The aim of a Parents’ Association is to support and enhance our children’s educational experience. It was with this in mind that we, in the Junior Boys School, thought about organising an evening for Parents that would help our children by helping ourselves first!
Declan Coyle is a well known and internationally experienced leadership and motivational consultant who has addressed many schools and teachers on the topic of Self Awareness, Positive Visualisation and his strategy for coping with life’s big and small troubles, the ‘Green and Red Platform’.
On this basis we invited Declan to address us and explain how his approach may help us in our daily lives juggling kids, school, activities, play and the little stresses that accompany all of that. Nolan’s Supermarket kindly sponsored the event. Below is a brief summary of the key points addressed.
The evening started at 8:00pm of Thursday, 31st March in the Girls School Hall and Declan addressed a health gathering of approximately 150 people with the challenge:
“If you do what you always do you’ll always get what you’ve always got!” and he continued on to develop this point.
There’s a need to be creative; to give yourself/your child the opportunity to be more than you expect. At five years of age 90% of children are highly creative dropping to 2% of people by the time we reach forty years. Somewhere in between we develop and image or an attitude that we are not!
Declan went onto describe some of the fundamental points that need to be understood in order to affect change in your outlook.
His explanation was broken down into ‘three steps’.
- Self Image
- Self Talk
- The Green and Red Platform
The strongest force in the human personality is to remain consistent with how we define ourselves. Our self image is so powerful we will almost never deviate from this internal map, self correcting up or down to what we perceive to be the reality.
At age four 96% of us have a positive self image. By 14 years 98% of us have moved to a negative self image. How can we support our children to buck the trend?
On average we parents speak to or instruct our children negatively 90% of the time. The greatest poison in any team is the ‘NBR’ – Negative, Belittling Remark. By the age of 12 a child has received 100, 000 NBR’s. This doesn’t help the development of a positive self image. Try PAR’s instead! Positive, Affirming Remarks. Make sure that they are genuine and sincere, and see what happens. “Shine a light on what’s right!”
The way we set goals or react to events is never determined by who and what we are, rather who we think we are i.e. by our self image. With a negative self image we will throw away any level of success that doesn’t match the value we put on ourselves.
This is where ‘Visualisation’ and ‘Affirmation come in! In order to construct a new self image we’re required to hold the image you want in your mind and affirming that it is you already.
“I am”….is the start of all self image belief. “I am someone who forgets names” versus “I am the greatest!”
So this is where understanding self talk is vital.
Our subconscious is an unquestioning slave. It cannot choose. Every conscious thought becomes a command to the subconscious. If you suggest negative or unhelpful outcomes that is what your subconscious will work to affect. Therefore, you need to watch your ‘self talk’.
Try to use positive, brief, affirming, action based commands in the present tense within your own head.
So where does the Green and Red platform fit?
The last and greatest of the human freedoms is the freedom to chose our response to any situation.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is the power to choose.
“Will I react in a manner that suggests a positive, empowered person (Green) or will I be a victim, blaming and complaining as I go (Red)?”
The Green Platform suggests life in ‘The Now’ and acceptance. The Red Platform suggests life in the past with shame, guilt or anger or fear for the future. The basic premise here is to remember that you are not responsible for other peoples’ action but you are responsible for your own reactions to situations.
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change!”
The talk was peppered with references to Declan’s first-hand experience with the Cork footballers or the Dublin or Tipperary Hurlers or, indeed, his own family and other personal stories in popular culture. This all served to make the concepts relevant and engaging.
The evening ended with some brief closing remark and very warm reception for Declan from the assembled crowd.