Story No 2

Story no.2

Irrational Belief:

When people behave badly or unfairly, they should be blamed, reprimanded and punished; they are bad or rotten individuals.

Rational Belief:

Certain acts are inappropriate or antisocial, and those who perform them are behaving stupidly or neurotically, and would be better helped to change.

       

 Once upon a time long long ago in the Kingdom of Beliefs lived Prince Garv. The king and queen were very proud of their son’s skills but they were very upset with his behavior. He would mostly be very rude with the maids and would speak very severely if they committed any mistakes.

Once Prince Garv was playing with one of his servants, he was balling and the servant batting. Garv bowled the servant & with a lot of anger the servant threw the bat on ground & it broke. Prince Garv got very angry and called names to the servant & punished him to stand in the Sun for rest of the day. King didn’t approve of this behavior and tried to reason with him but with no success.

This and many such instances would keep happening wherein Prince Garv would blame people or punish the servants or would condemn them. And the King’s worries grew day by day.

Once in Summer King’s best friend Angel Parivartan returned from a year long trip to China. Angel Parivartan had got beautiful gold plated tea set from China for the King. The King ordered his tea to be served in the same tea set every day. King and Angel Parivartan would chat for hours together during tea time, sitting in the garden. And Prince Garv would get engrossed listening to the stories which Angel Parivartan had brought back from China, so he would also join them for tea.

Some days later the King noticed that the milk kettle from the tea set is missing so he casually asked the maid why she had got another kettle out? To which she vaguely replied that she couldn’t find the set properly, but her body language was sending some other message and Angel Parivartan could guess that she had actually stolen it.

The King till then had ordered his staff to search the kettle and they found out that the same maid had stolen it. When The King and party got to know Prince Garv became furious and he started calling names and asked his father to severely punish her but Angel Parivartan intervened and requested The King to forgive her and rather kindly asked her why she had done such an act?

At the kindness shown by the angel the maid admitted her mistake and said she had become greedy due to the beauty of the pot and had stolen it on the spur of the impulse and she deeply regretted doing so. She was extremely sorry for her inappropriate behavior and promised not to repeat such a thing ever.

The King forgave her but the Prince couldn’t understand so Angel Parivartan explained “ see she did commit a mistake but that doesn’t make her a completely bad person. She is still serving your family with complete dedication so she definitely has more to her than her mistake. Yes I do agree that she behaved inappropriately but there are different ways to handle such things, if we only punish her we haven’t helped her in any way. Rather we have added to another irrational feeling of bitterness in her, and have increased chances of further inappropriateness in her.

The Prince could actually see the difference here as whenever he had punished people they hadn’t changed for good but now the kindness and support did bring about repentance in the lady.

        So just to be sure of his understanding he asked Angel Parivartan “ so do you mean we should never punish people ?” To which Angel said “see beta Certain acts are inappropriate or antisocial, and those who perform them are behaving stupidly or neurotically, and would be better helped to change rather than condemning them.”

        Since this incidence Prince Garv had changed his perspective and though at people’s mistakes he still felt annoyed, he tried to see the individual apart from his actions and this change reduced the King’s worries and everyone lived happily ever after. 

Short Story No 1

Story no.1

Irrational Belief:

        I must be loved and approved of by significant people in my life, and if I’m not, its awful, and it means that I am good for nothing.

Rational Belief:

        It would be nice to have love and approval, however they are not dire necessities in my life, and do not define who I am as a person, and I can most definitely survive it.

             

Once upon a time, long long ago in the kingdom of Priyavansham  there lived the king Priyvansham his  wife Priyatama and their daughter Priya. The daughter was good at a lot of things like singing, painting, etc. But what she liked most was dancing. But her father king Priyavanshan  disapproved of dancing .Princess Priya realised it over the period of time & she thought what if I dance, it will certainly make my father angry with me & if I loose his love what will I do? I must not make him angry.”So with this thought Princess suppressed the desire of dancing & she started following & doing things which would please her father. Everyone called her an obedient child & she also became comfortable like that. But she would experience a lot of anxiety in doing the things which her father liked.

During the summer vacations Princess Priya went to her maternal uncle’s place. There she saw an unusually relaxed fellow named Angle Parivartan.He had come once to meet the maternal uncle & Princess Priya was playing in the same hall.

                      Angel Parivartan was chatting away his love for kite flying & how he didn’t like his son playing with marbles. So the matermnal uncle asked him whether his son plays with marbles or not? To this Parivartan replied “oh why not? He loves it, I don’t. if he enjoys a game which I don’t am not going to stop loving him, I am his father after all. He doesn’t have to change his likings just to please me. That way he will lose his originality and will be tensed all the time. Even my father didn’t approve of my kite flying but he never disliked me for this.”Angel continued “you know what I really feel It would be nice to have love and approval, however they are not dire necessities in my life, and do not define who I am as a person, and I can most definitely survive it.”

        Maternal uncle agreed to it saying “ of course yaar if everyone imbibes this thought process , the stress level will be reduced to a great level.”

        Princess Priya was listening to thus conversation very intently and understood that how her anxiety was result of an outcome of her irrational belief and not because of her father’s disapproval. Slowly she learned to voice her opinions without the fear of disapproval and she even started to listen to her own opinions time and again. Because of this thought process she did things because she wanted to.

