Page 73 - Tree of Happiness

There are several areas to use your personal skills when teaching Part Two of the Tree ofHappiness. First is to encourage Coping Self- Messaging such as those used by the Queen when getting the 1000 best books. When confronted with the frustrations of the task and tormented by her Wizard Statements (stinky thinking), she told herself, “Look how far you have come... Why quit now?”
Her coping self-messages allowed her to continue and eventually complete the task. Many children with “low frustration tolerance” or who seem easily discouraged and upset, fail to have adequate, if any, of these coping self- messages. If you are a teacher, you can encourage children who are able to resist frustration, to verbalize what they tell themselves to be able to continue with a task. If it is “Good Thinking,” coping self-messages, discuss them with the class and encourage others to use them.
Much of the frustration faced by all of us in real life is due to our irrational demands that life, work, other people and even ourselves, should or must be a certain way. When that does not happen, as is normal, our additional lack of a repertory of coping self-messages just compounds our Stinky Thinking. With young children, they
may have a temper tantrum or just quit trying. Adolescents and adults may do the same or will be passively aggressive and some may engage in substance abuse as a way to escape from their “Not OK” emotions.
The next area to encourage is that of “friend making.” You will recall that the elf told the inept Queen that she must raise an army of peasants to help run off the dragon but she could not use bribes or threats. He did not tell her to raise an army of nobles. It is easy to have friendly relationships with those who are just like us or have the same likes and dislikes. It is much more difficult to have friendly relationships with people who are different because of race or religion, intellect or temperament.
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