Coping with life changes: How to build resilience to face new challenges

1. 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

7. What do these people have in common?

8. Resilience: Coping through change • Resilience is being able to cope with stress, challenges and catastrophe, and being able to bounce back after difficult times.

9. 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” • PemaChodron • “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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Using stress management techniques • Know what works for you • Talking to someone • Exercise • Relaxing • Music • Reading • Creative outlet • 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

13. Setting goals • Short-, medium- and long-term • Set SMART goals e.g. To get fit to run 10km • Specific - be able to run 10km by end of April • Measurable - have a measureable target • Achievable - fit and healthy, so yes if train • Realistic - Others have done it • Time-frame - end of the month

14. Time management • Diary keeping • Setting a schedule to meet your goals • Giving yourself rewards for meeting short-, medium-, and long-term goals

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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..?

18. 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..”

19. 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

20. What not to do • Unhelpful ideologies: • Pull your socks up? • Get over it?

21. Adolescent resilience model • Illness related risk • Uncertainty in Illness • Disease and Symptom related distress Outcome: 10. Resilience Individual Risk 7. Defensive Coping • Family Protective • Family Atmosphere • Family Support Resources Outcome: 11. Quality of Life Individual Protective 8. Positive Coping • Social Protective • Social Integration • Health Care Resources Individual Protective: 9. Derived Meaning Haase, 2004; Hinds & Haase, 2003

22. Concepts in the Adolescent Resilience Model Haase, 2004

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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.