Gordon Flett

One of the best solid indicators of a sense of mattering, especially when there's been a breakup in the family, a single parent situation, is how much time the parent spends with the child in things where they seem to be enjoying each other's company. But also just asking questions in a way that will elicit a sense of what's going on for that child's feelings. So just as an illustration of this, my wife has relatives in Hingham, Massachusetts.

And almost all of them are retired teachers. My wife is a retired educator as well. So we were there visiting one day while back. And Jane, who's a fabulous retired educator has, has a grandchild coming in. And I watch as Jane says, has sits the child down and says, Hey, how'd your day go? Tell me one good thing about your day. And listens and just listening to them talk without interrupting.

that deep sense of somebody's taking the time to ask me but now they're listening to me is a key thing and then she'll say now tell me something that wasn't so great about your day which is a way to get into whether there's bullying or exclusion or ostracism or you know teacher didn't respond the way that jane would have if she was the teacher and it just keeps the dialogue going where you can just show through your interest and think and that you're trying to understand what it's like to be that young person

Se antaa mahtavaa viestintää ymmärtämisestä, mutta myös arvostamisesta ja löytämisestä asioista. Jos ei ole keskustelua, onnistuu, että jotain on pysyvää. Gord, sinä olet kirjoittanut parhaan voimakkauteen ja tärkeän tarpeen. Kun olen luonut teidän työtä,

The first element of this is that some kids are insecure. There's certainly the uncertainty of going through and not knowing what could happen. And it can just provide a sense of reassurance and guidance, provides the closeness and comfort of a parent or a grandparent or a guardian is there to really interact at a close level.

Ja voin antaa sinulle esimerkkinä tästä. En mene suoritteluun, mutta muistan, kuten useimmat ihmiset tekevät, koska olin tarpeeksi vanha, jotta olisin lähellä, kun se tapahtui, kun JFK oli tullut. Tulin kotiin loppuun, koska olin kotiin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska olin kotiin, koska

Joten olen syönyt viikon. Muistan, että se oli kambollisen kambollisen sukun. Ja sitten tulee se historia, että se tuntuu olevan ongelma Dallasissa. Ja lopulta Walter Cronkite tulee uusiin ilmiöihin, jotka heittivät maailmaa. Ja minä sattuin siellä, ja isäni ja isäni olivat siellä. Ja tietenkin se on se, että lapsuus on loppunut mielestäni minun mielestäni innoissaan tältä hetkellä. Joten isäni ja isäni sanoivat, että

You're not going back to school. You're going to stay here. We're just going to talk about this because they wanted to try and make me realize that I'm not have to worry personally and just help through the confusion. And when somebody shows that sensitivity to you, especially at a young age, you don't forget it in terms of knowing again that if something were to happen down the road, you could then go and seek these people out. And this is the key thing in terms of establishing these relationships.

There are times when young people in particular suffering from mental health issues need to get help and need to acknowledge help, but they never will. When you have a mattering relationship where there's acceptance, it's more likely that a young person would reveal to a mother, a father, a grandparent that they need help and that can set them off in a way. I was even at a conference one time, unbelievable story, so I won't get into it, but I was invited to an anti-terrorism conference for my work on perfectionism.

And at the break comes a guy and he says to me, I'm talking to you now as a father. I'm not talking to you as a analyst for CSIS in Canada, which is our agency that deals with counterterrorism and that. Because my daughter has revealed to me that she's a student in Quebec and that she's suicidal. So this is one of the first times when I said, you know, I'm here to talk about perfectionism, but this is where mattering comes into play. Cause I said to him, whatever you've done to create a relationship where your daughter

will admit to you and your wife that she's feeling this way. Keep doing that and just keep checking in on her and reminding her. And a key thing that parents need to realize is that as kids get older and we get into the adolescence, oh, they want to be with their friends. They don't want their parents to bug them. They still want the attention, even if they won't admit it or they'll say, get away, leave me alone. Not to the point where you're a helicopter parent, certainly. But I think the problem is for a lot of young people,

They get that attention earlier in life, starting with the early years. And they might get it through the more earlier stages in terms of like me in grade one there when that news came at lunch. But then some parents feel that they're not effective or they're not wanted and they stop trying. And a big factor with parents is their feeling of efficacy as a parent. Parents need to matter too. And expressing this and finding ways to nurture the mutual need will keep these relationships

But it's so hardwired. And I do believe that, you know, they talk about psychological needs. The three that people talk about are the need for communion, people like at University of Rochester, the need for connection and the need for autonomy. And I've always said the fourth need is the need to matter. And we have seen in the anti-mattering work that if you feel like you don't matter, that people are treating you like you're invisible and unwanted and not even relevant.

insignificant but insignificant. If you're actually feeling this way, it impacts those other needs where you don't feel as confident anymore. You don't feel that you can go out and do something where you can make things happen in terms of autonomy. So it's a core need, but it also relates to other needs and other needs as well, like in terms of the need for attention and the need just for somebody to be checking in on you. But I see that this sort of thing

It's great if it's satisfied, but you need to keep having it satisfied. And sadly, there's so many people out there who don't have their need for mattering to be satisfied. And I'm actually doing some work with a colleague in Italy, Silvia Cassell, where we've created a measure of the unmet need to matter. And it's robustly correlated with antimattering and a hypersensitivity to being hurt when somebody treats you like you don't matter.

What I recognize there is that there are different pathways to that sense of not mattering. And sometimes it's neglect and non involvement. Sometimes it's, you know, a parent might be incapacitated with their own health issues. Rosenberg talked about narcissistic parents being so involved with themselves that they can't connect with the other people in their lives. But at the end of the day, some people are carrying this around.

It's a lifelong pattern and there's incredible stress and upset. But there's also people who break out of that. And that's, I think, where there's a role for the school to be played in terms of this. We had a great school where our daughters benefited and we became involved as parents and were part of the school council. What I tell schools, and I'll be giving a talk on Monday to a bunch of educators in Quebec,

The kid who comes to school not feeling a sense of mattering at home really needs to get that sense of mattering at school. This is why educators resonate with the concept of mattering, because there are those stories of the one caring adult who has changed a kid's life entirely by showing an interest in becoming the mentor to that child. There are those roots to get out of it, but sadly there are those people who have got a sense of abandonment

Lack of interest and then never snap out of it. But I still say that there's room for hope. In situations like that where I've talked to people like that, I say to them, you can generate your own sense of mattering through this focus on service, making a difference in other people's lives in a way that you don't rely on somebody treating you the right way. And then ideally it'll become a reciprocal mattering relationship where

You've made them feel like they matter and it feeds back into you. Or you can see the way that people get so animated when somebody's taking an interest in them and showing that they really care. But I've often asked myself, does anything make up for the sense of I had a parent who wasn't really interested in me? It's a pretty tough thing to overcome, but you can blunt it to some extent and learn to develop other relationships. And we've seen cases where