which is "Improving Children's Resilience, Starting with Improving Psychological Flexibility".

First of all, let me talk about the concept of psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is most mentioned in a type of psychotherapy called "acceptance commitment therapy." The "acceptance of commitment therapy" is a clinical practice that has proven to be very effective and empirical in recent years. It is so useful, then, that it is inseparable from its core philosophical philosophy, which is to perceive, accept and change.

Next, I will talk to you in detail about how to cultivate and improve children's resilience by improving their psychological flexibility.

The first step is to teach the child to be aware of the problem and, above all, to be aware of the emotions behind the problem.

When doing psychological counseling, I found that many parents and children will ignore the problem that there is no way to express their feelings. Even many people have no way to understand "what is called, what are you feeling at the moment". If I ask now: How are you feeling at the moment? What will your answer be? The answer I often hear is," "My feeling is, I'm a useless person, I'm not as good as my classmates," or, "I feel like I can't do it." Then I want to say, it's not a feeling, it's your comment or judgment on yourself.

So, through this question, it is worth thinking about why it is so important to tell the feelings, and how to guide the child to tell the feelings?

Regarding the answers to these questions, I will give you a very simple example, you will understand as soon as you listen to it. Imagine a pot full of boiling hot pot, common sense tells us that when the hot pot is boiling, we should take the lid open instead of covering it, otherwise the water will overflow and splash everywhere. Yes, it feels like boiling water, and if we pretend not to see it and try to cover it with a lid, it becomes all sorts of problems that come back to us, including our children. For example, some children will show that they are unwell, their immunity is weakened, or they become grumpy and tantrums for an inexplicable period of time, and their mood is very poor.

So, how can parents guide their children to express their feelings? It's simple, help your child open the lid!

You can completely follow the process that I will hand over to you next. First "stupid" imitation, and when you are skilled, you can use it more flexibly.

First, ask the child what happened, summarize and repeat the ta's words.

For example, when my client tells me about my teacher, I feel useless, inferior to others. I'll ask him, I'm curious, what happened to you? At this time, the TA said that he had worked very hard to prepare for a class demonstration, but he was still "despised" by the classmates in the same group and said that he pulled the group's hind legs. I listened carefully to the summary and repeated: you are saying that you have worked hard to prepare, but the results are still not ideal, so you feel that you are useless. Is it?

However, I will interject here, as mentioned earlier, the feeling that my students are talking about here is not a real feeling, but a comment, or a judgment of oneself, not on the emotional level, and then we will talk about what is the real feeling. Okay, let's come back. I just repeated the student's words, what is the significance? That's about sending a message: I'm listening, and I'm hearing what you're trying to say. And at the end ask ta "yes", the meaning behind it is, I mean what you want the table to mean? At this time, if you talk to your child like this, he must feel: "Oh, it turns out that dad or mom really understands what I'm going to say." This trick of "repeating and summarizing" is particularly useful, because it will definitely make the other party tell more stories and details.

So, in this way, we can understand the story of what happened by simply asking, summarizing, and repeating this trick.

Next, it's time to ask about feelings, and what you need to do is ask your child what your feelings are?

But, as I said earlier, when I ask my students how they feel, I find that many people mistake the comment for a feeling, the comment is mental, it is not the boiling pot of hot pot water, but more like saying, "Oh, the hot pot boiled, covered with a lid and let it overflow, but it was a bad decision." It is useless except to make the child more sad. At this time, I will say, what you just said is not feeling, what is the feeling? Feelings refer only to the emotions that you produce most intuitively, which may be good or bad, but must be direct emotions that do not go through the brain' thinking.

But this explanation only applies to children above junior high school. What if it's a child? Or what about "older kids" who aren't used to expressing emotions? At this time, we can use the "demonstration" method to help children express their feelings in words. You can say: Baby, do you feel sad? Or, do you feel particularly angry and want to lose your temper? Regarding the vocabulary of feelings, I will list them in today's "Deliberate Practice" section. In this way, the child may say, "Yes, Mom, I feel so angry." Or if you are wrong, you can also allow the child to correct you: "Mom, I don't feel angry, I'm just a little sad." In short, when parents are familiar with these sensory words, you can help the child express the emotion accurately, that is, open the lid, because the water vapor must have an outlet.

Okay, having said the first step of awareness, let's learn the second step: accept the problem and live with the problem.

