What is it to be good ?

We are coming to half term and a long half term it has been. Soon Christmas will be upon us with all its joys, excitement and promise of hope for the future. I have been thinking this week about what makes a good person and how we can try to achieve that. I learnt some twenty years ago when I had a nervous breakdown that money, position and power over others were worth nothing in themselves if we did not value our health, our family and the good we can do for others. This is why, when I got better I returned to teaching.

 Aristotle  lived in ancient times and wrote some of the greatest books on how people ought to live. He says of the good person:

“It  belongs to goodness to do good to the deserving and love the good and hate the wicked, and not to be eager to inflict punishment or take vengeance, but to be gracious and kindly. Goodness is accompanied by honesty, reasonableness, kindness, hopefulness, and also by such characteristics as love of home and of friends and of one's fellow-men, and love of what is noble..”

To me, as a psychologist, there is much wisdom in these words of over two thousand years ago. However, they will not necessarily serve you well in the world of wealth, competition and promotion. Nobody gives prizes for honesty, or kindness or for seeking justice for the poor and under-privileged. The prizes go to those who are most competitive in the human jungle, the industrialist who can make his workers unemployed without a thought, a politician who can cut nursery places for poor children, or ourselves ignoring the homeless on our streets.  So, we must behave well and do our best not because it will bring us praise or reward but because it is the right thing to do.

"Coffee! Because you can sleep when you're dead"

It’s no surprise that Costa in Northwood has had to double in size or that the coffee machine in Gwyer is almost always broken. It’s a fact that St Helen’s girls cannot seem to function on a Monday morning without their daily hit of caffeine, whether that be a latte or an espresso. We were intrigued to find out whether this habit is actually enhancing our learning and waking us up, or if it is just becoming an addiction that should be discouraged. 

We did a survey of 20 girls in Year 12 and found that 70% have a least one coffee a day. When these girls were asked whether their daily cup of coffee truly benefited them, or if it was simply more of an addiction, the majority responded in favour of it being beneficial. We were curious to find out if this was in fact true.

We found substantial evidence to show that caffeine has no power to transform us into an alert, energetic machine. Nor does it have the ability to enable us to storm through that 1000 word English essay that we’ve been procrastinating over until 2am on the deadline day. Instead, think of caffeine as some sort of placebo. The effect can often be almost imaginary, especially in the long run. Like nearly all things in life, the more you consume caffeine, the more resilient your body becomes towards it. Sure, your first cup of coffee probably left you feeling full of energy, but from experience that one cup later turns into three a day in order to have the same effects. This is what often leads to caffeine dependency and later a possible addiction. Like any drug addiction, withdrawal is going to be extremely uncomfortable for your body. It can lead to headaches, insomnia, stress and exhaustion – ironically, all the things coffee is meant to prevent in the first place. What coffee does do to you over the course of time is to stop your body from resting. So when you do decide to brave that essay with a coffee (which may seem like your only saviour) you are only damaging your body further. 

So take the morning after you’ve pulled an all-nighter to finish the English homework for example. The only thing you feel like doing is sleeping for eternity, but instead, your alarm rings and it’s time for breakfast. You opt for a coffee because you feel sorry for anyone that has the misfortune to cross you when you’re tired. However you might be interested to know that when you take that reassuring gulp at 7am, you’re actually stimulating your central nervous system. Adenosine (a neurotransmitter) binds to its receptors in the brain when it is created. This fusion causes you to feel drowsy by slowing down the nerve cell activity. Caffeine is, in simple terms, disguised to look like adenosine. It fools the receptors to allow itself to join onto it just as the adenosine would do.

Adenosine usually causes the blood vessels in the brain to dilate, meaning more oxygen can get into it during sleep, however the caffeine creates the opposite effect. This is why many headache medicines contain coffee, as the constriction of blood vessels can help to stop a headache. Caffeine also causes increased neuron (fancy word for brain cells) firing in the brain and the pituitary gland, which controls hormones, senses this and assumes an emergency is occurring. It releases hormones which tell the adrenal glands to release some adrenaline. We’re sure you’ve all experienced the release of adrenaline when you’ve spotted a huge spider whilst in the shower or watched a scary movie but here are its main effects: 
• Your pupils dilate
• Heart beats faster
• Blood pressure rises 
• Liver releases sugar into bloodstream for extra energy
• Blood vessels on surface of skin constrict 
• Muscles tighten

These are all explanations as to why, after your numerous hits of caffeine, you feel excited, your heart beats faster and your muscles are tensed. Although these effects seem rather dramatic for just a hot drink, none of these have any real detrimental impact on our bodies if you moderate your intake of caffeine.

Overall, our aim for this blog was not to run costa out of business, but instead to give light to the other side of coffee. In no way are we suggesting you give up on that treat every morning, but instead, think more carefully about why you are drinking it… and maybe next time, try opting for a decaf with your toast.

Hi Exciting News ! The blog will be edited by Y12 from now on!

Hi Exciting News ! The blog will be edited by Y12 from now on!

Maisy Tracey, Ellen Weerasekera and Melissa Clark will now be running the Tea & Toast Psychology blog. Ideas are welcome, so please get in touch via school emails if you want to contribute towards this blog!

A few ideas we have for upcoming posts are:
- The long term effect of caffeine, energy drinks and performance enhancing drugs on our bodies and brains
- How the Paralympics have altered the nation's views on disability
- Is it cool to get good grades?
- Should there be a stricter dress code for Sixth Formers? And would this increase concentration levels?
And more...

We're really excited to get working on this blog and we hope we can maintain Dr. Brown's standard!
Please feel free to email or come and find us with feedback or any ideas.

 

Try, Try and Try again...

 Your Potentiial is as Good as you Think it is…

 

 

I have been a teacher for forty years I believe in the power of learning and knowledge for good. I don’t believe that human potential is limited and neither does Carol Dweck who is Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, New York. She is a leader in the field of student motivation and her research is widely recognised. Over many years she has developed a highly influential theory of student motivation building on the work of others, notably on ‘attribution theory' – what we attribute for our failures and successes.

She divides students into two types, based on the student's own belief about their ability.

Fixed IQ theorists: These students believe that their ability is fixed, probably at birth, and there is very little if anything they can do to improve it. They believe ability comes from talent rather than from the slow development of skills through learning. “It's all in the genes”. Either you can do it with little effort, or you will never be able to do it, so you might as well give up in the face of difficulty. E.g. “ I can't do maths”.

Untapped Potential theorists : These students believe that ability and success are due to learning, and learning requires time and effort. In the case of difficulty one must try harder, try another approach, or seek help etc.

