Building Resilience in Children Through Positive Psychology

1. Building Resilience in Children Through Positive Psychology Dr. Michael J. Lucido Clinical Supervisor North Country CMH Vikki Seger Behavior Consultant Char-Em ISD Child Abuse Council Spring Conference 2014

2. Laughter Yoga with Dr. MadanKataria Children up to preschool age laugh 300xs/day compared to adults who laugh 15xs/day Unfortunately, kids start losing this positive experience by kindergarten and onward. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EGTETc5oFU&list=TLzu8TLmwCe3p_6A35JalAW0RvVGEeYzdp

3. The capacity to deal effectively with stress and pressure, to cope with everyday challenges, to rebound from disappointment, mistakes, trauma, and adversity, to develop clear and realistic goals, to solve problems, to interact comfortably with others and to treat oneself and others with respect and dignity”. Goldstein and Brooks (2005) Resilience:Defined

4. He was born following a complicated birth that nearly killed his mother • Moved around from state to state and city to city without staying in a house for more than a year • Mother had addiction and charges of abuse/neglect • Was bullied and was a minority in his community • Beat up so badly that he suffered a head injury • Father never spoke to him despite sending letters • Truant and had poor grades- dropped out of high school • Got in trouble with the law • Worked odd jobs to help with his mother’s bills • Dealing with prescription drug dependence • Uncle committed suicide and was responsible for helping him to have interest in writing • Writes about killing people, rape, incest, violence, drugs What are thepositives? WHAT IS HIS POTENTIAL? WHO IS THIS?

6. A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds • 90% of sexual abuse are children who know their perpetrator in some way • 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children • 80% of 21 year olds that were abused as children had at least one psychological disorder • 15 times more likely to attempt suicide • 4 times more likely to become an alcoholic • 4 times more likely to develop a sexually transmitted disease • 4 times more likely to inject drugs • 3 times more likely to use antidepressant medication • 3 times more likely to be absent from work • 3 times more likely to experience depression • 3 times more likely to have serious job problems • 2.5 times more likely to smoke • 2 times more likely to develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease • 2 times more likely to have a serious financial problem From Recognizetrauma.org and Childhelp.org Stats on Trauma

7. Amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex are impacted in trauma related stress, and is associated with increased cortisol and norepinephrine • Patients with (PTSD) have smaller hippocampal and anterior cingulate volumes, increased amygdala function, and decreased medial prefrontal/anterior cingulate function. • Increased cortisol and norepinephrine responses to stress. • Animal studies have proven that treatment for PTSD improves neurogenesis particularly with memory and increased hippocampal volume Bremner (2006) Traumatic Stress: Effects in the Brain from the Dialogues of Clinical Neuroscience Neuropsychological implications of Trauma

9. Thereis hope

10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWKhye0vJcQ • Some failures allow us to grow Failures = FutureSuccesses

11. Positive Psychology

12. John Stuart Mill- moral actions create happiness for the most number of people • Thomas Jefferson- Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness • William James- humanism • Optimal human functioning has to consider the subjective experience of an individual • VA and NIMH in 194os- psychology heals diseases • Maslow’s 1954 book Motivation and Personality • Positive psychology with self-actualization • Against disorder and disease model • Seligman- helping to lead productive, fulfilling lives, and identifying and nurturing high talent • Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, first Positive Psychology Summit, and special issue of the American Psychologist • Chris Peterson- Values-in-Action project Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Positive Psychology Network 2004 progress report. Seligman, M.E.P. Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being History of Positive PsychologyMartin Seligmanthought this was a cool picture of Marty 

13. Subjective experiences • contentment and satisfaction (in the past) • flow and happiness (in the present) • hope and optimism (for the future) • Individual level- ‘good life’ and ‘good person’ • capacity for love and vocation • Courage • interpersonal skill • aesthetic sensibility • perseverance • forgiveness • originality • future mindedness • spirituality high talent • wisdom • Group level • Responsibility • Nurturance • Altruism • Civility • Moderation • Tolerance • work ethic Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi (2000) Three Levels of Positive Psychology

14. Pleasant life • Hedonic-past, present, future • Positive emotion (joy, love, contentment, pleasure) • Slow down eating-mindfulness strategy (Seligman, 2002) • State of flow and ‘Engaged Life’ • Consists in a loss of consciousness and time • Flow occurs in strengths and talents • Flow facilitates learning • Pick up an instrument, write a poem, create a story (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Seligman et al., 2009) Engaged Life Meaningful LIfe • meaning is increased through our connections to others, future generations or causes that transcend the self • Meaning consists in knowing highest strengths and using them to belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self (Seligman, 2002)

