Page 50 - Three 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 con nue and eventually complete the task. Many children with “low frustra on 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 frustra on faced by all of us in real life is due to our irra onal 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 addi onal lack of a repertory of coping self-messages just compounds our S nky 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” emo ons.
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 o 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 rela onships with those who are just like us or have the same likes and dislikes. It is much more di cult to have friendly rela onships with people who are di erent because of race or religion, intellect or temperament.
In the story, the Queen must learn how to have friendly rela onships (raise an army with a very diverse group, who are very di erent from her. She does this by being nice as well as making them feel needed and appreciated. These are skills much admired in our real world but are never formally taught.
These are the skills Daniel Goleman discusses in his book Emotional Intelligence. Goleman discusses how the unpopular child could be coached, “To remember to talk with and ask questions about the other child while they play; To listen and look at the other child to see how he’s doing; to say something nice when the other person does well; To smile and offer help or suggestions and encouragement .” By encouraging these skills, you can have fewer child to child conflicts. After all, the Queen got them to go with her to fight a dragon.
Next we come to “facing the dragon,” the most difficult of the tasks. Far too many of us avoid our personal dragons and in doing so allow them to grow and control us. Your story Exercise is about helping others identify their dragon and then to plan how to defeat it. Encourage them to face their fears and accept their anxiety. Brave people are brave not because they have no fear but because they manage their fear.
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