How to convert children's problems into skills for children to learn

Full text

The art of skills thinking - how to convert children’s
problems into skills (draft)
Ben Furman
— Misbehaviour is children’s way of informing you that they miss a skill and that
they haven’t figured out yet what it is.
One of the main challenges in using the solution-focused Kids’Skills approach is
figuring out what skill a child needs to learn in order to overcome his or her problem.
In this article I am using fictional conversations between a Kids’Skills coach and a
parent, teacher or child, to show you how to guide people, through gentle
questioning, to convert problems into learnable skills.
Background
Kids’Skills is a solution-focused step-by-step approach to helping children overcome
emotional and behavioural problems that was developed in the 90s in Finland by a
team consisting of psychotherapists and special early education teachers.
A key idea in Kids’Skills is that in this approach you don’t focus on children’s
problems, but on skills that children need to learn to overcome their problems. This
shift in focus from problems to skills has significant benefits. It fosters hope,
improves collaboration with children as well their parents and above all makes it
easier to bring about change not only in the children, but also in the entire social
network surrounding the child.
However, Kids’Skills requires a new way of thinking – I like to call it ‘skills
thinking’ – where an important step is that of converting children’s problems into
skills for them to learn. This shift in thinking is, however, easier said than done.
Many people struggle with this step finding it difficult to figure out what skill a child
needs to learn in order to overcome his or her problem.
In this article I will show, with the help of brief dialogues, how this can be done
elegantly with the help of good questions and gentle guidance.
Ask about the situations in which the unwanted behaviour occurs
The answer to this question helps you to get an idea about what situations are
challenging for the child. Once you know what situations are difficult for the child to
handle, you can go on to ask how the concerned adult would want the child to learn
to handle those situations in the future.
Here’s an example of this approach.
Mother: The kindergarten teacher told me that my daughter hits other children.
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Coach: In what situations does she hit other children? What kinds of situations
are difficult for her to handle?
Mother: From what I understood, it happens when she wants to play with a toy
that another child is playing with.
Coach: And what does she tend to do in those situations where she wants to play
with a toy another child is playing with.
Mother: She goes over and tires to grab the toy from the other child and when
the other child refuses to give it to her, she becomes mad and hits the other
child.
Coach: How would you like her to learn to handle those situations instead?
Mother: She is already five years old. I would want her to be able to handle
those situations in a more mature way.
Coach: I can understand that. And in what way would you want her to learn to
deal with those situations in which she gets an urge to play with a toy that
another child is playing with?
Mother: I would like her to ask kindly if she can have the toy and then, if the
other child refuses, she should be able to take no for answer.
Coach: Yes, and what would she need to learn to do, or say, that would signal
to you that has learned to take no for an answer?
Mother: I would want her to say something like ‘can you give it to me when you
don’t play with it anymore?’.
Coach: Is that a skill you would want your daughter to learn?
Mother: Yes, that’s exactly what I would want her to learn. But how can I get
her to learn to do that?
Coach: I’ll be happy to help you to think of some creative ways to get your
daughter to learn that skill. It happens to be the topic of our next chapter!
As you can see from reading the dialogue, the coach first got to know from mother
what situations are difficult for her daughter to cope with, then asked her for a
concrete description of her daughter’s typical behaviour in those situations, and
finally helped her think about how she would want her daughter to learn to act in
those difficult situations.
Talking with parents about situations that are difficult for their child to handle helps
them to develop ideas of how they would want the child to learn to deal with those
situations in the future, and that in turn, leads to ideas of what skill the child would
benefit from learning.
Turn negatives into positives
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When you ask parents to describe how they would want the child to behave (instead
of behaving in the problem way), they often answer ‘in the negative’, that is, by
telling you what they would not want the child to do. For example, if you ask a
mother, how would she want her son to learn to behave in the future in given
challenging situation, the mother might respond by saying: “I don’t want him to yell
at me.” This is not a description of how the mother wants the child to learn to behave,
but a description of how the mother doesn’t want the child to behave. In this situation
I usually repeat word for word what the parent has said and then add “and how would
you want him to learn to behave instead?” So, in this example I would say “I can
understand that you don’t want him to yell at you. What would you want him to do
instead of yelling at you?” This question helps the parent to convert the negative
description (I don’t want him to…) into a positive description (I want him to…)
Helping parents to turn negatives into positives is an important coaching skill, and
during a typical coaching session, this may need to be done more than once before
parents succeed in describing what they want (rather than only speaking about what
they don’t want).
