Turn a loss into a win!

From Andy Gordon, Acting Principal

We trust Term 3 is going well and you have taken the time to view your child’s learning, whether in a journal brought home, or through Nexus. I encourage you to make sure you have the Nexus app downloaded and that you have bookmarked it in your browser. It really is an easy and straightforward platform for sharing information and communication.

The End of Semester ‘Learning Summary’ is just that. The real work, the most effective feedback, the learning to be celebrated, is found everyday through Nexus (in Toddle in the JS).

We all know the little ballad by the band Wet Wet Wet, made famous in Four Weddings and a Funeral: “Love is all around.” It’s a cutesy jingle… “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, love is all around me and so the feeling grows...” Well, I’d like to play with the words a little and exchange ‘love’ for the word ‘loss’. Let me explain.

One of the most common emotions and feelings that is hard to overcome, but confronts us daily, is that sense of loss. To reference the song, “we feel it ... and the feeling grows”. We face opportunities and experiences where the result can be win or lose countless times in any day. I lose every morning to my alarm, and the need to prepare myself for work, when a part of me would love to relax and do it in my own time. I experience a sense of loss whilst on the parkway when drivers merge-block me or forget to keep left unless overtaking. We can experience a sense of loss when for all the right reasons we accept to go for dinner at our loved one’s destination of choice.

We don’t often talk about how we cope with those daily losses, outside of comments like ‘toughen up’, ‘deal with it’, ‘get over it’ etc. We talk more about significant events and tragedies like accidents, natural disasters, pandemics, suffering with an illness or a family member with an illness, marriage breakdown etc., when we then talk about grieving and how we can cope.

I’d like to propose that many of the ‘secondary’ or ‘tertiary’ behaviours that confront us, either at home or in the classroom, which we call ‘acting out’ or ‘attention seeking’ or ‘stubborn’, actually come from the ‘primary’ issue that the child or adult (as can be the case) is actually trying to manage/cope with a feeling or sense of loss.

Losing is not a comfortable feeling. When we are uncomfortable, we naturally want to fix the problem. Sometimes we act aggressively, or defensively, or protectively, or privately to make that uncomfortable feeling go away. Basically, we will do whatever works, and if something has worked for us in the past, we are more likely to try it again. A sulk, a tantrum, a pout, micro-aggression, selective hearing, an insult, straight out ignoring, gossip, to make us feel better.

Understanding the ‘Grief Cycle’, and the language utilised in the grief process, can hopefully give us some tools and strategies to use with our young people when they are experiencing a sense of loss. These experiences perceived as loss could include:

• cleaning the room/toys
• bedtime routines
• bath time routines
• not being picked for the right team or group
• not being invited into a group or to a friend’s place/party
• finishing an activity and moving to something else
• loss of power or control where they have previously had it
• meal or snack choices
• wanting to play
• TV shows or movies
• needing to have the latest video games
• not wanting to look uncool.
  
  

This list could go on and on. As I said, experiences of loss are ‘…all around’. The grief or loss cycle often progresses like this ((the Kübler-Ross model):

denial->anger->depression->bargaining->acceptance

Of course, there can be many more complex aspects of this process, however, for the purposes of this article, this simplified version is sufficient.

When we experience a sense of loss, we usually go into denial. Essentially denial is “If I ignore it, it might go away”. To a young person that could look like, “I’ve been asked to load the dishwasher, but I want to keep reading my book, if I keep reading my book, perhaps this issue that is taking my freedom to read my book from me, will go away.” If the problem persists, it can lead to anger, and at this point we usually begin to deal with the anger as the ‘secondary’ issue. The feeling of anger can lead to depression or helplessness because the sense of loss is quite powerful.

Obviously, this will be relative to different personality types and differing levels of attained successful resilience. Children can also lead into bargaining which can sound like, “I’ll do it when...”. Often we take the easier road of working with the bargaining, “just five more minutes or two more pages or to the end of the chapter”. Regardless of how many times, or what particular steps happen, moving on or achieving success doesn’t usually occur until ‘acceptance’ is reached.

It’s important to help students know that their most successful path through ‘bouncing’ back from that sense or experience of loss is to ‘accept that this is happening’. For whatever reasons, this change, this rule, this tidy-up, this homework, this meal is happening. We can understand that there is a feeling of loss which leads to disappointment and anger and bargaining. Those feelings are ok. Those feelings are normal. Those feelings are also TEMPORARY. They go away. Getting angrier, or being in more denial or bargaining harder, does not make the feeling go away. Logic tells us that we no longer feel the sense of loss about doing something a little while after it has happened.

I usually recommend using that language with young people, “I understand this is upsetting you, you are feeling a sense of loss that I have asked you to do this, this is ok. You will be ok. We are here for you. This doesn’t change that this is happening, so accept that this is happening. I can assure you that you won’t feel angry about this later.” In doing this, also try to not get drawn into the ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ behaviours. They are often used to divert attention from the real issue.

In conclusion, let’s not underestimate how great the emotions and feelings are that are associated with everyday experiences of loss of control and power. They are real. Young people with their limited life experience may not yet have the developed understanding to know that this sharp, tangible feeling will go away. We need to manage ourselves to not react, and to help them through the process by identifying it, using good explicit language and by helping them reach acceptance.

I still remember feeling upset when my alarm went off this morning, but that feeling no longer drives my emotions and actions. I accepted that it was time to get up.

Setting our young people up for success in managing their emotions and thoughts is one of the most powerful and life-changing gifts that we can give them. It’s also cheaper than a gaming console, it just takes time, persistence and courage.