About 15% of students are in the middle, the rest are equally divided between the two theories. Surprisingly there is no correlation between success at school and the theory the student holds.

Differences in performance only show when the student is challenged or is facing difficulty , for example when a student moves from school to college. Then research has shown that the ‘Untapped Potential Theorists' do very much better, as one might expect.

It is possible to move students from the Fixed IQ theory to the Untapped Potential theory.

 It's a matter of persuasion of course.

Many teachers, myself included, thought that “it's obvious” that learning is worth the effort and can produce improvement. But almost half of students at every level, do not share this view. The challenge to change their view will be well rewarded.

Why bother with ? A recent review of research by Hattie, Biggs and Purdie into the effectiveness of teaching programmes found that the programmes that had the greatest effect focussed on the ‘attribution' by students of what affected their learning – this is precisely Dweck's focus. Whether students attribute their success to something they can change or to something they can't is immensely influential, and this attribution can be changed. The effect sizes found by Hattie et al showed that work on attribution can improve a student's performance by between two and three grades!

 

Hattie, J., Biggs, H. & Purdie, N. (1996) Effects of learning skills interventions on student learning: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 66(2), 99-136.

 

Aubade....

Aubade, when we greet the dawn. The following is from a poem by Phillip Larkin, his thoughts on a sleepless night,

"This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round. "

Sombre thoughts of a man with no faith and no way of reconciling himself to his final "goodbye".This is the time of the year when we say farewell and assess the meaning of the school year which has gone. For those of us in Year 13 it means, for some, the end of a life in St.Helen's which began when they were four or five. For some staff it either means moving on to new posts or maybe to retirement. This set me thinking about saying goodbye - a part of life which none of us find easy and can cause us great sadness whether it is to a friend for the summer hols or to a much loved pet. I was reading this morning about Ben Fogle's distress on having to have his beloved dog Inca put to sleep. Then, of course, when we have to say goodbye to people we love.

Ella Fitzgerald sings a marvellous version of the Cole Porter song " Everytime we say Goodbye". The next line runs "I die a little" does that not decribe the great loss we feel when we say goodbye to one we love even if it's for weeks rather than years ? As a psychologist this sense of loss and saying goodbye is to me a very important phenomena. This is because it is one of our most profound feelings. In books, films, music and art the act of saying "goodbye" is one of the most powerful swayers of emotion. It is something with which we can all identify because we have all felt it.

My personal favourite is the final movement of Mahler's ninth symphony where he described its ending as being like a tiny white cloud fading into the eternal blue of the sky. A metaphor for death as many "goodbyes" are.

Our distaste for goodbyes is a reminder of our unfathomable mutual dependence on each other. Our self cannot come into being, let alone endure without the recognition of others. We depend on others not only to nourish our material persons, but to sustain our character -who we are.
Recognition is as essential to the self as food is to the body. That humans are social animals, understates the case. We are all interdependent body and soul.Deprive us of human contact and we begin to disintegrate. That's why solitary confinement is torture.

The American poet Emily Dickinson wrote,

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

Emily knew that what stands between us and exile is affiliation- friendship, family call it what you like.Self-reliance is a myth. Have you noticed that older  people  tell the same stories over and over   again ?   They are    desperately trying to shore up their  identities that, because of a   lack of recognition, are breaking down. By telling us their stories, they are staving off the disintegration of self, one day at a time. You can't really blame them--their struggle is at once heroic and tragic. That you've heard it all before is a measure of their need to repeat themselves. One day, you too may need an understanding  ear.

Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. ...this is the magic glass... .

So spoke Captain Ahab in Melville's Moby Dick. Without that "magic glass," we gradually cease to be. I see you seeing me and I exist. I see you seeing me see you and we exist. Mutual recognition is the glue that holds us together, not merely as friends, but as individual selves. In co-creating and exchanging a blizzard of signals, verbal and non-verbal, we are reinforcing the synapses that form the neural nets that encode our very self.

Good-byes are poignant preludes to the leave-takings and withdrawals that deprive our minds of the support they need to maintain our selfhood. As such, every good-bye is a premonition of disintegration, a foretaste of death, another step on the path to "adieu."
No wonder we're not fond of good-byes. Which brings us back to Larkin and his aubade...
Despite the sombre tone of this blog I hope you all have a wonderful and happy summer holiday.

Dr.Brown

Trashing Teens

Does society under estimate the abilities and coping capacities of teenagers ? Does society now place too many restrictions on them ? I'm sure St.helen's girls will have strong opinions on this subject.Psychologist Robert Epstein argues in a provocative book, "The Case Against Adolescence," that teens are far more competent than adults assume, and most of their problems stem from  the restrictions placed on them. This is a recent article from Psychology Today. People of my age (63) notice that young people remain juvenile into their twenties an age when most of us had jobs, mortgages and or/children.

Psychologist Robert Epstein spoke to Psychology Today's Hara Estroff Marano about the legal and emotional constraints youth.
HEM: Why do you believe that adolescence is an artificial extension of childhood?
RE: In every mammalian species, immediately upon reaching puberty, animals function as adults, often having offspring. We call our offspring "children" well past puberty. The trend started a hundred years ago and now extends childhood well into the 20s. The age at which Americans reach adulthood is increasing—30 is the new 20—and most Americans now believe a person isn't an adult until age 26.