Here’s an example of how this works.
Coach: What would be sign for you that you son is starting to overcome his
problem.
Father: He would not get mad at me when I tell him that he cannot have
something he wants.
Coach: So, if he wouldn’t get mad at you when you tell him that he cannot have
something he wants, what would he be doing instead?
Father: He would not shout at me and he would not use foul language.
Sometimes he even spits at me.
Coach: So instead of shouting at you, and using foul language, what would you
want him to learn to do?
Parent: I don’t know. I just want him to stop behaving in the way that he does.
Coach: It’s often difficult for children to learn to stop behaving in the wrong
way. It’s easier for them to learn to behave in the right way. That’s why I am
asking you how you would want your son to learn to behave in those situations
where he tends to shout at you and use foul language. What would you want him
to do instead?
Parent: I want him to act normally. I want him to behave.
Coach: Makes sense. And suppose he learns to behave, how will he be
responding? What will he do, or say, in those situations that up until now have
been so difficult for him to handle?
Parent: He will accept me decision.
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Coach: And how would you want him to indicate to you that he has accepted
your decision.
Many parents are so focused on how they don’t want their children to behave that
they find it difficult to answer questions about how they would want their child to
behave instead. When this is the case, you need to persistent if you want parents to
describe to you what behaviour they want to see, rather than only telling you about
the behaviour they don’t want to see.
Look for the opposite of the problem
Instead of asking parents to describe the child’s problem, or the situation in which the
problem occurs, it is also possible to skip those questions and, instead, help the
parents to think about what is the positive opposite of the problem. For example, the
opposite of unhappiness is happiness, the opposite of sloppiness is being orderly, and
the opposite of meanness is kindness. Once the positive opposite of the problem has
been discovered, you can focus on figuring out what specific skills the child might
need to learn in order to achieve the positive opposite.
The following two dialogues illustrate this approach.
Mother: My daughter has very low self-esteem.
Coach: What would you say is the opposite of low self-esteem?
Mother: I don’t know. Maybe ‘self-confidence’, or the ability to be proud of
herself.
Coach: So, would it make sense to say that you would want your daughter to
have more self-confidence?
Mother: Yes.
Coach: What would be a sure sign for you that your daughter is starting to have
better self-confidence that her self-confidence is improving?
Mother: She would not crumple or tear her drawings into pieces.
Coach: And when she no longer would be doing that, what would she be doing
instead?
Mother: She would be proud of her drawings.
Coach: And what would tell you that she is proud of her drawing?
Mother: She would give the drawing to me and let me hang it on the wall.
Coach: So, would you say one important skill that you would want your
daughter to learn is to hand you her drawing and to let you hang it on the wall?
Mother: Letting me take a photo of her drawing would already be a step in the
right direction.
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Father: My son is shy.
Coach: What would you say is the opposite of shy?
Father: Not shy.
Coach: And what do you call a person who is not shy?
Father: I don’t know, maybe ‘brave’?
Coach: Sounds good to me. So, what would be the first small sign for you that
your son is becoming braver?
Father: He would not hide in his room when we have guests coming over.
Coach: And when he would be brave and he would no longer hide in his own
room when guests come over, what would he be doing instead?
Father: He would come out of his room and he would greet the guests.
Coach: How would you want him to do that? What would you want him to do
and say and, by the way, how would you call that skill?
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As the examples show, to help parents figure out what skills they want their child to
learn it is not necessary to know the details of the child’s problem. If the parents can
discover a word, or phrase, that describes the opposite of the problem, or the goal, it
becomes much easier for them to think of skills they would want their child to learn.
