The Resilience and Wellbeing Toolbox

A guide for educators and health professionals

Madhavi Nawana Parker, Madhavi Nawana Parker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138921153
  9781138921153
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317393955
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Resilience and Wellbeing Toolbox is an inspiring book and a beacon for social emotional change in schools. Within these pages teachers and other professionals will find fantastic resources that they can easily implement in the classroom. By following this programme, teachers will see their students developing skills in persistence, problem solving and emotional regulation as well as independence, empathy, kindness, contribution and good will, whilst planting the essential seeds of resilience and wellbeing. Helpful suggestions offered in each chapter on how to bring wellbeing and resilience into the home can be shared with parents and families.

The lively and engaging resources in this book include:

• Practical, photocopiable guide sheets and worksheets, also available as eResources

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• Adaptable role plays and activities

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• Solid research-based strategies

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• A flexible framework that can be creatively implemented in the classroom

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This is a must-have handbook for anyone seeking to provide young people in their care with a strong foundation for better social, emotional and learning outcomes.

Resources can be downloaded at https://www.routledge.com/The-Resilience-and-Wellbeing-Toolbox-A-guide-for-educators-and-health/Nawana-Parker/p/book/9781138921177

1 Gratitude, perspective and optimism

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Epicurus

Introduction for teachers and health professionals

Being grateful for what you have, keeping things in perspective and looking on the bright side, seem easier said than done. When you’re experiencing stress or new challenges, thoughts and feelings have a tendency to run away from you. Feeling gratitude, keeping things in perspective and remaining optimistic can be harder to do during difficult times.

The good news is, when a person is able to continue a gratitude practice despite any challenges they are experiencing, their wellbeing and resilience rise. Gratitude helps them focus on the warmth of positive relationships, the beauty of nature, luck, good will and everything else around them that is going well. When gratitude focuses on three things that went well each for a period of 21 days, wellbeing, empathy and happiness increase. Anxiety and stress reduce too (Emmons and McCullough, 2003; Seligman, 2011). Focusing on what you are thankful for also allows you to experience positive situations again in reflection, almost as if you were experiencing them all over again (Rubin, 2011).

Different perspectives: optimists and pessimists

Seligman (2007) suggests the difference between optimists and pessimists is about how setbacks and victories are interpreted. Optimists see setbacks as temporary, changeable and related to the present circumstances. Pessimists see setbacks as permanent, fixed, and globalise the setback to all aspects of their lives. Victories are viewed by optimists as long-term and seen as a reflection of how well their lives are going. Pessimists see victories as temporary, occurring because of luck and something unlikely to be repeated (Seligman, 2007).

Normalising challenges and setbacks is a good beginning point for helping young people develop a more realistic view of life and learning. Teaching young people that a variety of factors steer the course of your plans from one day to the next helps them develop perspective about why things don’t always go according to plan. Relationships, friendships, health, work, sport, play and school deeply interconnect our lives and experiences with the lives and experiences of everyone around us. It would not be possible for things to go smoothly all the time with so much at play.

Add natural temperament, personality and environmental differences, and some people just find it easier to feel grateful and look on the bright side than others. Developing skills in gratitude, perspective and optimism in those who have a less sunny temperament is a process enhanced with time and practice. With practice, the brain’s neuroplasticity allows stronger connections to develop in the areas of gratitude, good perspective and optimism, weakening old connections for negative perspective and pessimism.

This chapter looks at ways to develop a regular practice in gratitude, keep things in perspective and focus the mind on positive experiences.

Explanation for all students

Gratitude is about noticing and being thankful for what is going well and what you do have. People have a natural tendency to focus on what is wrong and what they don’t have. Paying too much attention to what is not going well even has a name! It’s called the ‘Negative Bias’ (Rozin et al., 2001; Baumeister et al., 2001).

In one study, researchers showed their subjects happy and positive photos along with some unhappy negative photos. Their brain’s electrical activity was recorded the whole time and it could be seen that it reacted much more to negative images and for longer than it did for positive ones (Cacioppo et al., 2007).

By spending focused time every day noticing what is going well you can create pathways in your brain to notice what is going right! Gratitude can also help keep things in perspective and see that tough times don’t last forever.

Optimism is a way of looking at your life by focusing on what is going well. Optimists also see any challenges as a chance to learn something new and they practise looking for solutions instead of staying stuck in the problem. Optimism in this chapter will be called ‘helpful thinking’ and ‘the high side’. Pessimism in this chapter will be called ‘unhelpful thinking’ and ‘the low side’.

Additional information for older students

You might have heard the sayings, ‘look on the bright side’ and ‘every cloud has a silver lining’. People often say this kind of thing when someone is upset. What they’re asking you to do is to be grateful for what you do have and to be optimistic that things will work out. Pessimists (the opposite of optimists) notice what is going wrong and are quick to find fault in others or blame others for what is not working out for them.

Someone with gratitude:

Maren Johnson: Global Soap Project’s Youth Ambassador

When Maren Johnson was just 15 and heard that over 4 million people die each year from intestinal diseases caused by not having clean water and hygiene products like soap and clean water, she felt so much gratitude for what she had and decided to do something about those who did not have the same luxuries. She discovered the Global Soap Project, partnered with it and since then has collected thousands of pounds of recycled soap through her work. She has over 200 volunteers working under her personal guidance as their Youth Ambassador. She remained optimistic when many hotels were unsure about how they could save soap bars effectively, so she worked hard to educate them about helpful ways to do this. She explained the plight of families all over the world so the hotel owners were able to keep in perspective what their extra effort would mean for these families. Over 1,000 hotels across North America now work closely with the Global Soap Project, recycling around 30,000 bars of soap every week – bars of soap that would otherwise have been thrown out after only one or two uses. Maren has been included in Youth Service America’s list of the 25 Most Powerful and Influential Young People in the World.

BRAINSTORM: The negative bias

What might make a negative bias even worse for some people?

Can you think of a time when your negative bias meant you missed out on doing something you might have really enjoyed?

Can you think of a time you ignored your negative bias and focused on the positive? How did you feel?

Is there a situation you are in that could benefit from more gratitude?

BRAINSTORM: Gratitude

Is anything too small to feel grateful for?

What do you feel grateful for?

How does it feel when someone shows they are grateful to you?

How does it feel to let someone know you are grateful to him or her?

BRAINSTORM: Optimism (helpful thinking)

Is optimism always realistic?

Could optimism ever be unrealistic or even dangerous?

When is optimism useful?

When isn’t optimism useful?

Where does optimism fit into keeping things in perspective?

BRAINSTORM: Perspective

What is perspective?

What might make it...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Gratitude, perspective and optimism
• 2 Knowing your values and sticking to them
• 3 Community and connection: the importance of empathy and belonging in relationships
• 4 Problem solving
• 5 Keeping calm
• 6 Embracing mistakes through curiosity
• 7 Persistence and the value of hard work
• 8 Setting goals
• Recommended reading for young people
• Index