DESCRIPTION OF THE SUCCESS STORY
Grigoris was an 11-year-old boy, not at all gifted at sport, however extremely good with computers and solid academically. Even though he was not the most popular boy at school he facilitated an internet chat room for his classmates that was much frequented in the hours after school.
Unfortunately a group of kids at school began using the chat room as a forum for cyber bullying Grigoris. As moderator of the chat room this placed him in a very difficult position. The chat room was outside of school hours and not directly to do with the school and yet the bullying was being perpetrated by children who attended his school. It was obvious that the situation was not going to be resolved swiftly.
Needless to say that the situation was extremely stressful for Grigoris and he needed some strategies to help him get through to the other side of this large adversity. Grigoris’s skills of resilience and optimism were initially very low.
He tended to blame himself for the situation, in spite of there being no evidence that he had in any way upset these children. He also believed that this situation would never come under control and that he would have to give up his role as moderator and even as participant in the very chat room that he facilitated.
At his worst moments he believed that he would even have to leave his school. Through teaching him the skills of resilience and encouraging him to apply them both at home and at school he was able to cope with this difficult situation over the course of the three months that it took to resolve.
Grigoris was taught real-time resilience in which he was able to apply accurate resilient thoughts to challenge and replace the many and varied negative thoughts that were entering his head and controlling his feelings.
In this way he was able to come up with rational alternative thoughts that reduced his level of distress to a point where he was able to get through his school day.
He was also able to see that this situation would ultimately be brought under control given a combination intervention by other kids, the school and some supportive and assertive parents (his own parents and some of those of the children from the chat room).
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Grigoris’s story is more common than we would like it to be, and it provides a picture of a child whose school life could have gone either of two ways -either leaving school with a potential descent into depression and be a target for further bullying, or being able to remain at his school and use this as an opportunity to build resilience and some of the thinking skills that would serve him well into the future.
Seven years after this situation took place I received a phone call from Grigoris, extremely concerned about a good friend of his.
Grigoris was studying at a university interstate, having continued through to the completion of his secondary schooling with very good marks at his original school. In his university friend he had observed some of the old thinking patterns and behaviours that he had experienced when he was going through the cyber-bullying.
He was concerned that his friend was not coping well, and may end up leaving university. He wanted to know where he could get resilience training for his friend.
It was extremely pleasing and reassuring to see that not only had Grigoris continued to use his resilience and optimism skills over the course of the seven years since I had first met him, but that he was also able to identify a potential problem in his friend and take assertive action to deal with it.
Once learnt, the skills of resilience and optimism can be used to give children positive attitudes for life.