Move from explanations to descriptions of behaviour
When speaking about children’s problems parents and teachers often describe the
problem not by explaining how the child behaves in a given situation, but by using
words that reveal their own explanation, or theory, of why the child behaves in a
problematic way.
For example, a teacher might describe a child as ‘having no empathy’. Lack of
empathy is not a description of the child’s problem behaviour, but one possible
psychological explanation of why the child behaves in the way he or she does. When
people describe children using explanations rather than descriptions of behaviour, I
often ask them to tell me what it is that the child does, or says, that has lead them to
come up with the explanation. It’s easier to think of skills for children to learn when
we the focus is not on why a child behaves in particular ways but on how the child
behaves and how adults would want the child to behave instead.
The following dialogue is an illustration of how questions can be used to move from
explanations to descriptions of behaviour.
Father: My son annoys everyone with his egoistic and attention seeking
behaviour.
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Coach: What does he do that makes you say that he is egoistic and attention
seeking?
Parent: One thing that he does a lot is interrupting other people. When a
thought pops up in his mind he blurts it out without letting other people
complete their sentences.
Coach: Would you say that he has the bad habit of interrupting people?
Parent: Yes, but that’s just one of his bad habits.
Coach: I understand, but I think it’s easier for you to help him if you don’t try to
change all his bad habits in one go, but instead, you pick one, and then help him
overcome that one first.
Parent: OK, makes sense.
Coach: What would you say your son needs to learn do in order not to interrupt
other people?
Parent: He should learn to be more patient, to wait until the other person has
finished talking.
Coach: So that’s the skill you would want him to learn; to wait until the other
person has finished talking. That’s an important skill for many children to learn.
Do you have an idea of what he could do to be able to wait till the other person
has finished talking?
Parent: He could cross his fingers on both of his hands. That’s what I do when I
need to listen to our customers even if I feel like interrupting them.
Coach: So that could be a skill for your son to learn, right?
Moving away from psychological explanations towards more concrete descriptions of
actual behaviour, paves the way for figuring out what skills children need to learn to
overcome their problems.
Discover the problems behind the diagnosis
It is common these days for professionals as well as lay people to talk about
children’s problems using medical labels, such as ADHD, AS (Autism spectrum
disorder), ODD (oppositional defiant disorder), OCD (obsessive compulsive
disorder) or PBD (pediatric bipolar disorder). Medical labels may give us a rough
idea of what kind of problems children have but often few clues of what skills they
need to learn to overcome those problems.
When talking to parents or teacher who use a diagnostic labels, it is useful to find out
what are the problems of the child that have warranted the diagnosis. You can ask, for
example, “What problems does [the diagnosis] give to the child?” or “What problems
have lead the child to get [the diagnosis]?
The following dialogue illustrates this line of questioning.
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Teacher: Jack is a very difficult boy. He has severe ADHD.
Coach: I have noticed that children with this diagnosis can differ a lot from one
another. What kind of problems does Jack have that have led to him getting this
diagnosis?
Teacher: I’d say that the dominant feature of his disturbance is impulsivity. He
is also exceptionally loud and very hyperactive. It’s very difficult for him to keep
to his desk. He often starts wondering about in the classroom.
Coach: So in Jack’s case, ADHD means that he behaves impulsively, speaks
loudly and is hyperactive?
Teacher: Yes, I think that’s an accurate description of Jack’s disturbance.
The coach inserts the three problems into the left column of a table.
Problem Skill
Impulsivity
Loudness
Hyperactivity
Coach: Let’s convert these three problems into skills that Jack needs to learn.
What situations are particularly difficult for Jack to handle? In what situations
does he behave impulsively?
Teacher: Waiting for his turn is next to impossible for him. He always needs to
be the first, no matter what it is that we are doing.
With the help of just a few questions the teacher has moved away from a diagnostic
label and succeeded in listing three problems each of which can now, one by one, be
converted into a skill for the child to learn.
.
