What teasing might be teaching our kids

At a local dinosaur park I witnessed a father scaring his two young kids and then laughing at them saying “ha ha, you were scared” in the same way as you would expect children in the schoolyard to do when they tease one another. And then it struck me - are we inadvertently teaching our kids to tease one another and in more extreme cases bully one another by our own interactions with them? I had always thought that the meanness and teasing that was present at school was just how kids are but now I suspect that we are actually teaching this kind of behaviour to our kids. This dad was clearly just playing around and didn't mean anything by his actions but he failed to realise that this was the behaviour he was modeling to his kids - it's ok to tease others, to scare them and to laugh at them. These kids didn't seem hurt by their dad's jibes but the problem is that they learn these interactions and replicate them with others who may feel hurt by them and in situations which may not be appropriate.

The other problem I have with this man’s teasing is that he was shaming his kids for having a perfectly normal and natural emotion - fear. He was not so subtly teaching them that it is not ok to feel fear, that it's something to be humiliated for. I sadly see this a lot at this dinosaur park - parents saying things to their children like “don't be such a wuss” and “you're always so scaredy”. You might as well be whispering in their ears “it's not ok to feel scared, you shouldn't feel scared, there's something wrong with you if you do feel scared.” When you invalidate a child's feelings they're going to naturally turn to experiencial avoidance - they will try to not feel those feelings that they have been told not to feel. In ACT’s view this experiencial avoidance can lead to greater suffering - for example, maybe they refuse invitations to sleepovers because they don't want their friends to know they're afraid of the dark leading to feelings of isolation and perhaps thoughts of “nobody likes me anyway” which could lead to further avoidance of other social situations and further unhappiness. Once learned, experiencial avoidance can be a hard habit to break so maybe we should try to keep our children's minds open about experiencing painful emotions. It's ok to feel these feelings, it is normal to feel these feelings, they may feel big right now but they can never get bigger than you, you can contain them and they will pass like clouds in the sky.

Impact of my animation

I was honoured to have my animation shown to over 100 psychologists and mental health professionals at the conference I attended earlier this week.

For those who don't know, I made this animation as one of my weekly goals in the later weeks of ACT group therapy. I had been unable to animate for a long time prior due to my intrusive thoughts and the feelings they evoked in me every time I sat in front of the computer to work. So it was a big part of my recovery and a testament to the efficacy of the ACT techniques that I managed to make this animation.

Though I have shown it to many classes in the Recovery College over the years and always received praise for it, I never really got the impression that it could be useful to psychologists and their work. I am naturally quite modest about my work and find it very hard to believe that anyone finds any value in it. But at the conference I was approached by several professionals who were very enthusiastic about the animation and wanted to use it in their work. I was also told by one professional to whom I had given permission to use it several years ago that it had been so helpful in her work. I had never really thought that my animation could be that helpful to people and am proud to have it freely available on YouTube so others can find it and use it in their work.

Aging and turning towards my fear of it.

Earlier this week I attended a conference dedicated to ACT and RFT. In one of the talks we were asked to speak to one another about aging. This is a topic I find quite difficult - I have a deep fear of aging and find it uncomfortable to turn my attention to the subject. But I wanted to take part in the exercise and so I did allow my mind to explore my feelings about aging and opened up to those around me about it.

I found this experience very useful - by discussing it, I realised that I don't really care about my looks changing or my hair greying. My fears lie in the idea of being less physically and mentally able to do what I enjoy doing and what's important to me.

I've returned to this thought in the following days - the fear of losing physical and mental abilities. Obviously I can't prevent what the natural aging process will eventually bring but I realised that there are things I could do differently right now to minimise the risk of certain debilitating diseases that might develop in later life. I am currently overweight and do little exercise. If I look after my health better, I can increase my chances of getting to old age with some of my mental and physical abilities still intact. This has galvanised me into focusing more on my value of health and in treasuring the present while I do have all these abilities still available to me.

By turning towards the subject of aging, despite my fear of it, I managed to define what exactly I am afraid of. Only then could I look at what I am currently doing and what I could be doing differently to minimise the chances of my fears coming true or at least delaying them for as long as possible. There's nothing I can do about the years of poor care I have given my body, but every day I can work towards changing the current trajectory to something better. And that is enough for me. I can accept the natural decline of my body but I can't accept self-inflicted infirmity.

I've found that through this process my fear about aging has lessened somewhat. I guess my fear was more accurately a fear of losing physical and mental abilities sooner than necessary because of poor and selfish choices I make now. I think the point of the exercise had been to practice letting go of wanting to control things outside of our control and I am happy to do that in reference to the natural aging process but when it comes to the potential impact of my current actions on my future health then I am happy to use my problem solving mind to come up with solutions. Looking after my health now may make no difference, I've never smoked in my life and I could still end up with lung cancer but at least whatever hits me I'll know that I tried my best.