REBTOZ

  You Tube Video This presentation introduces or revisits the emotional thermometer or ET for short. EQ or emotional intelligence involves the ability to regulate how we feel and behave so it's useful to alert young people to the idea that how we feel, or the strength of how we feel is not only connected to what happens, the event, but also to our interpretation of what happened. The ET helps young constructivists develop a broader emotional vocabulary that represents various strengths of emotion. Let’s continue. Here we visit again the story of Franklins Bad Day. The day that he believes is bad may not be so, but his fixed ideas or fixed mindset thinking that things should be as he wants them to be, contrives against his emotional and behavioural wellbeing. This story uses the stages of Albert Ellis’ ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance, to analyse a text that will introduce the notion that ‘it isn’t what happens to us that makes us feel and act as we do, but it's how we ...

A teacher colleague was out of sorts it seemed. They had been quiet and reclusive, electing to stay in their classroom because they felt unsafe. They found it hard to come to work and do their job. They were a teacher of high quality and competence, well respected and loved by their students. They were particularly strong in their understanding of children on the autism spectrum and provided highly effective, individualised programs accordingly. A fellow member of staff had taken umbrage at the teachers suggestion that their class move a little quieter around the school so they didn’t disturb others. This was not taken very well, the staff member, whose fragile sensibilities were breeched and who couldn’t handle an adults courteous request spat the proverbial chewy! How dare anyone speak to me like that!  thought the entitled individual and after their little meltdown they went to complain to the acting principal at the time. The acting principal didn’t like the miscreant tea...

Have a Go Spaghettio! Counselling In an ideal teaching and learning world there would be a qualified counsellor in each school across all year levels from preschool to year 12. However, it would be rare to find a qualified counsellor in the junior primary setting, but that aside, what would a counsellor be charged to do in the scheme of early childhood things? Albert Ellis, creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, said the future of psychotherapy is in the school system. What did he mean by that? He was suggesting that teachers can help students understand why they act and feel as they do according to the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance counselling paradigm. What are their constructed beliefs about themselves, others and how the world works? And what can they do about self-defeating and destructive, deeply held irrational beliefs and how do they build new, robust and healthy rational ones? By what means do we bring a model of psychotherapy into the early childhood teaching an...

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...

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...

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...

A semantic disturbance arises when a person’s constructed virtual representation of reality or mind map doesn’t approximate how things are, the territory, the ‘real’ world. Bear in mind that Einstein and others said that reality itself is a persistent illusion, something concocted based on the organism’s assessment of how they believe things are. A poor assessment, one that doesn’t consider the facts available, is a mis conception or misunderstanding. What we believe or tell ourselves about something is semantically inaccurate and therefore a semantic disturbance exists. This is characterised by feelings of upset to varying degrees, or ‘upsetness’ as Dr Albert Ellis says. Alfred Korzybski ’s General Semantics theory tells us the map is not the territory it represents or the word is not the thing it describes. The ‘self’ under construction in the minds of our young Have a Go Spaghettio! audience can be a helpful, healthy Success Helper type or one that is self-defeating, where Brain ...

‘Shouldhood' causes upset or increases the intensity of what, Albert  Ellis calls, our ‘upsetness.’ The degree of ‘upsetness’ caused by our  tendency to think in ‘shoulds’ is what Ellis also calls ‘shithood:’  ‘shouldhood’ leads to ‘shithood ‘ psychologically speaking. Sometimes we might ‘should’ and stop and rethink our ‘shoulding’  reminding ourselves that to demand we should get something we  can’t get is futile. So, we recalibrate, shift our thinking to a more  logical, rational posture. However, if we indulge in ‘should’ thinking on a more permanent  basis, where we continue to demand that things should, absolutely  be  as we demand they should be, then ‘shithood’ is where we end up  until we understand how thinking effects how we feel and behave.  The world is no good, others are no good and/or you are no good  equals ‘SHITHOOD!” ‘Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.’ Shakespeare (Hamlet) The Have a Go S...

Have a Go Spaghettio! teaches children that something about them, 'good' or 'bad' doesn't define them in a global sense. Yet, they/we learn to abstract something, be it a competency or quality, from the many that constitute the 'self' under construction, and decide it 'is' us, we are it! Hence, children can start to think of themselves as good/bad, cute, dumb, ugly etc. Emotional and behavioural upset experienced by the young child, according to Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy theory, on which Have a Go Spaghettio! is based, is linked to irrational, Brain Bully/Success Stopper thinking.   The belief we can be dumb/smart etc. is what General Semantics calls a 'semantic disturbance,' where the persons upset is caused by mis interpretations, mis perceptions.   Brain Friend thinking is taught via the Have a Go Spaghettio! approach to social and emotional well-being which says the person cannot 'be' a w...

This Have a Go Spaghettio! video is a review, reminder that irrational BB thinking is unhelpful thinking and this can be taught explicitly in the teaching and learning context. Albert Ellis, creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, says the future of psychotherapy is in the school system. With the Have a Go approach, it has arrived in early childhood learning. Irrational thinking is that which stops us getting the results we desire or prefer. It dismisses or is ignorant of the reality that sometimes we may not get what we strongly desire to have; people to like us, to do well at tasks, reach our goals. This needn’t be catastrophic unless we believe it to be. The BB belief we are not OK if others think otherwise is an irrational perspective on the worth we apportion to our ‘self,’ i.e., we are worthwhile because we exist not because someone else says we are! Some children will be constructing BB beliefs that undermine their confidence and sense of agency impacting their psychologi...

This Have a Go Spaghettio! video is a review, reminder that rational BF thinking can be taught explicitly in the teaching and learning context. Albert Ellis, creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, says the future of psychotherapy is in the school system. With the Have a Go approach, it has arrived in early childhood learning. Rational thinking is that which helps us get the results we desire or prefer. It accommodates the reality that sometimes we may not get what we strongly desire to have; people to like us, to do well at tasks, reach our goals. This needn’t be catastrophic unless we believe it to be. The BF belief we are OK even if others think otherwise is a rational perspective on the worth we apportion to our ‘self,’ i.e., we are worthwhile because we exist not because someone else says we are! We can help children develop this habit of thinking so it becomes intuitive, automatic, and deeply held. Some children will be constructing such a belief others may not be but ...

The Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper Approach to SEL embodies the thinking and ideas of Dr. Albert Ellis who created Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. His ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is a counselling paradigm used universally to help people navigate their way through life. Here we consider Bullying and how we can best address it as educators in the early childhood context. Jonas Salk hypothesised that we could psychologically immunise our students so that they develop optimum positive mental health. We again revisit the red 'I'm worthwhile crocodile!' habit of thinking which underpins personal agency, assertion, and overall confidence. This video puts forth how the Rational Emotive Behaviour Educator can foster, encourage, and reinforce a mindset that will empower the young child in dealing with challenge, particularly with bullying. Have a go Spaghettio! helps to psychologically immunise our young children against the scourge of bullying as suggested by Jonas...

This video is another look at setting up the Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper classroom. It offers classroom strategies that help to acquaint children with the think, feel, do connection a la Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. Give it a try banana pie! The Success Helper Well Being Framework has been adopted by many schools in Australia. It embodies the thinking and ideas of Dr. Albert Ellis who created Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. His ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is a counselling paradigm used universally to help people navigate their way through life. Ellis' therapeutic approach to wellbeing, mental health promotion/education is influenced by Stoic philosophy, Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics theory, Bertrand Russell's ideas and many more who teach that thinking, feeling, and behaving are all interconnected. The Success Helper Well Being Framework teaches children that they have the potential to manage their extreme and often self-defeating emotions...