Problem Skill
Impulsivity Waiting for one’s turn
Loudness
Hyperactivity
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You start by breaking down the diagnosis into a list of problems, and then convert
each problem, one by one, into a skill for the child to learn. When this has been done
you can, focus on the skills the child needs to learn rather than the diagnosis and the
problems that the child has.
Use the miracle question
The so-called miracle question is a creative and playful method for moving people
away from descriptions of problems to descriptions of how they would prefer things
to be in the future. This question involves asking people to imagine what would
happen, or how things would be different, supposing the problem would magically
disappear.
The answer to the miracle question is a description of the ideal behaviour, which in
turn helps to figure out what skills are needed in order for the described ideal to come
true.
Mother: This is Ellen, my daughter. We have terrible arguments every morning.
She refuses to get up and I totally lose it. I shout at her and she shouts back at
me. My husband blames me by pointing out, again and again, that he doesn’t
any such problems with her when I am sometimes gone, travelling for business.
Coach: Suppose I had a magic wand and just by waving it a few times I could
make magic happen so that tomorrow morning you two would have a perfect
morning, so good morning that your husband would have a hard time believing
what is happening. How would that morning look like? What would be the first
thing in the morning that would tell both of you that a miracle has happened
overnight?
Mother: I would approach her in the morning in a good mood and I would
whisper into her ear something like ‘time to wake up honey bee, it’s morning’.
Coach (turning to Ellen): And supposing the magic is working, how would you
respond Ellen? What would you say to your mom? Let’s pretend it’s morning. I
want to get a good picture of how your miracle morning looks like.
Ellen joins in as she and mother create a role-play enacting the perfect
morning. This make believe role-play functions a basis for looking at skills that
both mother and Ellen can learn that will help them make their dream morning
come true.
There are endless ways of inviting children and families to create make-believe
fantasies of ideal behaviour. You can, for example, conjure up an imaginary time
machine that projects the whole family into a future where everything works
perfectly, or you can ask a child to imagine what would happen if she drunk up a
glass of magic potion that would give her the superpowers that she needs to conquer
her problem.
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The fantasy, or enactment, of what would happen as a result of the magic, is a
detailed description of the desired outcome and therefore also a foundation of ideas of
what skills are needed in order to make that vision come true.
Get an outside observer’s perspective
One more approach to getting from problems to skills that works particularly well
with children is to ask children what changes other people would notice in their
behaviour if they would overcome their problem. Below you can find two versions of
the same question:
Suppose I would bump into your teacher sometime next week in town and she
would tell me that you have made a lot of progress. I would obviously become
very curious, and I would defiantly ask her what progress she is talking about.
What do you think she would tell me?”
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Suppose your football coach called your father next week and told him that your
behaviour on the football field has dramatically improved. Your father would of
course ask your coach in what way you have been behaving differently than
before? What do you think the coach would tell your father?
The answers to this kind of ‘outside observer questions’ are likely to be concrete
descriptions of wanted behaviour, and consequently a good basis for figuring out
what specific skills children need to learn to overcome their problems.
Skills for fears
Overcoming fears is not easy. Often, when people make attempts to overcome their
fears, their fear only becomes more intense. Likewise, when parents try to encourage
children to overcome their fears by saying something in the line of “don’t be afraid”
or “there’s nothing to be afraid of”, the parents’ well-meant words often only serve to
intensify the child’s fear.
A better approach is to convert the child’s fear into bravery and then focus on helping
the child to develop that bravery. Children shy away from overcoming fears but they
quite like the idea of developing braveries. For example, the same child who is
opposed to the idea of overcoming his fear of the dark may be quite willing to
develop his bravery of the dark. It somehow makes more sense to a child to develop
braveries than to struggle to overcome fears.
Parent: My son has dog phobia. He becomes hysteric when any dog approaches
her whether big or small.
Coach: What’s the opposite of being afraid of dogs?
Parent: Opposite of being afraid of dogs? That’s a strange question.
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Coach: Yes, I know but to find a skill for your son to learn, it might be helpful to
start by thinking what is the opposite of his problem. Seriously, what would you
say is the opposite of fear?
