Tag Archives: teachers

#MHAW2017

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Preventing Mental Health Issues in Teens

Everyone loves a story and from the minute we get up in the morning we all tell ourselves stories – many stories. Most of them are very short and we may not even be aware we are telling ourselves them. Some are positive – ‘I’m looking forward to the party tonight’. Some are neutral and some are negative – ‘I’m not looking forward to school because I’ve got no friends’. Some are sometimes repeated and stick a bit. Others are repeated on a daily basis and become the landscape we live in and we come to believe as the truth about ourselves or our situation. Listening with care to the stories our children are telling themselves and turning the negative landscapes into positive ones turns lives around.

Now I’m going to let you into a secret that not many people realise.

We all have mental health, each and every one of us.

We all have PMA – Positive Mental Attitude for those who tell themselves positive stories and Poorly Mental Attitude for those who tell themselves negative stories about themselves or their situations.

We can all control our mental health with the stories we tell ourselves – some of us just need more help than others. By helping young people develop some simple skills and strategies they can make the shift to a positive mental attitude.
Using metaphor stories we can help children to see things in a different way. We can embed messages into the stories that will work long after the surface of the story has been heard.

I’ve got a friend who doesn’t have much faith in the weathermen and was fed up always getting wet so now he always carries an umbrella to protect him from the rain. To begin with it was one of those walking stick ones that was awkward to carry, good to lean on but he kept hanging it up, forgetting about it and leaving it behind. Now he carries one of those tiny ones that hardly weighs anything and fits in a pocket so he never leaves it behind anymore.

The story above talks about being prepared for bad weather and changes the size of the umbrella to something more manageable. The rain is the negative behaviour we want to change. The umbrella is the new skill for helping protect against the unhelpful behaviour with the big umbrella showing it can be tricky to get used to the new behaviour and forget about it but over time and changing it to a smaller one it becomes easier to remember and always have it with you.

Did you ever suck your thumb as a child? Or maybe you had a bit of silky ribbon you liked to stroke? Or a cuddly toy you hugged? Maybe you still do! These comforters acted as physical anchors (or stimuli) to help you feel more comfortable or safer or soothed you. To help children overcome their negative thoughts or behaviours we can create anchors for them that they will always have with them to be able to use when they need it. Get the child to think about a time when they were feeling very confident, happy or positive. Talk about the thoughts, emotions and the environment when they felt those positive emotions. Whilst they are thinking about these feelings we need to activate the anchor when they are experiencing the desired emotions.

For children who are auditory it could be a song. The song lyrics are often great metaphors and the tune easily hummed. Dappy’s recent hit single ‘Happy’ is a great one to sing to yourself as the words and melody hit all the right spots to help you reach that happy feeling!

For children who are visual imagining themselves in a place where they feel safe or happy or confident or relaxed with as much detail as possible will give them a place to escape to in their minds when they need to experience positive feelings.

For children who are kinaesthetic a good anchor will be reinforcing a touch on the body somewhere eg putting their thumb and middle finger together or pinching their earlobe whilst thinking about their good feelings.

Put all three of these together and you have a linked anchor.

The process is very simple – think about the state you want, ‘fire the anchor’, when the feeling starts to fade release the anchor, open your eyes, look away, count to 10 and repeat the process to embed the anchor.  By firing the anchor we will activate the positive state of emotions that we want to have anytime we want to have them. By skilfully teaching a child how to do this they can then have the resources to build their own anchors when they need some help getting back to a positive mental attitude.

It might seem crazy what I’m about to say
Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don’t care by the way
Because I’m happy
(Lyrics Pharrell Williams)

We all get fed-up from time to time and helping your child manage their emotions in different situations will help them in their adult life. If you have concerns about the reasons for their sadness, the frequency or the depth of their sadness and would like additional advice and support contact me at soo@nlp4kids.org or on 07851447612.

5 Reasons Kids Find It Hard to Make Friends

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5 Reasons Kids Find It Hard to Make Friends

As the song says ‘I get by with a little help from my friends’. But what happens if you don’t have any friends? Is your child a bit of a loner? Do they never get any birthday invites?

1) They have a fear of rejection so it’s easier not to try to make friends.
It may be that in the past your child has reached out to another child to make friends with them and for whatever reason the other child has not wanted to make friends with your child. It could be that the fear of rejection is totally unfounded – most people experience fear of rejection at some point in their lives.
Talk to your child about their fear of rejection and make sure that you make time for them. All children value quality time with their parents even if they don’t show it!

2) They are very shy and don’t know what to say to open the conversation.
You will know yourself if your child is very shy. If I said, ‘Help them by giving them some conversation starters to use, tell them when and how to use them and then rehearse the opening conversations with them’ that would sound rather dull wouldn’t it?
However, if you make it into a game where you play different characters in different settings then it becomes fun and your child will find it easier to remember! Make it a family game and include their favourite characters from books or TV to make it even more fun.