Scripting Rational Stories for Children

Society today

For past few weeks the news papers are full of rape cases, adolescent drunken driving mishaps and such crimes. People are protesting against Govt., law and order. I agree that we have to have law and order in the society but the police, law and order all comes after the incidence has happened, what comes before is the cause, the reason why such an unacceptable thing has happened. What comes before it is the “parenting”. I feel the society today is not a simple failure of law and order but it’s a failure at a major and crucial level and that’s at the child rearing.

Does anyone wish to give birth and raise a child as a criminal, a druggy, a rapist, an alcoholic or any an anti social element? I don’t think anyone plans for it. So why am I putting parents at such a blame? Let me explain

A child comes home crying “ ma Adi has a PS2 and he doesn’t let me play on it. His mother said why don’t you get your own?” Mother says “ ohhh did she say that? We will get you a PS3 tomorrow”

·        2 brothers are fighting “Papa he doesn’t share his remote car with me” Papa gets another one to solve the fight & in turn gives birth to low frustration tolerance.

·        A small baby falls down and hits his head on the centre table, Dadi hits the table back and says “ bas ab chup ho ja maine mar diya usko” as if the table moved from its place and came and hit the kid.

·        Various competitive exams and competitions put an uncalled for stress in parents and kids as these are directly correlate  to the child’s worth if he wins such a good boy, if he loses such a loser.

This and many such examples are showing that we are raising a generation without empathy, without having a frustration tolerance, a generation with a need for instant gratification,a generation who doesn’t accept self or other’s unconditionally and most important a generation with lots and lots of demands.

Child Development

Various theories of child development have pointed out that the structuralisation of the personality takes place very early in the formative years of life and later on mere expressions keep surfacing. So I decided to take up a topic which will focus on the childhood and will have an active role in forming the child’s concepts.

As humans are constructivist and destructivists. So we need to nurture only what we wish to see in the society.

It’s important to convince parents of a philosophy of child rearing which emphasizes on desirability or preference rather than demands, to teach frustration tolerance, the importance of setting limits and advantages of inculcating appropriate social skills in compliance with the demands of others.

As it has been established through studies that we on indoctrinating ourselves with our irrational beliefs time and again and that’s how they remain alive. So I feel that if we go on indoctrinating the young mind with the stories filled with rational beliefs we will be creating a bright future with the minds having rational thinking.

So what the society needs to bring out in every child today is

• Self –interest
• Social –interest
• Self direction
• Tolerance
•  Flexibility
• Acceptance of uncertainty
• Commitment
•   Self acceptance
•  Risk taking
• Realistic expectations
• High frustration Tolerance
• Self Responsibility

Role of stories in the society

Once upon a time, people began telling stories around the fire. The stories were as deep and dark as the woods where talking animals, elves, fairies and other enchanting characters lived. As time passed, the stories were collected and written down.

Many were made into movies. And then parents began asking: what is it about fairy tales? Aren’t they too violent and scary for impressionable children? And are Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella good role models? But that was far from the end. No matter how politically incorrect stories about evil stepmothers, damsels in distress, and cannibalistic old women may be, fairy tales are here to stay. 

And that’s a good thing, say the experts. “They work through so many personal and cultural anxieties, yet they do it in a safe, ‘once upon a time’ way,” says Maria Tatar, a professor at Harvard College who writes about, and teaches classes on, fairy tales. “Fairy tales have a real role in liberating the imagination of children. No matter how violent they are, the protagonist always survives.” 

         Indeed, as scary as many of these stories sound to parents, many scholars view them as helping children work through anxieties they can’t yet express. The famous writer and child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim believed fairy tales are important to children’s development because the main characters – many of them children themselves – demonstrate pluck, and the ability to triumph over adversity in a world of giants and cruel adults.

Whatever the stalwarts have to say the bottom line is “Stories” help children to cope with many feelings and problems.

 

Utility of storie

•     Stories can help children to deal with the problems and fears that they face in everyday life.
• Stories help to develop children’s imaginations.
•   Story time can be a special caring time with parents  that children will remember all their lives.

What the rational stories will teach the kids

Perhaps, the most unique aspect of my presentation will be use of REBT principles with young people, is how it teaches young people specific rational beliefs that will help them to become happier (less miserable) and fulfilled individuals including: self-acceptance, high frustration tolerance and other-acceptance. And all this is achieved by telling rational stories to children.

1.  Self-Acceptance  :

    to never rate themselves in terms of their behaviour and to separate judgments of their actions from judgments of self-worth.

    to acknowledge and accept responsibility for their traits and  behaviours –both good and bad- without evaluating  themselves as good or bad.

    Help combat children’s tendencies towards self-downing by reminding them they are made up of many good qualities (and some that are not so helpful) and that they do not lose their good qualities when bad things happen.

    Will explain to children that all human beings are capable and likeable in their unique ways and, therefore, it is good for children to accept themselves unconditionally without having to prove themselves.

2.High Frustration Tolerance 

    in order to be successful, they will sometimes have to do things that are unpleasant and not fun.

    Will explain that frustration and obstacles are a normal part of life and that it is not helpful for them to think that life including school and homework should always be fun and exciting.

    Will help children combat their belief that they cannot stand things they do not like and that they must have what they want immediately.

    Reinforce them for frustration tolerance and delay of gratification.

3. Acceptance of Others

    never to rate people by their actions  and to separate judgments of people’s actions from judgments about their self-worth.

    This does not mean they like everything another person does.

    It means disliking another person’s  traits and  behaviours without judging the whole of the  person as bad.

    Ti will help children develop the attitude of  preferring for people to behave fairly and considerately but never to demand and insist that people  must act that way every minute of the day.

    Will explain that people make mistakes.