Parent: Courage, I guess. Or maybe bravery.
Coach: I think so too. Would it make sense to say that you would want your son
to become braver when it comes to dogs?
Parent: Yes
Coach: And what would he need to learn to do in order for you to be able to say
that he has become braver when it comes to dogs.
Parent: He would allow a dog to come close to him and allow the dog to sniff
him. He would also pat the dog gently.
Coach: So that would be a skill you would want him to learn, to pat a dog gently
after he has let the dog sniff him first?
Parent: Yes.
Coach: And what would you call that skill?
Parent: Dog bravery.
Coach: That’s a perfect name for the skill you would want your son to learn.
Once the bravery that the child would need to develop has been identified
and named, it becomes much easier to engage the child in a conversation
about skills, or steps for the child to take, to develop that bravery.
Skills for bad habits
When children have bad habits such as biting nails, sucking their fingers, plucking
their hair, or picking on a sore, parents often try to help their children get rid of the
bad habit by saying things like “Stop it” “Don’t do it!” or “Now you are doing it
again!” However, well-meant stop-instructions often backfire and make the problem
worse. A better strategy for helping children overcome bad habits is to think of some
skill that the child can learn that will help the child quite his bad habit.
Parent: My son bites his nails. It’s quite bad. His fingers sometimes bleed. What
skill would he need to learn in order not to bite his nails?
Coach: What’s the opposite of biting one’s nails?
Parent: I don’t know.
Coach: I like to think that the opposite of biting one’s nails is letting one’s nails
grow so one can cut them with scissors, or simply having pretty nails.
Parent: Makes sense, but how can I get him interested in growing his nails?
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Coach: You might suggest to him to start by growing just one nail to start with
but let’s talk more about how to motivate children to learn skills in the next
chapter.
Skills for tantrums, meltdowns and outbursts
What skill does a child need to learn if he throws tantrums at an age in which such
behaviour is no longer appropriate? This is a question that I often hear from parents
or teachers who are desperate due to the child’s aggressive outbursts or meltdowns.
One might answer by saying that the skill the child misses is what in psychology is
called “frustration tolerance”. But such an abstract concept is unlikely to spark ideas
of how to help children grow out of their tantrums.
A more practical approach is to guide the child to think of some action that he can
perform that will help him dodge the imminent tantrum or cut it short.
“When you become upset”, you can say to the child, “and you feel that you are about
to become furious, what can you do to avoid getting furious?” Allow the child to
think of an answer and use his answer to develop an idea of a skill for him to learn.
Offer your suggestions only if the child is unable to come up with his own
suggestions and should you do that, make sure to offer more than one suggestion to
give the child allow the child to make choices.
Coach: Your parents told me that sometimes, when you are upset, you can
become so furious that you start shouting and throwing things around. Do you
want me to help you find a way to avoid getting furious?
Child: Yes.
Coach: When you feel upset, what could you do to stop becoming furious?
Child: I don’t know. My mother says I’m too old to get furious.
Coach: Do you want me to suggest to you something that you could do to stop
becoming furious?
Child: Yes.
Coach: You could, for example, count to five, take a few deep breaths or put
your hands in your pockets, or you could say something such as “I am upset!”
or “My blood is boiling!”
Child: (chuckles).
Coach: Maybe you have a better idea yourself?
Child: I can say, “Caramba!” That’s what my daddy sometimes says when he is
angry at me.
Coach: That sounds like a great idea. Let me hear you say that one more time.
Child: Caramba!
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Coach: You are good at that. What if you are really upset? Do you think it might
work or do you need to do something besides saying Caramba? For example, do
you have to leave the situation, or take a few steps back? Would that be a good
idea?
Child: Yes.
Coach: Ok that might work. Let’s try it. We will play a game where I make you
upset and then you say Caramba and take a few steps back. Can I make a video
on your phone of us playing the game Caramba game, so you can show to your
family and friends because they will need to support you in learning to do that
in real life situations?”
