Managing to Cope

Date Released: Mon, 13 June 2011 14:39 +0200

Assertive behaviour, coping with stress and effective communication are some of the life skills that need to be taught when children are still very young. A child’s social skills at age three could be a predictor of their social and academic performance in later life. Important social skills in early childhood include emerging abilities to manage and express feelings and behaviours, recognize social signs from others and engage in positive interactions with peers.
Developing certain life skills is also essential for improved and continued wellbeing of a person regardless of cultural, social and geographical differences. These include effective communication, critical thinking, coping with emotions and stress as well as self-awareness. These skills form a link between knowledge, and the attitudes and values necessary for positive health behaviour and contribute directly to the primary prevention of health and other problems. As part of the ongoing staff development that CSD is engaged in and because they are involved in teaching and training, staff recently attended a coping skills workshop facilitated by Heidi van Niekerk from ECD: Department of Social Development.
Assertiveness has many advantages towards building positive and meaningful relationships with others, especially in a work environment. It prevents conflict through expressing feelings rather than bottling up. It will also allow yourself to be more in control of your own life and be pro-active rather than lettings happen to you. Assertiveness is not just about what you say but how you say things. The voice, speech pattern, facial expression, eye contact and body movements that goes with what you are saying also plays a big role in the message that the other person gets.
Communication with others is another life skill that needs to be instilled when the child is young. Messages, either sent or received, are made up of thoughts, attitudes, feelings and information and ways of expressing yourself can be verbal or non-verbal, or active listening. It is important to be receptive to messages and listening is the second half of the whole process of communication. There is a difference between hearing and listening though. Hearing is a physical and involuntary reaction to sound while listening is a mental and active process of paying attention, to what is being said and how it is said. Visual elements in effective communication include eye contact, facial expression, use of free information and active listening. We have 656 muscles, 43 to frown, and 17 to smile.
If a teacher is unable to communicate effectively, it may lead to a conflict situation. There are many ways to resolve conflict. People using the smoothing management style are characterised by a”teddy bear or “sheep” personality where they try and smooth over the conflict in fear of harming the relationship. The “giraffe, turtle, ostrich, hyena, and owl” personality is withdrawing to avoid conflict and believes it is easier to avoid the conflict. It creates a sense of helplessness because they are not confident. The “gorilla and donkey” is a forcing management style adopted by the person that tries to overpower others by forcing them to accept their solution to the conflict regardless of the needs of others. The “canary and peacock” is a confronting management style where a person values their own goals and relationships and see conflict as improving a relationship. The final management style is the compromising one, like a weasel, where the person is moderately concerned with their own goals and a compromise is sought.
Sometimes something happens in the school or home environment causing a crisis in the child’s life, either physically or emotionally and the teacher should be able to implement a crisis intervention model. Building trusts, helping the child identifying the problem and developing an action plan with the child and the parent in the crisis will help them cope with the situation. This is also where the different management styles will determine how you react and how you will find a solution. Teachers need to build relationships with children and their parents to develop trust and communication, and behaviour and conflict resolution should be seen as part relationship building. This forms part of CSD’s approach to early childhood development training to empower the teacher to build these life skills within the child.

Pic: Heidi van Niekerk from Department of Social Development facilitating a coping skills workshop with CSD staff members.