REBTOZ

What is a  Bonsai  child  ? It's a new term to describe the child who has been over tended to, fussed over and over supervised. When something happens at school an  enquiry  is needed to get to the bottom of 'why Isabella fell out with her friend and what did the school do about it as she is such a  sensitive  child!' Is Isabella temporarily sad or is she depressed. Could be either but it's important to know the difference.  Clinical psychologist and researcher Judith Locke writes in her book The Bonsai Child  "A sense of melancholy is labelled depression; any trepidation is labelled anxiety. A friendship fight is bullying." The Bonsai Child  is her term for children who are over-nurtured. Michael  Carr-Gregg talks about  marshmallow kids  a generation of children who are afraid to fail. Do they experience healthy disappointment when they don't achieve their goals and wants or do they feel unhealthily de...

On the 24 th July eight years ago Albert Ellis died but his work lives on. He would have been encouraged to know that schools have taken up the challenge he set many years ago; teach children how to make themselves less ‘disturbable’. Rational Emotive Behaviour Education is doing this is many South Australian schools with positive outcomes. Teachers have been trained in the understanding and application of Ellis’ ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance and they are helping their students to understand that their habits of thinking are linked to how they act and how they feel. Gone but not forgotten This insight empowers the child to monitor and assess how she is feeling and how she is estimating (thinking about/interpreting) the situation at hand. How am I feeling? Is this situation as bad as I think it is? I can reassess this situation so that I remain in control and make OK choices. Rational Emotive Behaviour Educators (REBE’rs) remind students daily that their ...