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”
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PEMA CHODRON
 “Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s
staying down that’s wrong”
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- 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”
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MICHAEL JORDAN
 “Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal
with them”
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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
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e.g. losing a loved one, extreme disaster, etc.
 Manageable :
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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
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Creative outlet
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Music
Reading
Writing
Poetry
Artwork
Problem solving
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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
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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
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“I can do this..”
How do you foster resilience in young people as....
 Teachers
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Messages about achievements – praising effort
Scaffolding to students level
Recognising achievement – verbal acknowledgement
 School support systems
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e.g. deans, teachers, guidance counsellors, learning support, etc.
 Parents
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Scaffolding – graded praise for increasingly more difficult challenges over
time. Starting small and praising big.
Developing insight
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“see what YOU did there?” 
Go through what fosters resilience and what saps resilience
 Friends
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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
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Counselling services
Youth services (e.g. Free or subsidised medical check ups)
Evolve
 Vibe
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 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.