What does this mean? What about when we open the lid and become aware and release our emotions? The fire under the hot pot is still on, the water is still boiling, and the problem is still there. Naturally, many of us will choose to turn the flames down. This is the same as the way most of us face problems, most people must solve the problem completely, but there are some problems in this world that can be solved, and the more you want to solve some problems, the bigger it becomes and the more it affects your life. Moreover, life will always be accompanied by inexhaustible problems. I believe that parents and friends will look back on the road they have traveled in their lives and will definitely have feelings about this sentence. Therefore, it is very important to accept problems and live with problems.

It reminds me of my obsessive-compulsive client whose compulsion is a compulsive perfection mindset. What does that mean? She asks herself to be efficient and focused when studying, otherwise even if she is a little distracted, she will be very anxious, and even her heart will collapse uncontrollably crying. Isn't this just a confrontation and a struggle with yourself! This kind of self-confrontation makes her almost unable to live and study normally, because it seems to be a dead knot, and once she is anxious, she has no way to focus, and if she does not have to concentrate, she will be more anxious.

After a long consultation, the last time in our consultation. I asked him to summarize the significance of psychological counseling for him, and the student said a very profound sentence, he said: Teacher, I think my biggest gain is to understand that I don't necessarily have to be anxious, I can live with problems. Now, when I can work anxiously, I find that I am not so anxious. Teacher, this is amazing.

So, parents, we need to know that most of the time the problems brought about by growth do not need to be solved, what we really need to do is to help children understand themselves, accept problems, and live with problems. Living with questions is not to let everyone passively be controlled by the problem, but to let the child know that although the problem may seem to have no answer, he can still live his own life when the child is in trouble.

The above is today's content, a brief summary:

Today we talked about improving the resilience of children, we must start from improving the psychological flexibility of children.

The first step requires us to discover and perceive emotions, and the technique of discovering and perceiving emotions is to ask the child what happened, and then encourage the child to tell more stories and details by repeating the summary method. Next, let the child understand his emotions by explaining or demonstrating emotions to the child.

The second step is to improve psychological flexibility, but also to let children know how to accept problems and understand the meaning of living with problems. The problem does not have to be solved to continue living, but to let the child focus more on the life he wants, because only by not confrontation and allowing the problem to exist, it will become weaker and weaker in the child's life.

In the next lecture, I will share the content of "the core of cultivating resilience is to improve psychological tolerance", thank you for listening, we will see you next!

Growth Mind Map

How to cultivate children's psychological flexibility?

How to perceive emotions?

How to guide your child to speak out about his feelings?

Knowledge chart card

Degree of psychological flexibility: Psychological flexibility is the ability to perceive and accept all the things experienced by an individual, the memories, thoughts, emotions, and feelings themselves, and to stick to or change actions in the direction of their own values. Individuals do not spend their energy on avoiding negative memories, emotions, or feelings such as pain. Psychological flexibility is the core content and ultimate goal of acceptance commitment therapy.

Practice deliberately

The following words can be used to express how we feel when our needs are met:

excited

joy

glad

sweet

Full of prunes

elation

grateful

move

optimism

assertive

perk

rouse

happy

glad

Happy

pleasant

happiness

intoxicated

satisfy

gratified

Refreshing

be overjoyed

Calm and relaxed

Comfortable and relaxing

Safe and secure

Warm

feel relieved

carefree

The following words can be used to express how we feel when our needs are not met:

afraid

worry

anxiety

apprehension

worry

nervous

Uneasy

Upset

sad

depressed

discouraged

discouraged

Discouraged

despair

Sad

dreariness

sadness

wrath

exasperation

vexation

distress

angry

bored

dissatisfied

unhappy

impatient

unhappy

astound

disappointed

confused

dazed

lonesome

lonely

Depressed

saddened

gloomy

silent

numbness

exhaustion

Malaise

Tired

drowsy

listless

embarrassed

ashamed

guilt

jealousy

regretful

malaise

Resource recommendations

Book: Embracing Commitment Therapy

Movie: "Call Me Number One"

China Good Parents Public Welfare Growth Plan was officially launched

1.6 Understanding the Emotions of Others | Cultivate empathy in your child

1.7 Interpersonal Management | Develop children's interpersonal skills

1.8 Interpersonal Management | Teach children to deal with interpersonal conflicts

2.1 Why is "resilience" so important?