Skills needed while the child is asleep
It makes sense to practice skills while one is awake but what about problems that
occur while the child is asleep? Is it possible to practice in waking state skills that are
needed at night? Nightmares and bedwetting are examples of night-time problems
that can be resolved by practicing skills while awake.
Parent: My daughter suffers from a recurring nightmare. Is there some skill she
could learn to overcome her problem?
Coach: Didn’t you know that there are no nightmares, that all dreams have
happy endings?
Parent: I am glad to hear that but it’s not very helpful because my son’s dream
doesn’t have a happy ending.
Coach: All dreams have a happy ending.
Parent: What do you mean?
Coach: If the child wakes up in the middle of the dream and fails to see the
ending, the dream appears like a nightmare.
Parent: Supposing you are right, how can I help him continue the dream to see
the happy ending?
Coach: You can help him imagine what the happy ending could be and then
encourage him to try to see the whole dream till the end.
Parent: Ok, I can try to do that. Sounds like an idea worth trying.
What about bedwetting? What skill can children learn that will help them control
their bladder at night?
Parent: My son is already 10 and he still wets his bed almost every night. What
skill does he need to learn?
Coach: That’s a physiological skill. To be able to control one’s bladder at night
is a skill that children usually acquire on their own but for some children it
takes more time than for others.
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Parent: I know all that. What I’m asking is whether there is some way for me to
help him learn to control his bladder at night. I’m afraid that if we don’t do
anything about it, he may continue to be wetting his bed when he is thirteen or
fourteen.
Coach: Has he already learned to control his bladder during daytime?
Parent: Yes of course, he only wets his bed at night while he is sound asleep.
Coach: So, the question is, how can he learn to do at night what is already able
to do during the day.
Parent: Exactly, but how can you help a child learn something like that?
Coach: It is possible to do imagination exercises to practice nightly bladder
control. Do you think he would be willing to do something like that?
Parent: He hates his problem, so I think he would be willing to try anything to
get over it.
Coach: Would you like me to teach you an imagination exercise like that so you
can teach it to your son?
Parent: Yes, of course. What kind of exercise are you talking about?
Coach: To teach the exercise to your son, you would need to start by making
sure that he understands the physiology of bladder control. You want him to
understand that there is a muscle-operated valve at the bottom of the urine
bladder that is controlled by his brain. You should explain to him, using pictures
or drawings, how the mechanism works: Most of the time his brain is sending
the message to his urine valve muscle to stay closed and only when he wants to
pee, his brain tells the muscle to open up. You might want to point out to him
that his brain already knows to do this properly during the day, and that the
thing for him to do is to teach his brain to do the same thing at night too.
Parent: I can explain all that to him, no problem.
Coach: As soon as you feel that he understands the physiology of bladder
control, you can teach him the exercise when he is already in bed ready to go to
sleep. You ask him to close his eyes and to ask his brain to tell his bladder valve
to stay tightly closed throughout the night.
Parent: I understand. It’s a kind of self-hypnosis.
Coach: That’s right, it’s using your imagination to support your body in
learning an important physiological skill.
Skills for smart use of smart phones and video games
A common complaint by parents these days, all over the world, is that children are
glued to their smart phones or video games. This problem does not differ from other
problems; it too, can be solved be figuring out a skill for the child to learn, and then
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helping the child to learn that skill. But what skill is missing when children are too
attached to their mobile phones? The following dialogue offers an idea of how to
convert this problem into a skill for the child to learn.
Father: My teenage son is addicted to his phone. Every time I try to restrict his
screen-time he becomes infuriated. I don’t know what to do.
Coach: What skill would you want him to learn?
Father: I want him to learn to put his phone away and do other things too.
Coach: Definitely an important skill for most teenagers to learn but it’s
probably not very easy to get him to agree to learn that skill.
Father: He hates me interfering with his playing. His addiction is a constant
source of struggle for us at home.
Coach: Instead of trying to restrict his playing, maybe you should think of
another skill for him to learn? Something he might find easier to agree to learn.
Father: What would you suggest?
Coach: Have you heard about work-life balance?
