What children need to be happy, confident and successful: step by step positive psychology to help children flourish

180 Pages·2012·0.88 MB·English

by  Hooper, Jeni

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‘A real achievement. Jeni Hooper has taken the evidence base of Positive Psychology h
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and turned it into easy-to-use tools to help children to flourish. The book has everything a
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you need to encourage children to develop their individual strengths and realise their
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potential.’
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– Miriam Akhtar, Positive Psychologist, coach, trainer and i
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visiting lecturer, University of East London, UK d
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‘It is easy to see why so many of the hundreds of books on how to bring up a child seem to n
be focused on the challenges and difficulties of this task: the avoidance and management
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of problems is rightly high on any parenting priority list. However, Jeni Hooper reminds
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us that there is also another equally important component of good parenting – helping e
children and young people to achieve appropriately high levels of personal and social d

wellbeing and fulfilment. She informs us how to achieve this in a most enticing way t
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in her parent-friendly book. Essential reading for parents and carers, teachers…and
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grandparents!’
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– Dr Sean Cameron, Educational and Child Psychologist and Co-
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director of the Pillars of Parenting Social Enterprise
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What makes children happy, confident and successful? How can you help a child to ,
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flourish? Their environment is important, but the real difference is in your hands – every
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adult has the tools to help a child achieve psychological wellbeing. n
What Children Need to be
This book provides a practical model for helping children flourish and achieve their f
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personal potential in every area of their lives. Drawing on ideas from Positive Psychology d
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and child development theory, the model explores the five key areas of wellbeing: personal
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strengths, emotional wellbeing, positive communication, learning strengths and resilience. t Happy,

Practical activities are included for each area, and a questionnaire provides an assessment a
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to enable you to keep track of progress.
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Suitable for use with children aged 3–11, this step-by-step guide is an ideal resource
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for professionals working with children, including counsellors, social workers, teachers u
and psychotherapists, as well as parents. c
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e Confident
Jeni Hooper is a Child Psychologist and Parent Coach who is based in Winchester,
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England. She has over 30 years’ experience working with children in both public and s
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independent settings. She now specializes in applying Positive Psychology to promoting u
children’s psychological wellbeing as a trainer, coach and consultant. l

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Successful
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Jessica Kingsley Publishers p
116 Pentonville Road e
London N1 9JB, UK r Step by Step Positive Psychology to
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA, 19106, USA Help Children Flourish
www.jkp.com
Cover design: Paileen Currie

