Dr. Ali Cipra discusses resiliency and how we can help children with coping skills. Explore problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies for children, equipping them with valuable tools to overcome adversity.
No matter what happened today, tomorrow's a fresh start. Right, we can try to change it.
Amy Vujaklija:
Welcome to clipped content from Governor State University's teaching and leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joy. In this pocket sized PD, Dr. Alli Cipra discusses resiliency, and how we can help children with coping skills. So let's get into it.
Alli Cipra:
For resilience, some of the key factors are problem solving capabilities, and emotion centered versus problem centered coping. These are the things that I harp on when I'm in the school systems. When I'm doing professional development for teachers or when I'm working on resilience curriculum or workshops, I always doesn't matter what they asked me for if it's resilience based, it's going to have emotion centered versus problem centered coping, and other problem solving skills. Emotion centered, if there's something that I can't change, it's a problem. It's an issue for me, and I can't change the problem, I have to think about how can I change my response to it, I have to change my emotional response to it, I can't change that mom and dad are getting a divorce. But I can change how I feel about that. And then if I change how I feel about it, I can change how I behave about it. I can't change that I failed my exam. But guess what, I can change how I feel about this. And then I can move on to even problem centered coping with that one. What can I do to not feel it next time? So I always start kids off with what's the issue? Pick one thing that bothers you one thing that's a problem, or that you're worried about? And then we have to find out? Can we fix it? Can we change that problem? Can we change the outcome? If the answer is yes, we're going to start with problem centered coping. So we're going to make a plan. How do I change this and make multiple plans because your first plan isn't going to work most of the time, so then they have some agency in it. And they feel like, okay, I don't have to lash out and do this other thing. I can do something about what's really bothering me. And sometimes the problem centered coping, that's not going to work. You can't change the outcome. So how can I change the way I think about it, and the way I feel about it? That's the emotion centered coping. That one's hard. That one's really hard. Even for adults. I do a lot of workshops on emotion centered coping for adults, actually, because it's something that you hear and you're like, Well, yeah, obviously. And then I say, okay, when have you done that? Oh, when should you have done that? Oh, I can't change this problem. But how do I respond to it? And I like to use the word respond, not react, because React is your gut, this is what I want to do. This is what you know, I feel mad, I'm gonna punch a wall, right? Well, let's take a step back. And let's think of a response rather than an initial reaction. And that response can be more calculated, we can think about it, your emotions and your cognitions have to play together. And when they do, it's really kind of magical. I can change the way I feel by changing the way I think you have to tell yourself that over and over and over until you feel it. I wonder if mom had any idea how valuable her words were when she said, Tomorrow is another day.
Amy Vujaklija:
And you have to prepare to face it. Just this idea? Well, you have to see what tomorrow brings. I don't know that she had training in the psychology. But that was really valuable. And I think about that. Now. Let's talk about what parents can do.What they should not be doing. Yeah,
Alli Cipra:
really quickly. I think your mom was brilliant. I don't know if you guys ever read the Anna Green Gables books. But that was my older sister's favorite. And then when the miniseries came out, it was her favorite. And there's something that I use to tell my daughter and my son, tomorrow's a new day with no mistakes in it yet. It's from there. And it sounds kind of silly, but it's true. Like no matter what happened today, tomorrow's a fresh start, right? We can try to change it, we can try to change the thing. Or we can try to change how we think and feel about the thing. So for parents, understanding this way to regulate emotions is really important because kids model what they see. Sometimes parents have really wonderful emotional regulation skills, most of the times we don't because you know what, I can be really great with other people's kids but my own kids press my button so much, right? So they're not getting the best of me in terms of modeling behavior all the time. Being more cognizant about that, thinking more about that, but also modeling it and practicing it with your kids. So I have two children the the younger is five and he is intense. He has pretty intense emotions and he's speech delayed. So for a lot of times, we had a lot of really intense emotions because he couldn't communicate well. Oh, so we started doing breathing together. And it's simple, right? But he would not do it on his own for a long time. But when he gets really worked up, I just grab them, put them in a big hug. And I say, Let's breathe. And we sit down. And we do big breaths together big, slow breaths together, and it de escalates. It helps him calm. And then we can think about, okay, what's the problem? How can we approach this, if you are in an emotional state, you cannot think rationally. And kids are mostly emotional beings, we are teaching them to be logical and rational, and it takes a long time. So if we do it with them, not just tell them go stand in the corner until you're, you know, ready to come out? Well, maybe we say, okay, maybe you do need to be removed, maybe you need to go stand over there. But let's breathe. Let's think about it. Let's calm down. It's really important to give kids a physical task to help them calm down emotionally. And breathing tends to be a really great one, because I won't get into all the super nerdy stuff. But it does actually help bring down the arousal of the sympathetic nervous system, some so and that helps bring up the arousal of the parasympathetic. So then we're not in that fight flight or freeze mode, because that's essentially where kids live when they're in crisis.
Amy Vujaklija:
This was clipped content featuring Dr. Alli Cipra. From our podcast teaching and leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joi. Find the full length interview@www.go vst.edu/teaching and leading podcast. Stay tuned for more pocket sized PDs from Dr. Amy and Dr. Joi
