Have a Go Spaghettio! A closer look at D of The ABC of REBT

 

Ms Smithers is determined to teach her young constructivist learners that habits of thinking can be healthy and helpful or unhealthy and unhelpful. She want’s to focus on the D part of the ABC DE of REBT counselling paradigm that she is learning about. This is the part where we ask the question How do you know? And what have you left out?

What do we mean when we say, ‘My friend is mean!’ How do you know? And what have you missed out.

Ms Smithers has compiled a list of expressions, utterances made by children in her class. Here are some:

He’s dumb!

I can’t do this!

No one likes me.

These are discussed and referred to often as Ms Smithers wants to promote a discourse that points to examining what we mean, explaining how we justify our meanings and exploring how what’s left out can challenge what we mean and form new and more accurate meanings. That’s the Have a Go Spaghettio! Way!

Ms Smithers says, “When children present with behaviours and emotions that suggest that Brain Bully thinking’s at work, I help them to identify what it is that’s driving their e.g., anxiety or sadness. Once identified we then talk about the evidence that challenges or DISPUTES the veracity of what Brain Bully is saying. This is the D part of the ABC (DE) Theory of Emotional Disturbance. Change our thinking and change how we feel and act. Helpful thinking is Brain Friend or Success Helper thinking. This is done as a matter of course when, e.g., we are considering 3^rd party characters like Franklin the Turtle in Franklin’s Bad Day.”

Ms Smithers will refer to the class Emotional Thermometer to identify emotions and strength of emotions. She will invite children to consider where a happening might rate on the Catastrophe Scale. This challenges the view that something might be worse than it need be. Brain Bully thinking makes Brain Bully feelings and actions.

Ms Smithers says “As a group we will revisit situations familiar to students as with Franklins Bad Day. We will identify what happened (A) how Franklin felt and acted (C) in response to A, and question Franklin’s mindset at B, what thinking are we suggesting might be driving how Franklin is feeling at C. We have previously determined that Franklin was engaging Brain Bully thinking that was causing Franklin’s extreme upset at C. So, what do we do? Let’s consider the veracity of Franklin’s thinking as B and help him modify what he thinks and therefore how he feels and behaves. This endeavour will remind us all that the belief constructions we make, Brain Friend/Succes Helper and Brain Bully/Success Stopper thinking is linked to how we feel and behave.

“Franklin’s best friend Otter moved away. He felt sad, angry and became aggressive.

This unhelpful and uncharacteristic disposition the children say in the first instance is because Otter moved away and Franklin will only feel OK if Otter comes back. They say he thinks, ‘I can’t be happy. This is not fair!’ But I’m trying to teach them that B has something to do with it. The children think that A makes C, that Franklin feels and acts as he does because A MAKES HIM THIS WAY! I want them to learn that A, what happens plus B, how A is interpreted makes C. We want Franklin to go from an A=C perspective, to a Brain Friend A +B=C perspective.

I ask the children:

 How do we know Franklin isn’t OK.

What does he mean when he thinks that things must be the same?

How does he know this?

What is he leaving out? What other possibilities are there?

Using the Verbal Pollution Free Zone principle of General Semantics, we talk about the evidence that may challenge the ‘how do you know what you think is true’ question.  All work in progress.”

Classroom discourse focuses on the six Success Have a Go Spaghettio! Helper capabilities. We talk about the think – feel – do connection of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. We set ourselves SH goals and work to reach them. We practice unconditional self, other and life acceptance. We say together each day that making a mistake doesn’t make us mistakes! We look out for Brain Bully thinking, and we challenge it to change it to Brain Friend thinking. And we sing the Have a Go Spaghettio! song! Don’t we Ms Buzz.