Lesson Three: Fostering Mental Wellness
Introduction
Welcome back! In lesson three, further exploration can
be magnified by gathering information from lessons one and two. In lesson one,
we gave some statistics on mental health and what resilience does in reducing
risk factors. With 1
in 5
teens experiencing emotional stress and 1
in 10 teens being emotionally impaired, parents and teens
could benefit from as many tools as possible to build resilience to prevent and
support these challenges (Knopf et al., 2008). Family resilience is linked to fewer
mental health risks and better outcomes (Mesman et al., 2021).
In lesson two, we discussed the development process
and changes in adolescence that contribute to mental health challenges. We will
add to these topics in our lesson today. Listen as Katy discusses what we focus
on in this week’s lesson.
__________________________________________________
What will you learn from this lesson?
This lesson will cover the following
topics and goals:
Topic: Goal:
|
Mental Well-being |
Understand
how to navigate challenges with mindfulness and knowledge about mental and
emotional well-being |
|
Growth Mindset |
Understand
how mindset helps families build resilience and foster positive praise |
|
Gratitude/Optimism |
Understand the roles gratitude and
optimism play in encouraging resilience |
__________________________________________________
Lesson Three: Fostering Mental Wellbeing
In our attempt to help parents understand the magnification
of emotional and mental well-being, it is important to address the scope of
support from parents and when professional help is needed. This lesson is
intended to give information to parents to build well-being, but not as a
treatment for mental illness. Please seek the help of qualified professional
counselors and doctors if the challenges your teen is facing are significant in
their lives. The knowledge learned here is meant to support family resilience
if dealing with mental health concerns.
As we examine mindfulness, a growth mindset, and the choice to be grateful and optimistic when life gets hard, an understanding of the serious nature and the many facets of mental health challenges are acknowledged. Please note in each family, the difficulties range in genetic, environmental, and social influences are diverse. As we approach these topics and strengthen the factors of the family to build resilience, our hope is for parents to have skills and knowledge to guide their adolescents intentionally while navigating the sometimes-lengthy path to achieving mental and emotional well-being in whatever state exists within your family dynamics. As mentioned before in previous lessons, it takes time to implement and build parenting skills.
Mental Well-Being
Mental
Well-Being & Mindfulness
The growing changes of chemical and physical body and
brain structure leave adolescents prone to experience changes in mental health.
The focus of this course has been building resilience strategies for the
moments when families or teens are met with life challenges. Studies in
mindfulness and resilience show positive indicators in adolescents, supporting
similar studies in adults (Tan & Green, 2012). In an examination of current
research, studies have shown that low mindfulness is associated with poor
psychopathological functioning (Pepping et al., 2016).
The mindfulness we are speaking of is awareness, being
present, and being able to reflect on situations without judgment. Many
parenting skills and teachings in the lessons will be a foundation for being
mindful. As we understand what to be aware of and how teens are affected by
development changes, parents can be practical guides in understanding the
structure of building competence.
(Image Accessed: https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/easy-ways-to-be-mindful.htm)
Mindfulness and Emotion-Coaching:
In lesson two, we presented the emotion-coaching steps
from Dr. John Gottman, magnifying emotional competence. We also encouraged you
to apply these steps to guide your teen through an emotional experience. Being
mindful is about stopping to recognize emotions, feelings, and needs for
ourselves and those around us. This non-judgment of emotions is a practice of
mindfulness and seeking answers. Dr. Gottman also noted that emotion-coached
children could recover quickly after stressful events (Gottman, 2018).
Listen while Julie shares this experience with her
daughter in naming an emotion. Pay attention to the steps of emotion-coaching
and how naming emotion can change the emotional experience into an empowering
moment in problem-solving for your adolescent.
Emotion
coaching experience LINK
How can I be mindful of emotions?
As
you work on being mindful of emotions, this worksheet will help guide you in
recognizing emotions. Keep track of the feelings you and your child experience
over a week. Logging emotions is particularly helpful for parents who are
scared or feel uncomfortable with their feelings or their child’s emotions
(Gottman).
Using this observation marker will give insight into the many feelings experienced by yourself and your teen. Start with just observation and recognition. As you use these observations and recognize emotional responses, you will be guided in your sensitivity to those feelings (Gottman). When you move on to continue your practice of emotion coaching, keep these things in mind for when coaching is not appropriate for the situation.
1) When time is short, or you feel pressured by the clock.
2) If you have an audience.
3) When both parties are too tired or upset to be productive.
4) If serious misbehavior needs to be addressed.
5) If manipulation is involved by faking emotions.
Parents want to send a message of support and
encouragement to manage their emotions while supporting teens mindfully.
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Growth Mindset
What is a growth mindset?
