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Friday 4 June 2010
Tuesday 1 June 2010
How to Deal With Frustrations and Stay Positive
Those of you who have raised children through teenage years will know how difficult it gets when a child suddenly starts thinking that she's no good and the entire world is arraigned against her. My 13-year old decided to go this way earlier this year. No amount of parental counselling, encouragement, coaxing and cajoling changed that. 'I can't do maths, I' am dumb, I hate PE......' The list was endless.
We decided to give up trying hard. No point in reminding her that only in the last term she was doing excellent in school and had so many friends!
When 'being unhappy' becomes a habit, reason doesn't work. I asked her to spend ten minutes with me one evening, on the assurance that I won't talk about her school or studies or her life. She did it - she found it funny as it appeared that two grown ups (she considers herself one) were doing silly things. This is what I asked her to do with me (this is a technique I picked up years ago during my NLP training!):
Start by rolling your eyes in a wide circle while keeping your head straight. First clockwise for two minutes, then counter-clockwise for another two minutes. Then follow up with moving your eyes in a horizontal figure eight pattern. As you do that make sure your eyes move up through the centre of the figure and down the sides. Go in one direction for two minutes, then in the other direction for two minutes. Make sure you keep your head straight and move only your eyes. We made her do it 2-3 times in a day whenever we spotted her about to go into her favourite state.
She must have found something amusing about this exercise because although she started doing it with some reluctance, after 2-3 days we could spot her sitting in her room and rolling her eyes all around. Before the end of the week, she began talking about her achievements in school, and her plans to excel in all the areas which she was 'hopeless' six days ago!
Explanation: For those of you who are curious as to how this seemingly 'silly' thing works, here is the simple theory behind this exercise. We all know that your state of mind (happy, sad, depressed, excited, etc) affects your posture (physiology - outward bodily manifestation that people see). When you are sad, you are looking down, or your shoulders drooping etc. Try looking up and stay that way when you are depressed! You get the point - it is also our physiology that influences the state of mind. If we can change one, we can change the other. Simple? Try it, and you'll see the difference!
We decided to give up trying hard. No point in reminding her that only in the last term she was doing excellent in school and had so many friends!
When 'being unhappy' becomes a habit, reason doesn't work. I asked her to spend ten minutes with me one evening, on the assurance that I won't talk about her school or studies or her life. She did it - she found it funny as it appeared that two grown ups (she considers herself one) were doing silly things. This is what I asked her to do with me (this is a technique I picked up years ago during my NLP training!):
Start by rolling your eyes in a wide circle while keeping your head straight. First clockwise for two minutes, then counter-clockwise for another two minutes. Then follow up with moving your eyes in a horizontal figure eight pattern. As you do that make sure your eyes move up through the centre of the figure and down the sides. Go in one direction for two minutes, then in the other direction for two minutes. Make sure you keep your head straight and move only your eyes. We made her do it 2-3 times in a day whenever we spotted her about to go into her favourite state.
She must have found something amusing about this exercise because although she started doing it with some reluctance, after 2-3 days we could spot her sitting in her room and rolling her eyes all around. Before the end of the week, she began talking about her achievements in school, and her plans to excel in all the areas which she was 'hopeless' six days ago!
Explanation: For those of you who are curious as to how this seemingly 'silly' thing works, here is the simple theory behind this exercise. We all know that your state of mind (happy, sad, depressed, excited, etc) affects your posture (physiology - outward bodily manifestation that people see). When you are sad, you are looking down, or your shoulders drooping etc. Try looking up and stay that way when you are depressed! You get the point - it is also our physiology that influences the state of mind. If we can change one, we can change the other. Simple? Try it, and you'll see the difference!
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