The Confident Minds Curriculum

Creating a Culture of Personal Growth and Social Awareness

Madhavi Nawana Parker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367361310
• eBook ISBN: 9781000699708
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Confident Minds Curriculum provides a simple and practical approach to culture change in schools, health care settings and organisations working with young people. Refraining from focusing solely on young people's growth, the curriculum provides logical and practical support to the people and systems in their environment to enable and maximise growth for positive and connected communities.

Crucial mindsets for healthy relationships, empathy, compassion, problem-solving, emotional intelligence and well-being are broken down into bite-size, teachable chunks. All blend together exquisitely to help people look at themselves and others with confidence, gratitude and compassion.

Easily applied to individuals, targeted groups and whole classes to meet the social emotional learning (SEL) or well-being curriculum, this book provides a guiding light for young people and their supporters to develop what is necessary for socially and emotionally intelligent environments.

Aimed primarily at the middle years (8–14), it is easily adaptable for younger and older students. Through role plays, discussions, journaling and practical activities each new mindset is divided into several lessons that teach individual learning components of new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.

The Confident Minds Curriculum will appeal to teachers, educators and health professionals searching for a whole school or organisational approach to social emotional learning, well-being, compassion and personal growth. It is also an essential resource for homes where parents and carers can help further develop life skills that build character and optimism so their family can approach life with greater confidence.

Introduction

A broad range of personalities co-exist in homes, schools and workplaces every day. Without balanced thinking skills for understanding and accepting different values, personalities and temperaments, things can easily fall apart. As social connection is a primary indicator of happiness, teaching young people how to have healthy relationships with others is crucial. Harvard Study of Adult Development (1937–present)

Social-emotional learning programs like the Confident Minds Curriculum teach young people helpful ways to see themselves and others, so they learn to get along respectfully, even when they don't see eye to eye. Even the most reserved person is wired deeply for connection and belonging. How much they need to be with others is undoubtedly on a spectrum, but no one flourishes well without belonging to a social group.

Maintaining healthy relationships throughout your life rates highest on global happiness, well-being, overall health and resilience indicators. Children and adults deeply connected to a broad range of people are more likely to be self-confident, happy, emotionally balanced and well behaved. People who don't enjoy the sense of belonging that healthy relationships bring are at higher risk of addiction, unhappiness and poor physical and mental health. Harvard Study of Adult Development (1937–present)

Your thinking style or mindset is an integral part of how your relationships with others will play out. Behind everything you feel, say and do, there is a leading thought process. Being trained to use hopeful thoughts about yourself and others helps build self-confidence and confidence in others, leaving you with a better chance at healthy relationships. A hopeless mindset produces unrealistic expectations and is more likely to end up in conflict and isolation. Research has proven that people can be trained to be happier and more optimistic, so they can focus on healthy relationships instead of attaching happiness to success or belongings, which doesn't provide long-lasting optimism. Achor (2018)

Young people with healthy, rational optimism are less fixated on judging differences and more focused on seeing another person's strengths and finding ways to connect with them. A person with a negative or hopeless mindset, on the other hand, might see a newcomer as a threat to their position in a group, or because of a natural tendency to find fault in others, struggle to build friendships unless the other person is entirely agreeable with their values, beliefs and attitudes.

Viewing others with an open mind, creates opportunities to make friends with a broad group of people. Optimistic people are more socially accepted and more willing to allow others into their social networks. Brissette, Scheier and Carver (2002) This is not blind optimism, it is about understanding and accepting personal differences as a normal variation between people. Someone willing to look for the best in others becomes very good at replacing fault finding with strengths seeking. They are still able to differentiate between unhealthy relationships and healthy relationships, but do not see differences as a threat or reason to cut off a friendship.

This chapter looks at simple ways to teach students a healthy relationship mindset. It explores how to find the best in others and ideas to interact that are friendly and balanced. Practical ways to accept, embrace and grow from personal differences are taught explicitly, along with the underpinnings of friendship.

Lesson 1.1

Character and intention

New confident mindset concept: Healthy friendships focus on character and intention instead of wealth, status and popularity

Focusing on who people are rather than what they are opens up more significant opportunities for authentic and reciprocal friendships. In early childhood, forming a self-identity is an integral part of becoming who you are. Most young people go through this during their teens and early adulthood. Finding yourself and your place in the world is a natural part of maturing. By focusing on character and intention, you're less likely to value yourself and others based on outward achievements and status. A more open, understanding and authentic self-concept and view of others naturally follow. Connecting through character and intention builds a positive and healthy foundation for robust relationships, contributing to overall optimism and resilience.

Mind map and brainstorm to explore character and intention

Begin with a brainstorm, asking your students the following questions:

• What do you most like in a person's character?
• What do you like people to notice about your character? Do you show appreciation for people with these character strengths?
• What do you find most frustrating about other people (habits, comments they tend to make, personality styles, behaviours and attitudes)?
• Is there anything about you other people might not understand and find frustrating?
• Is there anything you personally do that you find frustrating in others?