The whole culture collaborates in artificially extending childhood, primarily through the school system and restrictions on labour. The two systems evolved together in the late 19th-century; the advocates of compulsory-education laws also pushed for child-labour laws, restricting the ways young people could work, in part to protect them from the abuses of the new factories. The juvenile justice system came into being at the same time. All of these systems isolate teens from adults, often in problematic ways.
Our current education system was created in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was modelled after the new factories of the industrial revolution. State schools set up to supply the factories with a skilled labour force, crammed education into a relatively small number of years. We have tried to pack more and more in while extending schooling up to age 24 or 25, for some segments of the population. In general, such an approach still reflects factory thinking—get your education now and get it efficiently, in classrooms in lockstep fashion. Unfortunately, most people learn in those classrooms to hate education for the rest of their lives.
The factory system doesn't work in the modern world, because two years after graduation, whatever you learned is out of date. We need education spread over a lifetime, not jammed into the early years—except for such basics as reading, writing, and perhaps citizenship. Past puberty, education needs to be combined in interesting and creative ways with work. The factory school system no longer makes sense.
What are some likely consequences of extending one's childhood?
Imagine what it would feel like—or think back to what it felt like—when your body and mind are telling you you're an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you're a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It's hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.
We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other "children." In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.
How is adolescent behavior shaped by societal strictures?
One effect is the creation of a new segment of society just waiting to consume, especially if given money to spend. There are now massive industries—music, clothing, makeup—that revolve around this artificial segment of society and keep it going, with teens spending upward of $200 billion a year almost entirely on trivia.
Ironically, because minors have only limited property rights, they don't have complete control over what they have bought. Think how bizarre that is. If you, as an adult, spend money and bring home a toy, it's your toy and no one can take it away from you. But with a 14-year-old, it's not really his or her toy. Young people can't own things, can't sign contracts, and they can't do anything meaningful without parental permission—permission that can be withdrawn at any time. They can't marry, can't have sex, can't legally drink. The list goes on. They are restricted and infantilized to an extraordinary extent.
In recent surveys I've found that American teens are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many as incarcerated felons. Psychologist Diane Dumas and I also found a correlation between infantilization and psychological dysfunction. The more young people are infantilized, the more psychopathology they show.
What's more, since 1960, restrictions on teens have been accelerating. Young people are restricted in ways no adult would be—for example, in some states they are prohibited from entering tanning salons or getting tattoos.
You believe in the inherent competence of teens. What's your evidence?
Dumas and I worked out what makes an adult an adult. We came up with 14 areas of competency—such as interpersonal skills, handling responsibility, leadership—and administered tests to adults and teens in several cities around the country. We found that teens were as competent or nearly as competent as adults in all 14 areas. But when adults estimate how teens will score, their estimates are dramatically below what the teens actually score.


Well, you've read some of the evidence and ideas - what do you think ? Are we over-protective of teen agers ?

Evidence from Research on SNS

These are comments from the actual 2011 research into teen behaviour on SNS sites. Notice how people feel free to write what they like, no matter how cruel, and how this frequently can lead to physical violence. The first statement is about a boy whose Facebook page was full of homophobic messages. "Yeah, and, like, a bunch of people from this school, like, attacked his page and, like, wrote really, really homophobic things on it." Often teens felt bolder, ruder, or more empowered because they did not fear physical violence in the online space. One middle school girl told us that she thought people were ruder online “because you can’t hurt anybody online. You can’t punch nobody through the screen.” MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRL 1. “I think I act ruder to online people. MODERATOR. You act ruder? How come? MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRL 2. Because she doesn’t have to see them, so they can’t beat her up.” For some teens we spoke with – particularly middle school girls – fights and drama on social media flowed back and forth between school, the street, and Facebook, often resulting in physical fights during the in-person portions of the conflict. MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRL: I read what they were talking about online, then I go offline and confront the person who was saying something to her. MIDDLE SCHOOL GIRL: …Like that’s how most people start fighting because that’s how most of the fights in my school happen – because of some Facebook stuff, because of something you post, or like because somebody didn’t like your pictures. One middle school girl detailed the circular flow of conflict between her social network site and her in-person life, and the ways that she, at her mother’s behest, tries to break the cycle. “…the other day, Monday, I was not cool with somebody and so they tried to put on their status something about me. But I didn’t reply to that because my mother told me not to say nothing back because she didn’t want anything more to happen.” She further explains a physical fight she was supposed to have and the ways in which others taunted her offline and online about her allegedly skipping out on the conflict. She describes her attempts to ignore online comments made about her “ducking” the fight, until the taunting escalated to insulting her friend. Again, I would be interested in your comments ?

Noureen on the Net

Some thoughtful views of Noureen on the Net.I have often heard people discuss friends on SNS and say they are "loud on facebook" but not always loud in person. Maybe it is not a way for people to cyber bully others, but its a way of communication where people feel it is easier for them to speak up. Some people are shy in person but active users of SNS at home, in their comfort zones. Others, however, may be cruel to others on SNS without realising it. For example, many young teens like to "tag" people on photos to see "who is your smartest friend?" or "who is your shortest friend" and some people may find this offensive. Because of the advances of SNS, bullying could multiply after one person encourages it. People can 're-tweet' and share what their friends have already written so more and more people can see their posts. This multiplying effect may be how bullying can turn into such a wide-spread act, by a simple click. I can personally say that I have seen cruelty on SNS, usually written as sarcasm, which is all the more worse. Nonetheless, SNS bring out the people who stand up for each other so SNS can bring many people together. Noureen

Nice v Nasty The Net and Us

Many of us are members of social networking sites such as Facebook. It can be a good way of keeping in touch with our friends and sharing information. However, a study last year, 2011, looked at how often people saw mean or cruel comments compared with generous and helpful ones. This is especially important at the moment because of the prevalence of cyber bullying which can be very harmful to those subjected to it. Do people feel free to say things on Facebook they would never say face to face ? Some people hide behind nicknames and keep their profile anonymous. Is it best to leave SNS alone and read a good book ? SNS means ‘social networking sites. I want to have a closer look at this study because its findings are relevant to all of us. Adult SNS users were asked a question that did not appear in the teen survey: “When you’re on a social networking site, how often do you see people being generous or helpful?” Some 39% of adult SNS users said they frequently saw acts of generosity, 36% said they sometimes saw it, 18% said they saw it “only once in a while” and 5% said they never saw it. The SNS users who were most likely to say they frequently saw people being generous or helpful included whites (41%), college graduates (45%), and those living in households earning $75,000 and above (46%). This was an American study and these results showed that people who were white, well-educated and relatively well-paid saw less cruelty than others. Why might other groups be more likely to be cruel to each other ? When it came to unpleasant behaviour on SNS, adults have seen their share, but it tends to be evident to them far less frequently than it is to teen SNS users. Both groups were asked the same question: “When you’re on a social networking site, how often do you see people being mean or cruel?” Some 49% of SNS-using adults said they saw mean or cruel behaviour displayed by others at least occasionally, far lower than the 88% of SNS-using teens who said they had seen mean or cruel behaviour at some point. Moreover, 29% of SNS-using adults said they had never seen mean or cruel behaviour on the sites, compared with 11% of teens who said they had never seen it. Social network site users reported quite similar rates of witnessing mean and cruel behaviour as their younger peers in the teen cohort: 9% of SNS-users said they frequently saw mean and cruel behavior; 25% of them see it sometimes; 48% see it “only once in a while”; and 16% said they had never see it. Frequent users – those who use SNS at least once a day – are also more likely to see mean or cruel behaviour more often. So why is it that teens are use Facebook to be cruel to each other on a wide scale ? Is it because it’s used as another way of bullying people who are bullied at school ? I would be interested in your comments – you can contact me on school email. Dr.Brown.