Father: Yes, I actually struggle with that myself. My wife constantly complains
about me working too much.
Coach: Seems like you know something about how difficult it is to juggle work
on the one hand and family and friends on the other.
Father: In the recent years I have tried to reserve more time to my family but it’s
not easy.
Coach: That’s right. It’s not easy. I think it’s a bit the same with the video games.
They can easily take the best of you.
Father: So what are you suggesting?
Coach: I am suggesting that maybe instead of trying to argue with your son
about the amount of time he spends on his smart phone, you might get further by
talking to him about work-life balance, a topic that you have personal
experience about. After all, smart phones are to teenagers like work to many
adults. They easily eat up all the waking time so that no time is left for other
important activities of life.
Father: That’s true.
Coach: Suppose you stop harassing him about his use of the smart phone and
simply talk with him about the importance of balancing computer time with
other important activities. You could allow him to think of what those other
activities are and then help him learn – not the skill of staying away from his
smart phone – but the skill of making sure he reserves enough time each day for
other important activities as well.
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Father: That could work better.
Coach: I think so too because people hate someone telling them that they are
spending too much time for some activity but they have much less problems with
the suggestion that they should reserve more time to something else.
Skills for worries
“What if something happens to mommy?” “What if burglars break into our house at
night?” “What if our house catches fire?” “What if nobody will want to be with me?”
Excessive worrying – and children can worry just about anything – is not uncommon
in children. The opposite of worrying is ‘not to worry’, but what is the skill that
children need to learn in order ‘not to worry’? The following discussion offers one
possible answer to that question.
Mother: My nine-year old daughter worries. Her main worry is that something
bad will happen to me but she worries about many other things as well. It’s
painful to see her worrying so much about things. Is there a skill she can learn
that would help her stop worrying?
Coach: You may have to start by teaching her about worries.
Mother: What do I need to teach her about worries?
Coach: I think you should teach her where worries come from and what we all
need to learn to do with them.
Mother: So, where do worries come from and what do we need to learn to do
with them?
Coach: You can explain to her that everyone has worries. You have worries, her
father has worries, her friends have worries, all humans have worries. You can
explain to her that worries are troublesome thoughts generated in a particular
compartment of the brain, ‘the worry generator’.
Mother: I can explain that to her but I don’t understand how that will help her
stop worrying?
Coach: When she understands that worries are merely thoughts emerging from
a part of her brain, it will be easier for her to comprehend the idea that she will
need to learn a skill to deal with them.
Mother: And what skill is that?
Coach: I think the skill is to be able to brush off such thoughts, or to ignore
them. I’m not saying it’s easy to let go of such thoughts but it is a skill that every
one of us has to learn because ‘the worry generator’ never sleeps. It keeps on
sending worrisome thoughts, one after the other, into our mind. If people
wouldn’t learn to let go of worries, they would be worrying all the time, and
they would not have time to do any other important things in life.
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Mother: It’s true. Some years ago, I had a difficult period in my life. At that time
I worried a lot. I worried so much that I couldn’t sleep.
Coach: What did you do to manage your worries?
Mother: My therapist told me to reserve ten minutes every evening for worrying
before going to bed. I followed her advice and during those ten minutes I wrote
down all my worries on a sheet of paper. When I went to bed a little bit later, I
didn’t need to worry any more as I had already done it.
Coach: The method worked for you?
Mother: It did. It helped me to let go of my worries, and not think of them when
I was in bed.
Coach: Your daughter needs to learn a similar skill, the skill of letting go of
worries. The good news is that letting go of worries is a skill that can be learned
and my hunch is that once you explain all this to your daughter, you two
together will probably come up with some ideas of how you can help her learn
the skill of letting go of worries.
Resiliency skills - skills for dealing with adversity
‘Bad things happen to good people’ is an old saying that makes the point that there is
no way to avoid adverse life events. Fortunately, however, human beings are resilient,
or able to cope with even the direst of circumstances.
Resiliency is a psychological term that refers to the human ability to survive, and
cope with adversity, or difficult life circumstances. Consequently, we can use the
word ‘resiliency skills’ to talk about the skills that children need to be able to cope
with the adversities that they face in their life.
