Resources Developed
■ Seeing alternative ways of thinking
■ Seeking others’ opinions
■ Engaging in reality checks
■ Looking beyond your own perception
■ Incorporating what you learn
■ Learning to compliment othersOutcomes Offered
■ Skills in reality checking
■ Enhanced self-perception
■ Positive self-talk
■ Improved sense of self-worth
■ Giving back to others
I have a friend who is also a psychologist. At times he does some tricky things to help the kids
he meets look differently at the way they are thinking. He believes that, if something goes wrong,
there are many possible different ways that we can see it—some of them helpful, some of them not
so helpful. Let me give you an example. If someone does badly on a particular question in a math
exam they could think, I’ve always been hopeless at math, and this just proves it; or they could think, I sure
did badly on that one question but I did pretty well on all the others. The first thought isn’t very helpful be-
cause you won’t feel very confident at math with thinking that way, whereas thinking the second
thought can be a lot more helpful.
Similarly, if you get into trouble for not doing something at home, you could think, I’m always
in trouble and never do anything right, or It’s true that sometimes I get into trouble for forgetting to do things but
mostly my parents are good and loving to me. I guess the question is, how do we shift our thinking from
what is not helpful to what is more helpful?
Roxie was one of those people who tended to think the worst of herself. She was heard to say
at times, “No matter what I do I alwaysget it wrong,” “I’m neverany good at school work,” “The
other kids are alwayspicking on me,” “I’m useless at whatever I try.” If somebody phoned and asked,
“Who’s that?” Roxie would say, “Only me,” as though “me” wasn’t very important.
Roxie’s parents got a little worried that she was unhappy and took her to see my psychologist
friend. He figured Roxie had to learn to feel better about herself and that just talking to her about
what she should do wasn’t the best way to help her feel happier. So he did something I thought was
pretty tricky.
He asked Roxie, “Do you have a tape recorder at home?” When she said yes, he asked if her par-
ents would let her borrow it for an experiment. He had learned that she was studying science at school
and that she knew experiments were used to find out things—that there were no right or wrong an-
swers.
“Over the next week,” he continued, “I want you to pretend you are an interviewer on the TV
news and use the tape recorder to interview your parents, your brother and sister, and maybe one or
two of your friends. What you are to say is this: ‘I am doing a documentary on Roxie. What are the
things you most like about her?’”
CARING FOR YOUCaring for Yourself 79