A Sense of Unimportance

A Sense of Unimportance I’m going to write today about humility. It’s not highly regarded as a virtue and can remind us of the hypocritical Uriah Heep who was “ever so ‘umble” while being just the opposite, or those who live in the background and never put themselves forward. Winston Churchill cruelly remarked, when someone said the then Prime minister Clement Attlee was a humble man “...he has a lot to be humble about.” So, dull and unmemorable: is that what humility means? As a psychologist I find it a fascinating topic because it is quite rare and I have found it most in people who have other positive qualities to their lives including kindness and generosity. I first started to think about it when, many years ago, I was teaching in a convent school and Sister Mary Christa, asked me to take a school assembly on St. Joseph the husband of Mary and the natural father of Jesus. I scratched my head, he didn’t do much , how could I spread a man who had a bit part in nativity plays over half an hour ? Then I thought that is precisely it: Joseph never sought the limelight, he accepted Mary’s explanation of her pregnancy and became his legal father. Of course, there are those who will think him a fool for doing this but Joseph believed the promises of God. It taught me a lot about humility, so often we don’t listen to others because we want to put our point of view across. We talk endlessly about ourselves and our possessions and our successes in life. We hardly ever talk about when we have been depressed , or broken, or have failed. For our psychological health we need a sense of our self-unimportance and a sense of humour to mock our ambitions and pretensions. Our character is formed from self-knowledge and facing challenges that really test us, not from boasting and exaggerating our achievements. The importance of humility is that we can put our own needs into perspective, "If I could buy that man for what he is worth and sell him for what he thinks he is worth I could make a fortune!"

EXAM' NERVES ?

I don’t need to tell you that we are now in the exam’ season. The RBH will be full of people with their heads down writing furiously in a few more days .I have already had emails concerning difficult topics to revise and requests for notes on alternatives. It’s not a good idea to decide now that some topics are just too hard to revise so I’ll mug up another one. So why do we panic at exam’ time and what can we do about it ? Almost everyone feels nervous before an exam. Butterflies in the stomach and worrying thoughts - 'Will I be able to answer the questions?' 'Have I done enough revision?' - are indications of exam nerves that are probably familiar to all students. In fact, a certain amount of nervous tension probably helps us perform to the best of our ability, producing a rush of adrenaline that helps us to feel alert and focused. But too much anxiety can BLOCK thoughts, create a negative frame of mind, and lead to panic and potentially poor exam performance. There are a number of things you can do to help manage exam anxiety and turn uncomfortable, panicky thoughts into more creative tension. Before the exam It's hard to panic if you are feeling relaxed. Try to establish a pattern of revision that gives you time to relax, especially last thing at night. Experiment until you find the best way of relaxing to suit you - a long bath, exercise, listening to music, a relaxation tape available in all good health shops. Relaxation and positive stress management techniques can be learned and acquired with practice – remember my advice on swimming ? Knowing how to relax is invaluable in the lead-up to exams, and on the day itself. If you think you are under-performing in exams due to exam anxiety or panic, do think ahead and seek help. It helps to feel as well-prepared as possible. As well as thinking about the subjects you are revising, it can be useful to pay attention to practical aspects of the exam. Find out where it is scheduled to take place and how long it will take you to get there. It's a good idea to go and look at the room so that it feels more familiar. This is true even of one you use every day like the RBH. Make sure you know the rules and regulations about what you can take into the exam room etc. Put yourself into a positive frame of mind by imagining how you would LIKE things to go. Imagine yourself turning up for the exam feeling confident and relaxed - try to picture it in as much detail as possible. Rather like rehearsing for a part in a play, this can replace negative, anxious thoughts with more positive ones. Don't work to the last minute on the night or morning before the exam. Last-minute revision may leave you feeling muddled and anxious. In the exam Here are some tried and tested remedies to the 'I can't answer anything' feeling and other worrying thoughts about exams. When you get into the exam room and sit down, the following approach can help settle your nerves: Take a deep breath in and a long breath out Breathe in again and straighten your back - as if someone were pulling a lever between your shoulder blades Look straight ahead at something inanimate (the wall, a picture, the clock...) and focus your mind on the positive thought 'I CAN DO this exam' as you breathe out. Take another deep breath in and a long breath out. Then breathe normally. You have some minutes to read the paper, so do so thoroughly. If you begin to feel panicky again, repeat the focusing exercise. Panicking will stop you reading carefully, so it is important to keep yourself focused and positive. Read the whole paper once, then read it again and mark the questions you think you can answer. Then read those questions carefully - make sure you understand what is required - and select the ones you are going to answer. Decide on the order in which you'll answer the questions. It is usually best to begin with the one you feel most confident about. Think about how you will plan your time, and stick to your plan. Plan out your answer for each question as you go. If you find that thoughts or ideas about other questions come into your head, jot them down on a separate piece of paper - don't spend time thinking about them now. Many people don’t plan – if your thoughts are dis-organised it shows. If your concentration wanders or you begin to feel panicky, you could try the focusing exercise again, or use one of the following techniques to help you overcome anxious thoughts. If you are worried that you haven't got time to spare on this, remember that taking 5 or 10 minutes may save you spending the rest of the exam in a state of panic. Anxiety management techniques Thought-stopping technique When we become anxious we begin to have negative thoughts ('I can't answer anything', 'I'm going to panic' etc). If this is happening, halt the spiralling thoughts by mentally shouting 'STOP!'. Or picture a road STOP sign, or traffic lights on red. Once you have literally stopped the thoughts, you can continue planning, or practise a relaxation technique. Creating very mild pain Pain effectively overrides all other thoughts and impulses. Even very mild pain - such as lightly pressing your fingernails into your palm - can block feelings of anxiety. Some people find it helpful to place an elastic band around one wrist, and lightly twang it when they are becoming anxious. Use a mantra Derived from meditation, a mantra is a word or phrase which you repeat to yourself. Saying something like 'calm' or 'relax' under your breath or in your head, over and over again, can help defuse anxiety. Focusing Looking out of the window, noticing the number of people with red hair, counting the number of desks in each row... all help to distract your attention from anxious thoughts and keep your mind busy. Mental games such as making words out of another word or title, using alphabetical lists etc are all good forms of distraction. Bridging objects It can help to carry or wear something with positive associations with another person or place. Touching this bridging object can be comforting in its own right, then allow yourself a few minutes to think about the person or situation which makes you feel good. This can have a really calming effect. Self-talk In exam anxiety or panic we often give ourselves negative messages, 'I can't do this' 'I'm going to fail' 'I'm useless'. Try to consciously replace these with positive, encouraging thoughts: 'This is just anxiety, it can't harm me', 'Relax, concentrate, it's going to be OK', 'I'm getting there, nearly over'. Whichever of the distraction techniques has worked for you, finish by going through the refocusing exercise (it only takes 30 seconds or so, but may have a profound effect on your ability to believe in yourself and the task in hand). Different techniques work for different people, so it's worth experimenting to find the ones that are right for you. Developing techniques for managing panic can take time, so it pays to keep practising. And GOOD LUCK 

REVISION!