What Children Need to Be
Happy,
Confident
and
Successful
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Jeni Hooper
What Children Need to Be
Happy,
Confident
and
Successful
Step by Step Positive Psychology to
Help Children Flourish
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
First published in 2012
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright © Jeni Hooper 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including
photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or
incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright
owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or
under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby
Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any
part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil
claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
All pages marked  can be downloaded at www.jkp.com/catalogue/book/9781849052399/resources
and www.jenihooper.com for personal use with this program, but may not be reproduced for any other
purposes without the permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hooper, Jeni (Jenifer Susan), 1952-
What children need to be happy, confident and successful : step by step
positive psychology to help children flourish / Jeni Hooper.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84905-239-9 (alk. paper)
1. Child psychology. 2. Positive psychology. 3. Child mental health. 4.
Child development. 5. Well-being. I. Title.
BF721.H62 2012
649'.6--dc23
2011042876
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84905 239 9
eISBN 978 0 85700 483 3
Contents
PREFACE. ...................................................... 9
Helping children to flourish. ................................. 9
A quick guide to the Flourishing Programme .................. 10
Part I Positive Psychology and the
Flourishing Programme
What Do Children Need to Be Happy, Confident and
Successful?. ................................................... 15
Building psychological wellbeing. ............................ 15
Deciding what is important .................................. 16
Facing the future with confidence ............................ 16
Planning for change. ........................................ 17
Boosting psychological wellbeing............................. 17
The building blocks of wellbeing. ............................ 18
Positive Psychology: Understanding the Nature of Wellbeing .. 19
Wellbeing and the Flourishing Programme .................... 23
Building strengths. .......................................... 24
Enjoying wellbeing. ......................................... 25
The child supplies the power but adults do the steering ........ 26
The importance of childhood wellbeing. ...................... 26
Avoiding the downhill slide. ................................. 27
Helping children to flourish. ................................. 27
Moving forward. ............................................ 27
Toby’s Story ................................................... 28
An undercurrent of anxiety. .................................. 28
Getting things right now is a preparation for the future ........ 29
The solution ................................................ 29
Focusing on Toby’s strengths. ................................ 30
What had gone wrong?. ..................................... 30
Small steps, big changes ..................................... 30
Developing Toby’s core strengths. ............................ 30
First Steps to Flourishing Questionnaire ....................... 32
Part II The Flourishing Programme
Unique and Personal: Meeting a Child’s Individual Needs. ..... 40
Finding the potential in every child. .......................... 40
The joys and the challenges .................................. 41
Factor 1 Personal Strengths: The Inner Compass that Guides
Our Choices. .................................................. 45
Understanding personal strengths. ............................ 46
Identifying personal strengths. ............................... 50
Building and using personal strengths. ........................ 54
Summary ................................................... 64
Factor 2 Emotional Wellbeing: Creating a Positive Balance ..... 65
Understanding emotional wellbeing .......................... 65
Emotional learning and wellbeing ............................ 71
Understanding and nurturing emotional competence ........... 78
How to nurture positive emotions ............................ 88
Summary ................................................... 97
Factor 3 Positive Communication: Building Trust and
Fulfilling Relationships ........................................ 98
Building positive communication ............................. 98
Exploring and boosting your own positive communication. ..... 108
Next steps: building rapport. ................................. 112
Appreciative attention and positive feedback. .................. 112
Communication: rapport, trust and sharing hopes and dreams. .. 116
Summary ................................................... 118
Factor 4 Learning Strengths: Developing Learning Habits to
Motivate and Get Results ...................................... 119
Learning for life. ............................................ 119
The five learning success skills. ............................... 121
How adults can help children become confident and
independent learners. ..................................... 125
Motivation and success: encouraging a Zest4Learning .......... 126
Bringing out the best in each child: the 3M formula for success . 130
Putting the 3Ms into practice ................................ 141
Summary ................................................... 144
Factor 5 Resilience: How to Avoid Roadblocks and Bounce
Back from Setbacks. ........................................... 145
The roots of resilience ....................................... 145
The environmental building blocks which support resilience .... 149
Developing independent resilience. ........................... 151
Using the seven-step programme ............................. 162
Summary ................................................... 164
Developing Independence: The Journey through Childhood ... 165
The Flourishing Programme. ................................. 165
Working with a buddy: how co-coaching can increase your
success with the Flourishing Programme. ................... 170
NoTES. ........................................................ 171
INDEx ......................................................... 173
LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND BOxES
Tables
Table 1 The 20 prime strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Table 2 The features of the two mindsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Figures
Figure 1 How energy and performance levels interact to create
prime strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Figure 2 The four pillars of positive emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Figure 3 The eight positive communication principles . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Figure 4 Four types of response to good news . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Figure 5 The five learning success skills flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Figure 6 Zest4Learning flowchart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Figure 7 The 3M formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Figure 8 The ten top skills to build resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Boxes
Box 1 The five building blocks of psychological wellbeing . . . . . . 24
Box 2 The six core principles for nurturing individual wellbeing . 42
Box 3 The three factors that create wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Box 4 Ten ways to encourage self-discovery learning . . . . . . . . . . 55
Box 5 Seven signposts of prime strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Box 6 Ten ways to help children build their strengths . . . . . . . . . 62
Box 7 Ten ways to build a child’s trust and soothe troubled
feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Box 8 The five stages of behaviour coaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Box 9 Ten ways to nurture positive emotions on a day to day basis 92
Box 10 The eight positive communication principles . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Box 11 Ten ways to build positive communication with a child . . . 106
Box 12 Ten ways to build non-verbal positive communication
with children in a group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Box 13 The seven-step resilience recovery programme . . . . . . . . . . 161
Box 14 Ten strategies to help you make the Flourishing
Programme a success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167