Coping with life changes: How to build resilience to face
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Transcript Coping with life changes: How to build resilience to face
Coping with life changes: How to
build resilience to face new challenges
YOUTH WELLBEING STUDY
SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON
HOSTED BY TAWA COLLEGE, WELLINGTON
What do these people have in common?
Resilience: Coping through change
Resilience is being able to cope with stress, challenges and
catastrophe, and being able to bounce back after difficult times.
What is resilience continued....
“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to
annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found”
•
PEMA CHODRON
“Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s
staying down that’s wrong”
•
- MUHAMMAD ALI
“I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost
almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take
the game winning shot...and I missed. I have failed over and over
and over again in my life. And that’s precisely why I succeed”
•
MICHAEL JORDAN
“Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal
with them”
•
H. JACKSON BROWN
How to foster your resilience
Make connections
Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems
Accept that change is part of living
Move toward your goals
Take decisive actions
Look for opportunities for self discovery
Nurture a positive view of yourself
Keep things in perspective
Maintain a helpful outlook
Take care of yourself
Stress management
Not manageable
e.g. losing a loved one, extreme disaster, etc.
Manageable :
e.g.
Moving house, health problems
Ongoing relationship conflict
Exams etc.
How do you know when you have reached your limit?
Mood changes
Poor sleep
Poor eating habits
Negative self-talk
Spending less time doing things you enjoy
Using stress management techniques
Know what works for you
Talking to someone
Exercise
Relaxing
Creative outlet
Music
Reading
Writing
Poetry
Artwork
Problem solving
Identify the problem
Brainstorm solutions
Rank solutions based on anticipated outcome
Follow through with solution
Evaluate outcome
Did it work? If not => back to brainstorm
Setting goals
Short-, medium- and long-term
Set SMART goals
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-frame
e.g. To get fit to run 10km
- be able to run 10km by end of April
- have a measureable target
- fit and healthy, so yes if train
- Others have done it
- end of the month
Time management
Diary keeping
Setting a schedule to meet your goals
Giving yourself rewards for meeting short-, medium-
, and long-term goals
Optimism
When times are hard, do you see
the glass as half empty, or half full?
Practicing optimism/modelling for youth
Notice the good in things + acknowledge them
Learning from hard times
Keep a record of when you are happy about your
progress/achievement in the face of hard times – to
remind yourself that you are capable.
Thankfulness journal
Issues particular to adolescents
Brain still developing
Particularly pre-fontal cortex (personality + impulse control)
Facade of invincibility...
Less experience with long-term consequences...
Not having past experience to draw on..
..to assist with decision making
Identity formation : who am I?
Strength + certainty in knowing your values
Individuation
Developing sexuality
Loss of relationships/forming new ones
Forming strong attachments/relationship
Others..?
Coping mechanisms demonstrate resilience
Fostering different types of coping in teens
Interpersonal coping
Asking for help
Ask for distraction
A problem shared…
Intrapersonal coping
Self-efficacy beliefs/cognitions that foster resilience
“I can do this..”
How do you foster resilience in young people as....
Teachers
Messages about achievements – praising effort
Scaffolding to students level
Recognising achievement – verbal acknowledgement
School support systems
e.g. deans, teachers, guidance counsellors, learning support, etc.
Parents
Scaffolding – graded praise for increasingly more difficult challenges over
time. Starting small and praising big.
Developing insight
“see what YOU did there?”
Go through what fosters resilience and what saps resilience
Friends
Group challenges; Social support
What not to do
Unhelpful ideologies:
Pull your socks up?
Get over it?
Adolescent resilience model
Illness related risk
1. Uncertainty in
Illness
2. Disease and
Symptom
related distress
Individual Risk
7. Defensive Coping
Family Protective
3. Family
Atmosphere
4. Family Support
Resources
Outcome:
10. Resilience
Outcome:
11. Quality of Life
Individual Protective
8. Positive Coping
Social Protective
5. Social
Integration
6. Health Care
Resources
Individual Protective:
9. Derived Meaning
Haase, 2004; Hinds & Haase, 2003
Concepts in the Adolescent Resilience Model
Haase, 2004
Places to go for help
Support networks:
School support systems
Friends
Family
Guidance counsellor
Careers advisor
Counselling services
Youth services (e.g. Free or subsidised medical check ups)
Evolve
Vibe
See the Resource Sheet available at this session
Resources
Books on resilience:
“I’ve had it up to here. From stress to strength” by
Gaynor Parkin and Sarah Boyd, 2008, Consumer NZ
‘Learned Optimism’ by Martin Seligman
‘Man’s search for meaning’ – Viktor E. Frankl
John Maclean – inspirational athlete.
Nick Vujicic – ‘Life without limits’ biography of a
determined man
All Blacks don’t cry: a story of hope
By John Kirwan
Acknowledgements
A BIG Thank you to Tawa College for organising and hosting this education
session. Special thanks to Edmund Salem, Murray Lucas, Ravindra Kalpage
and the PTA and in particular for their facilitation.
Thank you to the HRC for providing the funding for the Youth Wellbeing Study.