REVISION Dos and don’ts DO – revise in short bursts. Your brain has an attention span of 20 minutes and then it starts to switch off. Revise for 20 minutes then have a break of at least 10 minutes. An ideal plan is as follows: Organise – 5 minutes Revise – 20 minutes Set questions on what you have revised – 5 minutes Go away (watch TV, sing, dance – NO COMPUTER or MOBILE) Come back after 10 minutes – answer the questions you set Look at how much you managed to remember and look up the stuff you didn’t know Consolidate – summarise into bullet points / pictures / poster what you learned Don’t come back to this topic today! If you do this kind of revision for THREE topics in one revision session, you should then have a break of at least TWO hours before you start revising again. DON’T – don’t confuse quantity with quality – you can spend a whole day revising solidly and it will not be as effective. The brain gets tired and the mind gets bored. You will find yourself easily distracted and will get tired quicker. This may lead to you feeling that you have ‘ticked the box’ for revision but you have not actually learned anything! Use your time more effectively for effective learning. DO – look after yourself. Revising is hard work and you need to keep your body and brain fed and watered if you want it to work for you. The brain uses a lot more calories in the form of pure glucose and this can leave you dehydrated and unable to concentrate. You should aim to drink glucose drinks (safely!) and eat sugary foods while you are revising- but not too much! This should only be for a short space of time as the sugar drop after two hours will leave you unable to concentrate – you should then eat carbohydrates and drink plenty of water or sugar free drinks to restore your body’s sugar balance. Do not follow this advice if you have underlying health issues (e.g. diabetes, hypoglycaemia, food intolerance etc.) DON’T –don’t drink high energy drinks or caffeine based drinks (Kick, coffee, Red Bull) – these will not help you to revise. The concentration of glucose is too high and the brain will become over stimulated making you easily bored and easily distracted. DO – revising is stressful and you often do not see the effects of the stress that you are under. Your body is being exposed to steroids and hormones that you are unaware of – exam stress is constant and underlying all of your thoughts regardless of whether you are feeling prepared or not! Your glands are releasing cortisol and adrenalin and these are both having harmful effects on your body and mind. You need to counteract this by forcing yourself to relax – the two best ways to combat stress of a mental nature are through physical activity and water. Going for a run, a fast walk, a bike ride or simply running up and down the stairs a few times in between topics when revising will work miracles! If you are revising with a friend, find a physical activity that you can both do – it should only last for about 10 minutes otherwise it will be counterproductive as prolonged exercise will release hormones to make you sleep! The other way to beat stress is through water – a soak in the bath, standing in a hot shower or simply getting the washing up liquid, a whisk and some jugs and playing in the sink for 20 minutes will restore your relaxation. Water is excellent for stress – trust the thousands of generations that have gone before you and treat yourself to some Radox! Obviously swimming combines water and exercise and is the ultimate stress releaser. Swimming is the ideal stress buster and we have a pool on site...go figure! DON’T – try not to add to your body’s stress by giving it more toxins to deal with. Smoking and alcohol will put your body under physical stress when it is trying to cope with the mental stress of revising and exam pressure. No one who takes their health seriously should smoke or drink (if they are over 18) to excess. DO – use your brain! You have learned about memory – use that knowledge to get the best grade!! You know that smells, different places and moods will help you to remember. You also know that the more you process the information, the more you remember. I have discussed memory in a previous blog. You also know that if the information is meaningful (semantic processing) you will remember it more! Use this information – process your notes. Reading them over is STRUCTURAL processing – the worst kind for revision! The more you change the information, the more it will be rehearsed and transfer into the long term memory. Use all of your senses – make your notes colourful, use certain smells for certain difficult topics, draw pictures or act out research, use phonetic processing – speak your notes out loud, preferably in a different accent. Trust me – these do work! Work hard now and it will mean less in the summer….