How we see our ability to do things, including being a parent, is attributed to our mindset. A growth mindset is often compared with a fixed mindset. Look at the following picture and see if you notice any phrases that might be a part of your vocabulary.
(Image Accessed: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/learning/2017/05/18/understanding-the-growth-mindset/)
A
fixed mindset focuses on the belief that we are born with specific abilities
and cannot change or grow. It leads to doing things that require little effort.
In a growth mindset, a person believes they will be able to learn someday, even
if they have not realized it yet. A
growth mindset promotes learning from others and their successes, the power of
a positive attitude, and increased effort. A growth mindset is open to brain neuroplasticity
and expansion of ability by trying new things and learning from what some call
failures.
Carol
Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, spoke of a
growth mindset related to her study on depressed students. She noticed that
students with a growth mindset took action to deal with their problems. Our
ability to see our failures in a way that does not define who we are comes from
believing qualities can be developed (Dweck, 2016).
How does a growth mindset relate to resilience?
“People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it. The bigger the challenge, the more they stretch” (Dweck, 2016).
This quote from Carol Dweck is about stretching within a growth mindset. Using resilience when facing challenges is the opportunity to stretch. Studies show that emphasizing and learning about a growth mindset can build and promote resilience (Anthoney et al., 2017). While your parenting skills improve, be kind to yourself and your family members as you adopt a growth mindset in the way you parent. You may not know how to implement everyone all at once but keep trying.
(Image accessed https://www.mindsetworks.com/Science/Impact)
As you read the chart above
from Mindset Works, answer the following questions:
·
What
do you notice about how challenges are met?
·
How
are obstacles handled?
·
What
role does effort play in a growth mindset?
·
How
does having a growth mindset help you handle criticism? Other’s successes?
How do I check my mindset?
Resources and worksheets such as this can give further
insight into mindsets. Find out more at this link and share with your spouse
and family what you learned about mindset.
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Positive Praise
What is positive praise?
Praising children has been studied for its effects on
development. Studies regarding children's growth using praise of traits or
effort revealed the quality of praise had a later impact on beliefs about
change and challenging tasks (Gunderson et al., 2013). Parental praise has also
been linked to grey matter volume in the brain and correlates with
personality traits like consciousness and openness (Matsudaira et al., 2016).
Not all praise adds to a growth mindset and improved
resilience in children. Understanding the kind of praise that magnifies a
child’s emotional and social competence leads to better outcomes when more
complex tasks come with experience (Gunderson). Below shows a graphic of the
kinds of praise and their impact on teens.
Descriptive praise gives an understanding of processing
and supports a growth mindset. Appreciative praise is specific and helps your
teen understand how their thoughtfulness helped you or someone else. Praising
kids for a trait or ability, like evaluative praise, puts pressure on them to
keep performing to be “good” or “smart” at a task. Descriptive and appreciative
praise builds self-esteem (Robichaud et al., 2022). Please pay close attention to the praise
these parents give as they implement descriptive praise with their teens in the
following video link.
https://raisingchildren.net.au/teens/videos/praise-in-action
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Gratitude
[Image
accessed: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-new-home/202011/the-right-way-express-gratitude-in-relationships]
What is gratitude?
Gratitude can have multiple meanings. In this lesson, we are talking about positive emotional reactions, as well as disposition and mindset. Gratitude can be defined as an emotion or state resulting from an awareness and appreciation for what an individual values and finds meaningful (Lambert et al., 2010), essentially it is feeling thankful for the good things in your life.
Why does gratitude matter?
There are many benefits of expressing gratitude. Evidence shows
that gratitude has many benefits such as (Gretkierewicz, 2023):
·
Boosts your physical and psychological wellbeing
·
Boosts your ability to learn
·
Increases your happiness and life
satisfaction
·
Instills a desire to show more
benevolence, compassion, and service toward others
·
Increases your ability to build better
relationship
A world-wide religious leader, President Russell M.
Nelson, shares some important insights into gratitude. Let us take a closer
look:
President Russell M. Nelson on the Healing Power of Gratitude-LINK
How do we foster gratitude?
Gratitude can happen
naturally without effort, but feeling positive is not always easy. Here are
some ways to make practicing gratitude a part of your family’s life (Baumsteiger
et al., 2019; Gretkierewicz, 2023):
- Model gratitude: as parents our “way of being” and how we approach life will impact and teach our children.
- Express thank-you often: Looking for ways to thank people will make you feel more grateful and will make others feel good, too.
- Use a positive journal: Write about at least 3 good things that happened or that you are grateful for every day.
- Make a gratitude jar: this will help as a visual reminder that you can add to everyday.
- Write a letter: Writing a letter to someone you care about expressing your gratitude will strengthen your relationships. It helps you to appreciate the important people in your life.