Some students, especially those who are less self-confident, might struggle with the openness and self-awareness this activity calls upon. For others, this will be a new concept altogether, and they may need time to process it before they are ready to contribute. Just go with the flow, without pressure, and see what comes of it. If you're willing, hold yourself accountable too and share anything relevant to the discussion.

Once the brainstorm is complete, you can start the mind map. For the first mind map, write ‘Character’ in the centre of the page. See what your students understand about what character means and its role in friendships. If time permits, start a second mind map with ‘Intentions’ written in the centre of the page and see if your students can differentiate between clumsy social behaviour resulting from impulsivity or limited social skills sabotaging good intentions or related to unhealthy plans and intentional cruelty.

Case study: Helping Alessi understand and appreciate others for their character and intention

Alessi was one of the kindest students I had ever met. In all the years I'd seen him, he never had hurtful intentions towards others. Alessi would do anything to help friends and family at the drop of a hat. The only problem with Alessi was he had a massive superiority complex. You might be thinking this probably means he had an inferiority complex—after all, many who show this kind of arrogance are deeply insecure underneath all the fanfare.

Not Alessi. Alessi found anyone with a different point of view or a different level of understanding to him infuriating. He struggled to talk to people he didn't consider intelligent or as capable as himself.

Alessi had always struggled to see things from other people's perspectives. His empathy was low. Not in a cruel way—just in the way that other people's thoughts and feelings didn't exist in his trajectory. When other children spoke to him, he'd either ignore them completely, roll his eyes, grunt, sigh, yawn, or on one of his less relaxed days he'd tell them how ridiculous their thinking was.

Needless to say, Alessi had no friends, despite his kind heart, gentle soul and strong desire to be a good friend. He was often lonely. He had no idea what his strengths were other than ‘I'm smarter than most people my age,’ and ‘I know more about things than most people.’ He didn't know how to calm down or to be kind to himself when he was struggling or had made a mistake. He wasn't very active and ate very little.

Alessi begged me to help him make friends but had no insight about how his behaviour might have an impact on his chance at doing this.

Solution

With permission, we filmed him at playtime. Alessi, not convinced he ever spoke or behaved out of turn, sat spellbound watching himself in the yard. Even Alessi could see the atmosphere of intolerance that radiated from his every pore. Interaction after interaction seemed to start peacefully yet end abruptly with Alessi throwing his arms up in the air, rolling his eyes or just walking off midsentence.

Viewing himself objectively was the first step towards helping Alessi develop an understanding of how his words and actions might affect others. He also saw himself as a heavy presence for the first time, wandering from person to person carrying unintentional judgment and objection. This approach was not an exercise in shaming. I made it clear to Alessi that everyone is learning and that he is not the only child who struggles to handle their feelings calmly when frustrated by other people's views. I emphasised the importance of forgiving himself for his mistakes and being kind and considerate towards himself during this challenge.

From here, I was able to help Alessi see we're all connected not only through our similarities but also through our differences. I taught him that underneath our differences we share the same needs. Everyone wants to feel safe, supported, liked and loved. Many people see their way of thinking as the best way of thinking, and most people have the best of intentions. We role played positive interactions (which at first he thought were ridiculous, given they had never actually happened), and we brainstormed ways he could use his strengths to connect with others.

Alessi agreed to engage in a kindness and compassion challenge where he would set out to understand, accept and be kind to others, even if they drove him mad with their ‘inferior’ thinking. He would listen without putting what they said into a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ category, and he'd remind himself to keep his lips closed while they spoke. Slow, deep breathing was essential to keep him focused on his goal and calm enough to achieve it.

At first progress was slow, but after a few weeks the challenge became second nature. The positive attention Alessi was enjoying for the first time in his life made all the effort to accept differences much more comfortable.

While Alessi remains alone in his thoughts and perspectives more often than not, he is no longer alone. He has a small group of friends he can rely on at school and on the weekends. His parents and teachers are relieved, and he's now considered at much lower risk for anxiety and depression in his teenage years.

Character and intention role plays

• Amara struggled with jealousy. She couldn't stand it when other people got more attention than she. Other people's happiness bothered her too. Show what this looks like as Amara is greeted by a peer who tells her he has just made the state basketball team and is off to travel interstate.
• Ella loved her best friend, Ana, who kindly understood Ella's social clumsiness, bad timing and poor taste in social comments. Show an interaction between the two of them, where Ella has just told her new teacher she looks pregnant. Ella is missing the point as the teacher tries to explain that she is not pregnant, but Ella is just not listening. Show how Ana responds respectfully and sorts things out without making a big deal.
• Asha pretty much owned everything. She had an expensive laptop, the latest phone, a new puppy, a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Healthy relationships
• Chapter 2: Compassion
• Chapter 3: Taming your inner critic
• Chapter 4: Using emotional intelligence to disagree gracefully
• Chapter 5: Optimism: How to pay attention to what's going well
• Chapter 6: Problem solving and decision making: Building capability and independence through a sense of agency and self-efficacy
• Chapter 7: Managing challenging feelings constructively and responsibly
• Chapter 8: Well-being to uphold a confident mindset
• Index