We are all actors By DAVID NANTON

The most useless piece of advice anyone can ever give another person is to “be yourself”. Be yourself. Just… Be… Yourself. This is nonsense of the highest order. I can’t think of a single function in life where just being yourself is appropriate. Someone once told me before a big job interview to relax and be myself. I told them that, all things being equal, being myself on that particular day would involve me sitting in a vat of champagne and Häagen-Dazs ice cream with ’80s rock bands blaring out on endless loops. My friend didn’t want me to be myself. My friend wanted me to lie. And why wouldn’t she? If everyone actually listened when people told them to just be themselves, society would crumble. Except maybe America. They might survive. Truth is, 95 percent of every conversation I have is nonsense. I doubt you’re much different. From a staff meeting at work to conversations with a friend to intellectual discourses on whether or not football should introduce goal-line technology, it’s all almost entirely bogus. This is not to say that I am constantly lying. I am not, or at least not at a blistering 95 percent clip. It’s just to say that human nature dictates that we keep most of what we’re really thinking to ourselves and limit our actions to what other people will find acceptable. Every conversation has an agenda, whether it’s to win favour, to order a steak or just not to get fired. We are only talking to get us through the conversation so that we get can back to being lost inside our own head. (Of course, what’s really going on up in there does slip out into the open on occasion and – shock, horror! – the results are not always pretty.) More accurately: We are talking so that people will see us the way we would like to be seen. That image above, the one with me soaked in alcohol and ice cream... well… as pleasurable as it might seem, that’s not the way I’d like to be known. Frankly, it might have been a mistake to even mention it. No, no, I’d much rather you see me as the chilled-out Londoner, the one who means well, the one who remembers your birthday, the one who jumps around all excited when he sees you, the one who wants you to remember him fondly… what a great guy, that David. I’m constantly playing the role of David, and depending on whom I’m talking to, the role is played by a different actor. If I’m at work, I try to be the quiet, affable hard-working gent just trying to do his job and be left alone. With a girl, I’m the loyal, funny, sweet guy who wants her to be happy. With my mates I’m just one of the lads, watching sports and making fun of everyone we know. With my parents I’m the sensible kid they don’t have to worry too much about. Occasionally, I’m just a moody grump. Am I really all of those people? Sure. In little sections, small parts of my personality, I’m a segment here, a segment there. It’s not like I’m lying to them. I’m just giving them each a part that’s appropriate for the situation. You do the same thing. It’s like the stuff you write on Facebook… wait, no… it’s more like a bookshelf you prominently display in your flat; it’s not like you’ve actually read all those books. You just want people to see your books and think something about you without you telling them. Umberto Eco next to Bill Bryson… he’s so *eccentric!* I’m whatever I need to be at that moment. I’m whatever I want you to want me to be. Stick with me here. You have to know what I’m talking about. Surely, the conversations you have with your parents are dramatically different than the ones you have with your partner, just like those are different than the ones you have with your close friends, just like those are different than the ones you have with your colleagues, classmates or teachers, and on and on. You’re shifting on the fly. You know when you get a phone call at school from someone who wants to talk about something personal that you’re not comfortable discussing next to the nosey colleague or classmate? That’s two worlds colliding, right there. Which one is the real you? The easy answer is to say the personal one, but which role do you spend more hours a day playing? At what point does the performer become the individual? Does it even matter? You know what we are? We’re Voltron. Do any of the over-30s remember Voltron? You had five little robot dogs, or something, they were metal, that I remember, and you’d piece them all together to make one monstrous Super Voltron. The little pieces fit together, each part representing something small but vital. No. I don’t like the Voltron analogy, though it really was a great toy. How about those little Russian dolls, like the ones on Mr Terris’ desk, where one doll fits in a bigger one, that fits in a bigger one, that fits in a bigger one? That’ll work. The smallest doll is the one who you are, and the rest are just the layers used to disguise that fact. But to any observer, the largest doll IS all there is to see. So isn’t that doll the real one? Does having something underneath that’s “real” but no one ever sees allow it to be “real”? Are we just what people see? I found out the other day, almost accidentally, that a good friend of mine has tried heroin. Now, I’m not being judgmental here, though heroin doesn’t necessarily seem like my cup of tea — what with the soiling yourself, tendency toward self-mutilation and willingness to sell your own mother if it’ll lead to another hit. This is not the type of guy who has tried heroin. This is the type of guy can name all 70 British Prime Ministers — there have been 70, right? — wears ties to work and is probably seen as legit middle management material at his nice City corporate complex. And he’s done heroin. I cannot square this with the person I know; I can’t even conjure a mental picture of him having a drink. (I try to imagine him with a tourniquet with Post-It notes on it in his briefcase, or producing an Excel document with different syringe classifications.) But he has. Does that mean the person I know is a fake? I would argue not. I would argue that he’s just as real as the one who did heroin; he’s real to me. I’m sure the people he did heroin with have never heard him defend Tory policy. I have. That’s as real as anything. That’s worse than the drugs, actually. But who is he to himself? Can he make peace with the disparity? Deep down, at the end of the day, when someone tells him to “be himself,” what does he think of? Does it make a difference? Hmmm…. I think the public face we attach to ourselves can often be far more real than any layers or shading that we convince ourselves we have. So the part of David will be played today by the quirky, funny guy, until it’s the serious, contemplative guy, until it’s the loving boyfriend guy, until it’s the responsible son or the quiet employee. We’ll be whatever makes it easier to get through the day, to make it to the next day, and to the next day. And at the end of the day, in the quiet, we are alone with ourselves, wondering what role we play now. The prospect is so terrifying that Nature was merciful enough to require us to sleep. If that’s not a persuasive definition of what it means to be alive, I’m not sure what is.

Why do we need a brain ?

Why Do We Need a Brain?It turns out that we evolved brains for acting. I am going to ask you a simple question simple question, “Why do humans need a brain?” At first, this seems like a silly question with an obvious answer. “You need a brain to stay alive,” is the most common response and indeed this is true. You would be dead without your brain, which is why “brain dead” is usually the legal definition of death. Someone is brain dead when there is a lack of reflex responses controlled by the brain stem, the most fundamental structures at the core of the brain that control the vital functions. However, keeping you alive is not the sole responsibility of the brain. The same could also be said of your other major organs including the heart, liver and lungs. While it is true that these can all be successfully transplanted whereas a brain transplant is neither possible nor desirable (the topic of forthcoming blogs), it is not the case that to be alive depends on having a brain. There are many animals that are alive that do not have brains. They may have simple nervous systems but they do not have brains as such. There are even some animals that start off with a brain that they later discard. The classic example is the sea squirt that begins life as a tadpole-like creature, swimming around the ocean in search of a suitable rock upon which to attach. It has a simple nervous system to coordinate movements and even a rudimentary eye spot to “see,” but when it finally attaches to the rock, it no longer needs to move around and so digests its own nervous system.

That’s the answer to why we need a brain. The primary purpose of a brain is to move around our environment in a meaningful way. In fact, one could even argue that most of the brain is dedicated towards actions. If we consider that the basic building block of the brain is the neuron, then it comes as a surprise to most to find out that the majority of neurons are not in the association cortex where “higher” thought processes are generated. Of the estimated 86-100 billion, around 80 percent are to be found in the cerebellum, the bulbous structure at the base of the brain at the back that controls our movements. So, we clearly evolved to act rather than to think. People often assume that animals with bigger brains are more intelligent because they have more brain cells. It is true to some extent but it is not the number of neurons that determine intelligence but rather the number of connections between the neurons. So the ‘association cortex’ is just that, the 3mm thick outer layer of the brain that stores information for processing through the vastly interconnected networks of associated activity. And this of course, is the secret to the processing capacity of the brain. This is what makes us human and where our thought processes take place. Each neuron has up to 10,000 connections, which means that the number of potential different patterns of neural activity is virtually infinite. With just 500 neurons you have the potential for more different patterns than the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe! Our big brains are mostly made up of connections between neurons, around 160,000 km—enough in an individual human brain to circumnavigate the equator four times. The purpose of all these connections is to store patterns of neural activity that are the basis for sensations, perceptions, cognitions and other important brain functions we possess. However, we must remember that these abilities all serve the primary function of action. Without the ability to act, we would be completely at the mercy of the environment, which is why we evolved a brain to act on the world. After all, nature doesn’t select for good ideas, it’s action that speaks louder than words. We can use our brains to develop theories about energy but it's bulding wind farms and nuclear power stations that change our environment.

Tea and Toast Psychology: Are Humans Rational ?