3) They think they are ‘boring’ and that others are more ‘exciting’ than them.
Everyone else’s life seems more exciting than yours when you are a child. Children compare themselves and their lives to others and often find themselves coming up short. In reality they are not but believe that they are. Help them to see that others are feeling the same way they do about them by finding all the unique things your child has that others don’t.
You can always find something unusual that your child enjoys doing that makes their life seem more exciting to others.

4) They feel like an outsider and think that they don’t fit in.
This happens especially when a child moves and is new to a school or area or when a child has specific needs. When they feel they are on the outside children will look for all of the things that they don’t have in common with others and use those as a barrier (or excuse) to avoid making friends. The truth is that the more they use these as an excuse the more they will be treated like an outsider and the worse it will get. Tackle these issues early on by finding groups or clubs that your child can join where they can build on common interests.

5) They have been bullied in the past and have trust issues.
This can be the toughest one to deal with. If you know your child has been bullied then you have a head start because you can talk to them about it and coach them through any worries they have about being bullied again. You can build their resilience by praising how they overcame the bullies before.
It may be that your child has hidden the fact they’ve been bullied from you. This is harder to deal with but if you are aware of your child’s moods then you will be able to spot changes in moods which may indicate bullying is taking/has taken place.
Start small and focus on a friendship that you know works for your child and boost that friendship as much as you can. You can enlist the help of that friend to help your child to make more friends.

Childhood friendships come and go – some last a lifetime and some only for a short while. Building the skills to make friends as children makes it easier to make friends as an adult. Remind your children that you are also their friend and are there for them.

Yours in friendship
Soo Matthews
NLP4Kids Practitioner West Yorkshire
www.westyorkshirechildtherapy.nlp4kids.org
https://www.facebook.com/nlp4kidswestyorkshire/

Random Acts of Kindness Week

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This week it is #RAKWeek2017 – Random Acts of Kindness Week.

Each day over on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/nlp4kidswestyorkshire and Twitter page I will be posting 5 RAKs for teachers and 3 RAKs for parent/carers.  Here they are for Monday.

Feel free to share them with your friends and family and let me know how they go!

RAKWeek Teachers

#RAKWeek2017 parents/carers RAKs

Transition – Can you grow the tallest beans in Leeds?

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All over Leeds schools have been growing White Lady runner beans.  The school that sends the photo of the tallest beans by July 20th wins £50 book vouchers for their school.

Schools have benefitted from free 90 minute transition workshops and feedback from the pupils and staff has been very positive.

You can read some of the feedback below –

‘She made me feel really happy when we talked about the problems.’ Year 6 pupil

‘She is funny and good at explaining.’ Year 6 pupil

‘I don’t know how she hid the balloon in my pocket. I enjoyed blowing away my worries.’ Year 6 pupil

‘Relaxing and calm manner – straight forward and easy for the children to understand.’ Staff

‘Very funny and interesting.’ Year 10 pupil

‘It was fantastic and I loved it so much.’ Year 10 pupil

I thought it was really useful to learn these techniques.’ Year 10 pupil

 

10 Signs of Bullying and a Short Scottish tale

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harris tweed 1I was born and brought up in Scotland and lived there until I was 13 years old and I am very proud of my Scottish heritage. However, not many people believe I am Scottish because I don’t have a strong Scottish accent. In fact I have a very mixed accent which is predominantly Northern – mainly Yorkshire with just a little hint of Lancashire. And yet when I say the number 4 it sounds like ‘fore’ (very Scottish!) and if I visit Scotland or talk to a person with a Scottish accent for any length of time the Scottish lilt returns.

When I was a headteacher I would use my Scottish accent to good effect to let the children know that I was not best pleased because my ‘strict Scottish’ only came out when I was cross! Truth be told I can put it on at will although it can vary quite a lot these days, after all it has been 40 years since I lived there!

How on earth could I have been so careless as to lose my accent? Well it happened like this. At 13 years of age we moved to Southampton which at the time seemed like the edge of the world to me. It was my first trip on an aeroplane and very exciting. Mind you at that age I couldn’t understand why our budgie couldn’t fly with us in the plane and had to stay behind in Scotland – that’s a whole other story!).

I started at a new school – this one was an all girl school and it was a bit odd not having any boys in it. It took me a while to settle in at the school not least because the other girls could hardly understand what I was saying because of my (then) strong Scottish accent. I had to slow my speech down and repeat myself regularly to make myself understood. It was very weird because I hardly understood what they were saying either! Needless to say communication was very trying for me.

One day not long after I had started at the school we were in PE when I had a falling out with another girl. I can’t remember what it was all about now (something trivial I am sure).   What I do remember was being told that I should go back home to my own country and the girl repeatedly saying ‘Hootsman the noo’ and doing an impression of the highland fling dance. Every time she saw me after that she would mimic my accent and ask me to repeat what I had said because she couldn’t understand me – even if I hadn’t said anything. Before too long about half the class were joining in with the teasing.