The following dialogue shows how a coach can help children find resiliency skills
that can benefit them when they are experiencing adverse life events.
Coach: What skill do you want to learn to be happy?
Boy: I don’t know what to do when some of the boys tease me at school.
Coach: Do you mean you would like to learn what to say to them when those
boys tease you?
Boy: Yes. I don’t want to fight them.
Coach: And what do you do when they tease you?
Boy: Nothing.
Coach: Would you like to learn how to answer them? Would you like to learn
some good comebacks?
Boy: Yes.
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Coach: Would you like to have some funny comebacks that you can use when
they tease you?
Boy: Yes.
Coach: I can teach you. Give me an example of what they say to you when they
tease you.
Boy: Sometimes they say that I am a stupid idiot.
Coach: And you don’t like that?
Boy: Of course not. My mother says that they are themselves stupid idiots to call
me things like that.
Coach: So what could you say to them next time when they call you ‘stupid
idiot’ that will make you feel strong, and that is funny at the same time?
Boy: I don’t know.
Coach: Let’s put our heads together to think up something. What if you said
something silly like ‘I know I am a stupid idiot but I was hoping that nobody
would discover it ’? Would that be funny and would it make you feel strong?
Boy: Yes.
Coach: I can see that you enjoy good comebacks. You might even give them a
compliment for being so smart that they were able to discover it.
Boy: I should say to them that they are smart?
Coach: Yes, like ‘I was hoping that nobody would be smart enough to find out
that I am a stupid but now I realize that that was just my wishful thinking’.
Boy: I can try.
Coach: You can practice with me first. I will call you ‘a stupid idiot’ and then
you snap back with something like that, OK?
Boy: OK.
Imagine that for the next few minutes the boy and the coach play a game in which the
coach pretends to tease the boy while they boy practices the skill of answering the
make believe bully with funny comebacks. Before they depart the coach explains:
Coach: You are getting real good at this. And guess what. Now that you have
some ideas of how you can snap back at them in a funny way, you may not even
have to say anything to them. You can feel strong even if you only look at them
kindly and simply think of what you might say to them.
A special type of resilience skills – perhaps more aptly called ‘recovery skills’ – is
called for when reactions to a stressor linger on after an adverse life event.
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Counsellor: She is so unhappy. It’s painful to see a child who is so unhappy. But
I can understand her pain taken into account all the things she has been
through. She is suffering from PTSD.
Coach: What skill, would you say, she needs to learn in order to recover and be
happy again?
Counsellor: I think she needs to open up and to talk about the things that she
has been through.
Coach: Suppose she does open up and talks about the things that she has been
through, what skill do you think she will be able to gain, that will help her feel
happy again?
Counsellor: What do you mean? What kind of skills are you talking about?
Coach: The word ‘skill’ is perhaps not the best word here. What I meant to ask
you is what do you think she will be able to do, that she is presently unable to
do, as a result of opening up and talking about the things that she has been
through?
Counsellor: I think that once she has dealt with the things that have happened to
her, she will be able to initiate contact with other children, play with them and
enjoy some fun with them.
Coach: Could that be a skill for her to learn; to initiate contact with other
children, play with them and to have some fun with them? Do you think she
would be willing to learn that skill?
Counsellor: I could speak with her. She might agree, but it’s not easy for her.
She is so miserable.
Coach: You are right. It’s a skill that children are born with but which they can
easily lose when sad things happen to them. To restore that skill she will need
some help and support form her family and friends.
In conclusion
A practical way to help children overcome problems is to convert the child’s problem
into a skill and then involve the child’s social network in supporting and helping the
child to learn that skill. It is not always evident what skill a child needs to learn in
order to overcome this or that problem, but as I have tried to show in this article, most
children’s problems can easily be converted into skills to learn with the help of a few
useful questions and a pinch of creative thinking.
Contact information:
Ben Furman, manager, Helsinki Brief Therapy Institute
ben@benfurman.com
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