Should you prioritise teaching of optimism during the COVID-19 outbreak?
The new coronavirus was first reported in the city of Wuhan, China, and as it spread throughout the country, over 180 million Chinese students were confined to their homes. Since then, globally, many more million students have been in lockdown mode too. What can we learn from 1,784 Chinese children who completed an online survey that were asked about their optimism towards the COVID-19 epidemic and their worry about being infected with the virus? These children had been home for an average of 34 days.
Results showed that around 23% of students showed depressive symptoms and about 19% showed symptoms of anxiety. These numbers are higher than what is typically seen in young Chinese children, which suggest that the loss of normal activities may have impacted the mental health of children in lockdown. It is likely that the reduction of outdoor activities and social interaction may have been associated with an increase in children’s depressive symptoms. When it came to their level of worry about being infected with COVID-19, the majority of children (62%) experienced some worry, with 25% feeling moderately worried and 37% quite worried. Around half of the children (51%) felt quite optimistic about the epidemic and around 37% felt moderately optimistic. Those who were in the “not optimistic” category (12%) showed a higher risk of depressive symptoms. You may be surprised to learn that optimism is worthy of further exploration in the context of the global health crisis.
Dr Martin Seligman the brainchild behind the science of ‘well-being’ has researched the development of resilience for over 40 years. Most notable is his research into people’s beliefs about personal adversity, challenge and success. Dr Seligman listened to thousands of people explain the reasons for things that happened to them and concluded that people develop thinking habits, preferred ways of viewing the world. Seligman terms these habits a person’s “explanatory style” or “thinking style”. He suggests that our thinking styles can help or hinder our ability to respond resiliently to inevitable bumps in the road. Our explanatory style comes into play as we try to determine why things and what impact they have. Our style can bias and colour our viewpoint leading us to develop patterns of behaviour that are often self-defeating. The important thing about explanatory style is that it causes us to react out of habit and jump to conclusions that are not accurate. This, in turn prevents us from using the kind of accurate thinking that promotes problem solving and positive change.
Dr Seligman’s research shows that people unconsciously look for answers to three questions when trying to make sense of what happened to them. These questions relate to what Seligman calls the three dimensions of explanatory style: personal, pervasive and permanent.
These three P’s explain things that happen and how you can shut down. It is usually begins with a single event. For example, you ask you child to complete their homework and your child refuses! Your child responds by saying there are not interested in doing their homework. A parent with pessimistic explanatory style will take this feedback personally and think badly of their child and/or they are a bad parent.
In terms of pervasive the parent “generalises it to everything”. It goes from a single event to pervasive reality.” It isn’t just about my child…my other son and husband thinks I am lousy parent as well. My friends probably think the same. In fact, it really is my life. It’s all bad.” The single event has been interpreted in a negative way that pervades the whole picture. Everything begins to look negative.
The final dimension is permanent. Instead of seeing the event in a single point in time the parent sees it as permanent. They think it will continue happening this way. “It is not going to change. It will always be this way. The good days are gone. We will never complete the homework on time.” The thinking says the current negative event is not something that will eventually pass but has become the way it is and the way it will be. It is the “new normal.” There is no hope and no reason to hope! Once the time dimension of thinking negative, the future is all but certain.” Tomorrow will be bad too and so why try?”
Research indicate children learn much of their pessimism from their primary carers, which tend to be mothers. They can learn pessimism from the criticism’s adults make of them. But if children can learn it, they can unlearn it and they do this exactly the same way adults do: by developing more sanguine ways of explaining life’s setbacks to themselves. It might be said that teaching optimism to your children is as important to teaching them to be truthful or creative, for it can have just as profound an impact on their later lives. Children, however are grounded in their present reality: if the children are clouded by chaos or confusion, then pessimism can become the most likely viewpoint. Whereas if the present is calm then the children may see more optimistically.
Even in the face of pessimism you must remember that you are still in charge and that you cannot allow that kind of thinking to permeate your life. You can start to transform it by considering these 3 critical thinking questions.
Your 3 Critical Thinking Questions when faced with a negative life event
Our explanatory style is a combination of these three dimensions. If your typical responses are ‘Me’, ‘Always’ and ‘All areas of my life’ then you more prone to a pessimistic explanatory style. Whereas the opposite responses suggest a more optimistic explanatory style. Reflect and have a think about how you react to challenges by noting down your initial thoughts. Then have a go at labelling them based on the 3 critical questions or the 3 P’s. The table below summarises both styles.
Different combinations of these dimensions can lead to specific outcomes. For example, if you tend to engage in ‘Me/Always/Everything’ thinking then you are more prone to feelings of helplessness, giving up and depression. With ‘Not me/Always/Everything’ thinking you are more prone to anger, acting out, feelings of hopelessness and lacking in responsibility. With ‘Not me/Not always/Not everything’ thinking, you are more likely to be optimistic but can be inaccurate.
The way you make sense of your challenges will be evident to your children and they may internalise that way of thinking too. Dr Seligman in his book ‘Learned Optimism’ talks about unlearning a pessimistic style of thinking. So, the good news is that if you and your child are prone to this way of thinking, then you can you unlearn it and learn to be more optimistic.
Once you have learned a more optimistic model of interpreting negative events, model this simple way of thinking to your children in an explicit way. Regular practice will support in changing your explanatory style. Build resilience and reduce the risk of depressive symptoms by challenging your explanatory style on each dimension by thinking accurately and flexibly about each situation we face in our lives. This will serve you and your child well in the current crisis or any other crisis for that matter!