15. In 2 words or less what do you want most for the children that you work with? • Most parents and educators see the promotion of well-being and character as an important, if not central, aspect of schooling. • Surveys of American parents over the past 30 years indicate that what’s most important is that their children become responsible citizens. • -Cohen (2006)

16. In 2 words or less what do we teach in schools ? What do we look at in therapy?

17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMjmzhF5320 Take a chance

18. PRP is a group intervention-elementary, M.S. • Cognitive-behavioral/social problem-solving • Ellis' Activating Events, Beliefs, Consequences • Learn to detect inaccurate thoughts, evaluate for accuracy, and challenge negative beliefs • Problem solving, coping , assertiveness, negotiation, decision-making, and relaxation • Improve relationships, academics or other activities • Improved strengths related to learning • Improved social skills • Increased students’ reports of enjoyment and engagement in school Gillham& Reivich Resilience Research:The Penn Resiliency Project

19. Reflects on character strengths • Focus on helping students to identify characters strengths in self and others • Learn to use strengths to overcome challenges • Example- wrote narratives about times when they were at their very best • Administer VIA with 96 or 198 questions • Free reports available • Following results, students reread their narratives looking to identify strengths • Nearly every student found at least 2 of their signature strengths in writings http://www.viacharacter.org/www/The-Survey www.authentichappiness.org VIA Signature Test for Children

21. Opposite of genogram looking at negative interactions and pathology • Consider other interviewing family members to develop a ‘family tree’ of strengths • Learning how to use strengths to overcome challenges, and developing a strength that was not among an individual’s top five Family Strengths

22. Think of all the reports written that did not list one positive attribute of a child/adolescent • Although strengths may be included, it often includes a few short and brief strengths • Consider the influence a report has on perceptions of the child with negative/pathological statements only • Ask the parent: • Describe the best things about your child? • What are her/his most highly developed skills? • Give a time when you saw your child overcome a problem and what help her/him? • What does she/he like or enjoy? • What are you proud of in your child’s life? Things to consider when Writing Reports

23. Marcus

24. Hannah

25. Catherine

26. Subjective experiences

28. Using Your Strengths: Take the VIA-IS strengths questionnaire to assess your top 5 strengths, and think of ways to use those strengths more in your daily life. • Three Good Things/Blessings: Each evening, write down three good things that happened and why they happened. • Obituary/Biography:Imagine that you have passed away after living a fruitful and satisfying life. What would you want your obituary to say? Write a 1–2 page essay summarizing what you would like to be remembered for the most. • Gratitude Visit: Think of someone to whom you are very grateful, but who you have never properly thanked. Compose a letter to them describing your gratitude, and read the letter to that person by phone or in person. • Active/Constructive Responding: An active-constructive response is one where you react in a visibly positive and enthusiastic way to good news from someone else. At least once a day, respond actively and constructively to someone you know. • Savoring: Once a day, take the time to enjoy something that you usually hurry through (examples: eating a meal, taking a shower, walking to class). When it’s over, write down what you did, how you did it differently, and how it felt compared to when you rush through it. Positive PsychoTherapy Interventions

29. After Signature Strengths, the next series of lessons for the 10th grade focused on building positive emotion. • Students wrote gratitude letters to parents, learned how to savor good memories, how to overcome negativity bias, and how gratifying kindness • The blessings journal, in which students nightly kept track of what went well (WWW) that day Gratitude letters

30. Take the time to thank someone you know and encourage your clients/students/children to do the same http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0EtPqDwqk Sharing your thoughts to someone you love

31. Mindfulness in schools

32. The present is a gift

33. Do you sense where this is going?

34. Benefits of Mindfulness Activities

35. We instruct the students to write down three good things that happened each day for a week. The three things students list can be relatively small in importance Next Three Process Questions: • Why did this good thing happen? • What does this mean to you? • How can you increase the likelihood of having more of this good thing in the future? Three Good things

36. Not just paper shredding and garbage clean up! • What could Marcus do for volunteerism? • What could Hannah provide to the community? • Think outside the box! Contributing

38. Happy teenagers earn substantially more income 15 years later than less happy teens • Experience more flow at work than home • Externalities such as weather , money or health added marriage religion together account for no more than 15% of satisfaction • Pursuit of meaning and engagement are much more predictive of life satisfaction than the pursuit of pleasure • Growing scientific basis for positive emotion, engagement and meaning provide more life satisfaction, promote learning, creative learning and well being should be taught Research Outcomes

39. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhcZRFcjbhw • Brave, perseverancethrough the support of the community Fenway Faithful Helps out Person with Autism

40. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x_Fl3NQVd4#aid=P8qVQVmqSbg You never know what they will become

41. From all the children you work with- Thank you for being there for me!