- Find someone to be your gratitude buddy: having someone to support, who also supports you with exercising gratitude will increase your ability and cement the healthy habit.
- Play games that foster gratitude: this is
a fun way to engage in practicing gratitude as a family.
Gratitude Games
Make learning and teaching gratitude fun for the whole family
by trying two or three of these gratitude games found here.
Optimism
[image accessed: https://loveequals.net/blogs/sports/how-optimism-affects-happiness]
What role does optimism play in resilience?
Optimism is
the positive mental attitude towards life and future outcomes; resilience Is
the ability to bounce back when experiencing adversity (Maheshwari & Jutta,
2020). Research has found a positive association between
optimism and resilience. When we face different challenges and circumstances,
we experience a wide range of emotions ranging from excitement, anger, tension,
and sadness. Our ability to balance and process these emotions increases with
our level of optimism as we expect positive outcomes from our experiences and
challenges (Pathak & Lata,
2018). This ability builds our resilience as we can bounce back from adversity.
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Personal Stories:
___________________________________________________________________________
We learned more
about how to apply the five steps of emotion-coaching from Julie as she shared
an experience this week with one of her adolescents. We learned more about mindfulness,
a growth mindset, and fostering positive praise to foster resilience. We
learned about gratitude and optimism’s roles in promoting emotional resilience
and mental well-being.
We concluded with
personal stories from a worldwide religious leader and Katy. We hope that as
you read lesson three, you had several stories come to mind from your personal experiences. We would love to hear your
personal stories! Please share with us
by commenting below, emailing us at magnifyfamilyresilience@gmail.com, or on
our Facebook page, Magnifying Family Resilience.
What is coming
next?
In our next lesson we will
be focusing on building support systems. We will discuss emotional and social
resources, building a family management plan, how to apply the concept of
family councils, and will revisit the five family protective factors
Feedback:
This course has been created by students for a final capstone class in teaching family life education.
Your feedback will help us learn and improve for future lessons in the course and support the process of becoming a family life educator. We value your insights and would love to hear from you, the participant.
Please take a few short moments to respond to this quick form. A similar form will be found at the end of each lesson. It should take under 5 minutes to complete. Thank you!
Get to know Julie and Katy and learn more about future lessons on:
References
Agrahari,
S., & Sinha, S. (2023). The correlates of effects of gratitude in the life
of Indian adolescents. Indian Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(2),
238-244. https://eds.s.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=0954955e-1ca9-4ab5-bbd9-ac5d58ea03b0%40redis
Anthoney, J., Steed, R., &
Turner, K. (2017, September 18). Making connections and building resilience:
developing workshops with undergraduates. Openresearch.surrey.ac.uk. https://openresearch.surrey.ac.uk/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/Making-Connections-and-Building-Resilience-developing-workshops-with-undergraduates/99512836502346#file-0
, R.,, & Bono, G. (2019) An
integrative intervention for cultivating gratitude among adolescents and young
adults. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(6), 807-819.
https://doi.org.10.1080/17439760.2019.1579356
Dweck, C. S. (2016). Mindset the
new psychology of Success. Ballantine Books. p.21,39.
Gottman,
J. M., Declaire, J., & Goleman, D. (2015). Emotion coaching. Raising an
emotionally intelligent child. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
Gretkierewicz,
S. (Ed.). (2023, August). Gratitude (for teens) - nemours kidshealth.
KidsHealth. https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/gratitude.html
Gunderson,
E. A., Gripshover, S. J., Romero, C., Dweck, C. S., Goldin, M. S., &
Levine, S. C. (2013). Parent Praise to 1- to
3-Year-Olds Predicts Children’s Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later. Child
Development, 84(5), 1526–1541. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12064
Holly.
(2021, September 8). 10 gratitude games for the entire family. Pink
Fortitude, LLC. https://pinkfortitude.com/gratitude-games/
Knopf, D., Park, M. J., & Mulye, T. P. (2008). The
mental health of adolescents: A national profile, 2008. N A H I C national
adolescent health information center. https://nahic.ucsf.edu/. https://nahic.ucsf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/2008-Mental-Health-Brief.pdf
Lambert, N. M., Clark, M.
S., Durtschi, J., Fincham, F. D., & Graham, S. M. (2010). Benefits of
Expressing Gratitude: Expressing Gratitude to a Partner Changes One’s View of
the Relationship. Psychological
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http://www.jstor.org/stable/41062251
Maheshware,
A. & Jutta, V. (2020). Study of relationship
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Matsudaira,
I., Yokota, S., Hashimoto, T., Takeuchi, H., Asano, K., Asano, M., Sassa, Y.,
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M. (2020, November 20). President Russell M. Nelson on the healing power of
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