I sought refuge in the library as I loved reading and it was a good way to avoid the girls and their teasing. I kept quiet about it to begin with and wish now that I hadn’t. The teasing got worse each day with various insults being thrown my way about how mean I was with money because I was Scottish – in reality we hardly had any money so I was very careful with what I did get. I was left out of a lot of games and was always the last one to be picked in PE. The other girls wouldn’t pass me the ball in netball even if there was no-one marking me. The only thing marking me was my accent and it made me stick out like a sore thumb. I was an easy target for the bullies at the time.

After a few weeks I thought that if I spoke the same as them then maybe they would like me more. I began to listen carefully and mimic the way they spoke so that I didn’t stick out so much. I worked on losing my accent in order to fit in thinking that I would be accepted more. The bullying continued and got worse until one day they circled me in the playground and started to push me from one to the other around the circle. When I finally escaped I fled to the library where the librarian found me crying in a corner. Eventually I explained how much I missed Scotland and my friends there – I didn’t say anything about the girls pushing me around because I didn’t want to be a snitch.

It was getting towards Christmas when I finally told the librarian what was really going on and why I was so unhappy.   She was very kind and explained to me that it was bullying and not allowed in the school. She soon got my head of year involved and we had to have several meetings to sort things out. The other girls had never met anyone Scottish before so I was a bit of a novelty to them. Eventually things eased off and I started to make friends and fit in more with the other girls. Sadly I lost most of my Scottish accent in the process – although now I can mimic lots of different accents easily!

Here are 10 signs to watch out for that may mean your child is being bullied.

  1. She/he is quieter than usual or becomes louder than usual.
  2. She/he becomes secretive about what they are doing.
  3. She/he stays in the house more than they used to.
  4. She/he is subdued when they come home from school.
  5. She/he doesn’t want to go to school at all and won’t tell you why.
  6. Her/his appetite changes – eating more or eating less.
  7. She/he starts wetting the bed again.
  8. She/he is sleeping badly.
  9. She/he has unexplained bruises.
  10. She/he loses possessions or starts to ask for more money.

I scored 7 out of 10 of these ‘symptoms’ of bullying.  I was very lucky that things were sorted out quickly for me once I spoke up. All too often children and young people are scared to speak up and don’t want to tell an adult for fear of getting into trouble themselves or making things worse. As parent/carers and teachers we all need to watch out for signs our children may be being bullied and take action to help them.

  1. Talk to your child in a calm, curious way.
  2. Show your child that you are there to support them.
  3. Rehearse responses with your child so that they have choices about how to react if it happens again.
  4. If the bullying is taking place at school contact the school to arrange a meeting.
  5. Watch out for online bullying on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram etc.
  6. Explain to your child that bullies were often bullied themselves as children.
  7. Talk to the other child’s parents as they may not be aware it is happening.

If you are concerned that your child is being bullied and would like to help them then please get in touch for more information about how some sessions with NLP4Kids West Yorkshire can help boost their confidence.

Email me at soo@NLP4Kids.org or call today on 07851447612

Soo Matthews

www.westyorkshirechildtherapy.nlp4kids.org

 

How I tricked 600 teenagers into thinking I’d travelled the world in a week!

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My best assembly ever! I’ve presented hundreds of school assemblies over the last 30 years and with today being World Book Day I remembered this one.

It was just after a half term holiday. I took a huge rucksack into assembly – 600 eager faces all looking my way and wondering what I’d be on about today! I wanted to wander in amongst the students so I didn’t stand on the stage as I often did. I asked the students if they’d had a good holiday and they chimed a loud ‘Yes’. Mr C my fellow deputy asked me if I’d had a good holiday. I then launched into my assembly about my fabulous holiday and how busy I had been!

 Out of my rucksack I pulled my safari hat, binoculars and camera. I told them of my safari adventures in Africa and how hot it had been! Next I pulled out a bright colourful sari, a sunhat, my sunglasses and suncream. I told them about the wonderful sights and sounds of India. Finally I pulled my ski jacket, warm gloves and ski goggles. Putting them all on I regaled the whole hall with my adventure in the arctic and how cold it was there and the wonderful sights I’d seen. The children were rapt and so were many of the staff. When I started to tell them about the wild chase across the ice on skidoos there were more puzzled faces and the touch of disbelief started to creep in.

At this point another colleague Mr H asked me loudly if I was sure that I had done all those things because he thought he’d seen me in B&Q on the Monday. I told him that must have been my twin sister and carried on looking in my rucksack. Then Mrs W shouted out that she knew I had been in the local café with her on the Thursday so how had I managed to fit all this adventure in. By now the children were very confused and not quite sure who to believe!

I rooted around some more in my rucksack and finally came clean. I pulled out the three books I had read over the holiday period – an African adventure, an escape to India and finally a terrific adventure called Ice Station by Matthew Reilly! I talked about how I had escaped in the pleasure of the books and had been transported to these wonderful places. I bigged up books big time!

At the end of the assembly there was a queue of students waiting to borrow the books and for the rest of the week some students were still not quite sure whether I had been to all those places or not. I told them that in my head I had and how much joy I had from it all!

Happy World Book Day and happy reading to you all.
Soo Matthews
NLP4Kids Practitioner