Tea and Toast Psychology: Are Humans Rational ?: What does 'rational' means when it applies to human thought ? It means logical, reaching decisions based on the operation of reason ...

IMPROVING MEMORY!

Improving your memory...

It is inevitable as we grow older that our memories fail to function as well as they did when we were young. Older people especially need ways of remembering information it is all too frustrating to find myself walking from Gwyer to main school to find I’ve forgotten why I was going there. A ‘mnemonic’ is another word for a memory tool. Mnemonics are techniques for remembering information that is otherwise quite difficult to recall: A very simple example is the ‘30 days hath September’ rhyme for remembering the number of days in each calendar month. Rhymes and music are excellent ways of training our memory as in simple tunes for learning the alphabet.
The idea behind using mnemonics is to encode difficult-to-remember information in a way that is much easier to remember.
Our brains evolved to code and interpret complex stimuli such as images, colours, structures, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, positions, emotions and language. We use these to make models of the world we live in and to navigate our way around it. Our memories store all of these very effectively. Unfortunately, a lot of the information we have to remember in our daily life is presented differently – as words printed on a page. While writing is a rich way for conveying complex arguments, our brains do not easily encode written information, making it difficult to remember.
Using Your Whole Mind to Remember
The key idea is that by coding information using vivid mental images, you can reliably code both information and the structure of information. And because the images are vivid, they are easy to recall when you need them. The techniques explained here show you how to code information vividly, using stories, strong mental images, familiar journeys, and so on.
You can do the following things to make your mnemonics more memorable:
• Use positive, pleasant images. Your brain often blocks out unpleasant ones.
• Use vivid, colourful, sense-laden images – these are easier to remember than drab ones.
• Use all your senses to code information or dress up an image. Remember that your mnemonic can contain sounds, smells, tastes, touch, movements and feelings as well as pictures.
• Give your image three dimensions, movement and space to make it more vivid. You can use movement either to maintain the flow of association, or to help you to remember actions.
• Exaggerate the size of important parts of the image.
• Use humour! Funny or peculiar things are easier to remember than normal ones.
• Similarly, rude rhymes are very difficult to forget but not too rude...
• Symbols (red traffic lights, pointing fingers, road signs, etc.) can code complex messages quickly and effectively.
Designing Mnemonics: Imagination, Association and Location
The three fundamental principles underlying the use of mnemonics are imagination, association and location. Working together, you can use these principles to generate powerful mnemonic systems.
Imagination: is what you use to create and strengthen the associations needed to create effective mnemonics. Your imagination is what you use to create mnemonics that are potent for you. The more strongly you imagine and visualise a situation, the more effectively it will stick in your mind for later recall. The imagery you use in your mnemonics can be as violent and vivid as you like, as long as it helps you to remember.
Association: this is the method by which you link a thing to be remembered to a way of remembering it. You can create associations by:
• Placing things on top of each other.
• Crashing things together.
• Merging images together.
• Wrapping them around each other.
• Rotating them around each other or having them dancing together.
• Linking them using the same colour, smell, shape, or feeling.
As an example, you might link the number 1 with a goldfish by visualizing a 1-shaped spear being used to spear it.
Location: gives you two things: a coherent context into which you can place information so that it hangs together, and a way of separating one mnemonic from another. By setting one mnemonic in a particular town, I can separate it from a similar mnemonic set in a city. For example, by setting one in Wimbledon and another similar mnemonic with images of Manchester, we can separate them with no danger of confusion. You can build the images and atmosphere of these places into your mnemonics to strengthen the feeling of location.

Noureen on Hope...

Another thoughtful and inspiring blog from Noureen on hope...

Dear Dr Brown,


Below is my opinion on this week's blog on 'Hope':


I believe 'Hope' is something society is very fond of, since we like to be hopeful every time we face a challenge or hurdle in our lives. As you rightly said, hope gives us something to look forward to, something that we anticipate will make the future better and increase our chances of overall happiness. Nevertheless, I don't always think hope is a worthwhile act, since it gives us false assurance that things will change, by us simply wishing for it. We must learn that hope alone is not enough for things to change; we must be active citizens who have the drive to want to create happiness, and not just 'hope' on it.


Can humans ever be hopeful too often? There are many things we hope for; hoping to pass the termly Chemistry test or hoping to call your grandmother tomorrow - it has become so easy for us to hope that the likelihood of such things alike will come true. These are just examples where we should not be hoping for these things to come true, but we should be acting upon them to make sure they come true, even if it means revising for 20 minutes longer for Chemistry, or calling your grandmother on the train to school instead of texting your friends. We should consider when hope is invaluable to us, at times where things are definitely out of our hands. When it comes to finding the cure for cancer or stopping supervolcanoes erupting, hope is all we have got, and that is when I think, hope is our best bet.

Hope...

Daffodils in the Spring are a time of hope. We hope after a dark winter that life will get better. In the school grounds we can see daffodils everywhere at this time of the year. Last week especially we were gifted with fine sunny weather and on certain lunchtimes you could have found me on a seat behind Gwyer reading the Oxford Book of English Verse. Can life have greater pleasures ?

Hope and fear are not mere words or facial gestures. They’re deeply felt neuro-chemical responses towards our current circumstances – that alter our outlooks, our actions, as well as the paths that unfold before us. Fear closes us down. Our actions become rigid and predictable. Pessimism overcomes us and drives our decisions. Our bleak outlooks bleed into our exchanges with family, friends, and colleagues, eroding any collective sense of safety or security. It is when we feel alone and isolated that we are at our most vulnerable. Fear’s negativity also seeps into our bodies and affects our health. We can feel it eating away at our stomachs, raising our stress hormones, and turning our shoulder and neck muscles twisted and stiff.

But what about hope? Do we truly know all that it offers? Can hope lead us out of these dark times?

Hope is not a typical form of being positive. Most positive emotions arise when we feel safe and full. Hope is the exception. It comes into play when our circumstances are dire – things are not going well or at least there’s considerable uncertainty about how things will turn out. Hope arises precisely within those moments when fear, hopelessness or despair seem just as likely. Perhaps we've just failed a test, or been pulled up because our work isn't good enough. Hope, in times like these, is what psychologist Richard Lazarus describes as “fearing the worst but yearning for better.”

Hope literally opens us up. It removes the blinders of fear and despair and allows us to see the big picture. We become creative, unleashing our aspirations for the future. This is because deep within the core of hope is the belief that things can change. No matter how awful or uncertain they are at the moment, things can turn out for the better. Possibilities exist. Belief in this better future sustains us. It keeps us from collapsing in despair. It motivates us to tap into our capabilities and inventiveness to turn things around. It inspires us to build a better future.

