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Have a Go Spaghettio! and The ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance

Albert Ellis's ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is a paradigm within Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT). It provides a framework for understanding how our thoughts, beliefs, and events interact to influence our emotional and behavioural responses. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is a psychoeducational teaching and counselling model. The ABC model is a tool used within REBT to help individuals identify, challenge, and deconstruct irrational beliefs and to construct new, more efficient ways of thinking and believing. Have a Go Spaghettio! is an early childhood approach to social, emotional, and behavioural learning based on REBT and the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance paradigm. It teaches young learners that they make (construct) their own habits of thinking that in turn make their emotional and behavioural responses to events. Early learnings about their thinking nature will provide the tools with which they can learn to think about their th...

Breaking Approval Dependence (BAD)

Written by a past member of Approvalists Anonymous, a support group for those who are at risk of becoming *‘love slobs.' This is an REBT perspective (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy) on Breaking Approval Dependence (BAD), a debilitating psychological impediment to happiness and success. ‘I need to be needed.' (Oh no you don’t!) ‘It’s been two weeks since I sat and stewed about how an insignificant other esteems me,’ proclaimed the primary school teacher to the others in the group. Everyone nodded their approval of the reforming 'approvalist' before them, and their fortitude grew as the teacher expounded their newfound belief; ‘what I think of me is more important than how you might assess my personhood.’ ‘Bravo!’ They exclaimed in unison as the AA member added, ‘what you think of me is none of my business!’ As the AA member emerged from the meeting into the cool autumn night, they thought, ‘I approve of me, and I’m OK no matter what!’ To break a habit of a lif...

Ms Prudence Putty-Nose Needs an Ambulance

Ms Prudence Putty Nose wanted to impress her colleagues and her line managers, to demonstrate her dedication to her job and to illustrate just how much of a hit she was taking for the good cause. She pondered a while and considered how she might best get the attention of the esteemers and sycophants, her narcissist suppliers, to keep her fragile ego buoyant. She had been under a fair bit of pressure as she'd been planning the demise of a colleague whose position she coveted and as her line manager also wanted him gone, they concocted a plan to get rid of him. Deceit and unethical collusion with co conspirators was a debilitating and tiring endeavour but it could be used to her advantage. So what did she do? She summoned her close and trusted sycophant others to her office and declared she had been feeling dizzy and needed to lie down. She suggested she may need an ambulance as she had been under a fair deal of pressure. They pandered to her of course and diligently phoned for an am...

Have a Go Spaghettio! and Conservation of the 'Self' - conserving Red Su...

A rational and healthy appreciation of the ‘self’ according to REBT is called unconditional self-acceptance. The ability to maintain its integrity, even in difficult circumstances is to be able to conserve it. If children can learn that their overall worth is not determined by others’ estimation of them, and that an opinion of them cannot ‘be’ them, they will conserve their established unconditional self-acceptance status. This is what I understand conservation of the ‘self’ to be. If children learn to believe that they need others’ approval, that someone’s estimation of them ‘is’ them, they expose themselves to excessive upset, excessive worry, sadness etc. As the ‘self’ in this sense, cannot be stable, and remains reliant on others to determine it’s worth it cannot be conserved. It lacks strength and integrity, it is a ‘self’ that has conditions attached to it and the child will be externally controlled i.e., their sense of self is determined by others and not them. The w...

Have a go Spaghettio! Success Helper Goal Setting

Have a go Spaghettio! Success Helper Goal Setting Personal goals give us some direction, something to aim at. In the Have a Go Spaghettio! classroom we can introduce the idea of personal goal setting. There are 6 Success Helper capabilities or competencies that we can develop to help us to experience success, achieving what we set out to achieve. It is important to remind our young class members that positive feelings are linked to achievement, trying new things and making friends with others. A simple definition of success might be: ‘Success is trying to do stuff, doing my best and feeling good about things.’ Success Helper goal setting can be described and encouraged in reference to the Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper chart in our daily teaching. A day starter might include a reminder that Success Helper goals help us to get better at stuff. The teacher might set things rolling by declaring that their goal is to practice e.g., the Red Success Helper called ‘I’m worthwhil...

Jonno is not a giraffe!

Teaching children that they cannot be any word used to describe them will help them develop a healthy habit of thinking and believing that is intuitive, automatic. This Success Helper or Brain Friend way of thinking is the goal of the Have a Go Spaghettio! approach to social and emotional wellbeing, called ‘I’m worthwhile crocodile’ thinking. What does this mean? Unconditional self-acceptance is understanding that there is no law that says our worth is decided by others appraisal of us or how well or badly we do at tasks. We can e.g., act dumb/smart but we cannot be so. It is a Brain Bully belief when we decide that we ‘are’ our dumbness or smartness because it’s not true, there’s no evidence to support this hypothesis! The Have a Go Spaghettio! approach to social and emotional wellbeing teaches young learners about Brain Friend believing which is rational and supported by the evidence. It is as ridiculous to accept that we can be a giraffe as it is to believe we are or can be dum...