Abnormal Psychology
Low-income household children have high risk of mental health (Hodgkinson, Goody, Beers & Lewin, 2017). They face more stress compared to other well-resourced peers. Targeting this issue, we proposed activities that will allow them to cope with stress effectively. Firstly, because our target audience is lower primary students age 7-9, we figured they will not be able to fully comprehend the meaning of stress. On the first session, Uncle Unicorn explained the word ‘stress’ by teaching the symptoms of stress (headache, urge to cry, stomach ache) to them. Next, we act out scenarios whereby the children will feel stressed to make them understand the meaning of stress. We then carry out the Happy Board Activity, where the children will be given a board to decorate it with things that make them feel happy. The purpose of the Happy Board Activity is to make them feel happier whenever they are stressed. After that, we did our debrief with the children.
The proposed activity was considered effective. When we were teaching them the symptoms of stress, the children were already naming our scenarios when they feel stress- in an exam or when there are a lot of homework to be done. Additionally, when the facilitators were acting out the scenarios, the children relate to the situations too. For instance, one of the scenarios was not meeting the expectations of the parents for an exam. One of the children said that she saw her sister getting caned for failing an exam hence she must spend a lot of time studying for fear of being caned. This is a sign of stress. At the end of the day, during the debrief, when asked whether they understand the meaning of stress, all of them raised their hands.
Despite the success of the activity, some changes can be made to further improve the session. The idea of having a teaching mascot- Uncle Unicorn was a failure. When the children saw the mascot, they all burst out in laughter and were not able to concentrate. Furthermore, the ground rules were not set before the start of the session. Realising that the children were getting out of control, we set the ground rules mid-way into the session. According to Marzano, Marzano and Pickering (2003), it is crucial to design and implement a set of classroom rules to have an effective classroom management. The absence of rules can cause student’s attention and interest to wane and waste time.
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Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S. and Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works. USA: Virginia, Alexandria. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.sg/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BVM2ml2Q-QgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=importance+of+rules+classroom+management&ots=GenK7XViNT&sig=eWFYzgmC24eVyZCyZHTP6LcdGE#v=onepage&q=importance%20of%20rules%20classroom%20management&f=true