Anthropologist Lionel Tiger casts hope as the evolved answer to our big human forebrains. Unlike any other animal, we humans can envision our own futures and, in so doing, all the possible calamities. Without hope, our dire forecasts might reduce us to despair. Yet with hope, we become energised to do as much as we can to solve our current problem, to make a good life for ourselves and for others.

We face serious challenges in all aspects of our lives. The choice of hope over fear is pivotal for all of us. The more hope we cultivate today, the better equipped we’ll be to survive and thrive in the months and years ahead. We’re going to need the openness of hope to face our challenges with clear eyes and to find creative solutions that allow us to come through dark times stronger than ever. So let us be human – let us choose hope and build a better future.

Mr.Inger's Brain Puzzle...

A guest blog from Mr.Inger - are you clever enough to be able to read this ?

I have seen this with the letters out of order, but this is the first time I've seen it with numbers, F1gur471v3ly 5p34k1ng?

Good example of a Brain Study: If you can read this you have a strong mind:

7H15 M3554G3
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H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N
D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5!
1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5!
1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG
17 WA5 H4RD BU7
N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3
Y0UR M1ND 1S
R34D1NG 17
4U70M471C4LLY
W17H 0U7 3V3N
7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17,
B3 PROUD! 0NLY
C3R741N P30PL3 C4N
R3AD 7H15.
PL3453 F0RW4RD 1F
U C4N R34D 7H15.

Resilience Be a Winner!

Resilience...Be a Winner!
Bouncing back... the harder you’re hit the harder you bounce back. Resilience is something that we all need and sometimes it takes real effort and courage.Research has shown that overcoming adversity is something that all children will do, to a greater or lesser extent. Those who are most resilient share similar characteristics and provide insight into how resilience can be cultivated in young people.
The development of resilience is none other than the process of healthy human development

Even for the best-cared for child, the world can seem full of adversity. Think back to some of the big challenges in your life: your first day at school, establishing friendships, your performance for the school sports team, your role in the Christmas pantomime, sitting tests, secondary school – then it starts all over again. Other major challenges for young people include coping with introductions to alcohol, drugs and sex. So, many major issues where we all need to show a degree of grit and resilience.

We’ve all made mistakes in some or all of those areas, but those who bounce back, dust themselves off and start all over again are the ones with resilience. ‘Getting it right’ and appearing ‘cool’ are very important to young people – and any form of failure can be a major set-back.

Research reveals that young people who have most resilience often share certain characteristics such as having:
• A support network in the shape of family, friends, colleagues, teachers etc
• Confidence that they can face up to new and challenging situations
• Enjoyed previous successes on which they can fall back on to remind them that they have overcome adversity in the past.
• Self-esteem where they know NOT to blame themselves.
Resilient children display the following characteristics:

Social competence
They are more responsive than non-resilient children; they bring out more positive responses from others; they are more active and adaptable than other children, even in infancy. Other attributes include a sense of humour (including the ability to laugh at themselves), empathy, caring and communication skills. As a result, they find it easier to form friendships. Studies of young people who face problems with drugs and alcohol reveal that they often lack friends and social competence.

Problem solving skills
The capacity for abstract thought, reflection, flexibility and a willingness to attempt alternative solutions are all signs of resilience. Research into some of the most disadvantaged youngsters in the world – street children – reveals strong planning skills if they are to survive the daily dangers and setbacks that life throws at them.

Autonomy
This about the ability to have a sense of your own identity, the capacity to act independently, and to exert some control over your environment. This is especially important for children living in dysfunctional families where drug addiction, alcohol abuse and mental illness make life very tough. The ability to separate themselves psychologically from their dysfunctional family, to see themselves as separate from their parents illnesses or addictions, or behaviours, gives such children a buffer that can allow them to continue their own development. Psychologists call this ‘adaptive distancing.’

A sense of purpose and future
Ambitions, goals, a desire for achievement, motivation, a desire for educational success, a belief that things will be better in the future, all of these are part of the make-up of the resilient child. Children with a strong ambition – such as achieving sporting excellence – are more able to resist peer pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol. In a school like ours which encourages self-reliance and success every student can be a winner.

Werner & Smith, who carried out a 35-year study into resilience in children, summed up their findings by saying: 'The central component of effective coping with the multiplicity of inevitable life stresses appears to be a sense of coherence, a feeling of confidence that one's internal and external environment is predictable and that things will probably work out as well as can be reasonably expected.' (1982).

And they point out that the above attributes are the direct opposite of the ‘learned helplessness’ so often found in people suffering from mental illness or social problems. Other factors linked to resilience include being healthy and being female, since girls generally are more likely to show resilience than boys.

Our resilience level can be significantly enhanced, or depressed, by the attitudes of the people around us. If we believe that we can change our behaviour and that that we will do better then we will. Decide to be a winner now !

Noureen on Sadness and Divorce

Many thanks to Noureen for her comments on the 'sadness' and 'divorce' blogs. I am really impressed, as always, by the thoughtful and sensitive opinions of St.Helen's girls.

I once read a quotation that has always stuck by me, "Happiness is not something ready made, it comes from your own actions." This is something I believe in, even today, since happiness is contagious and there is no harm in spreading joy around to other people. After all, what benefits come out of being sad. Yes, one may grieve over a death or be sad about getting a B in an exam, but at the end of the day, life is about moving on, thinking about the future and keeping a positive outlook on the world around us. Otherwise, one might just live under a rock in sadness, which leaves us blinded from what the world has to give us.


Additionally, here is my contribution for 'Children, Masks and Divorce':-


I think that the "splitting" of parents can help a child become stronger as a person and learn to be more independant and mature, especially if the divorce takes place while the child is still in primary school. On the other hand, it also can make a child quite confused and possibly not as strong headed as others since they are in sense, masked, living 2 different lives in 2 different homes. Both parents may have different preferences of living their lives, along with how things are arranged in the home and what behaviour is acceptable in the house. The child would have to learn to adapt to different environments very quickly, so to not get in a muddle. I also agree that children from divorced parents would not want to show more sympathy for one parent over another, because this would upset their other parent, and we can't forget that children love both parents equally. Siding with one parent in an argument in one household would not be an issue; the issue arises when parents live in separate houses, since siding with parents is not public to the other parent, and this is where rumours and tales could start in the family. A child with divorce parents definitely has a lot to cope and deal with and it is all the more harder if the divorce is early on in childhood.