The Promotion of Hope in Children and Youth

Abstract

In this chapter, we describe one of the most potent predictors of success of our youth. Hope, the ideas and energy for the future, is consistently related to better outcomes across ages and cultures. High hope during childhood and adolescence is associated with an array of intrapersonal, interpersonal and school benefits (e.g., Gilman et al. J Soc Clin Psychol 25:166–178, 2006; Marques et al. Hopeful youths: benefits of very high hope among adolescents, 2014) not found among youths with lower levels of hope. We review in this chapter the hope research conducted with young children and adolescents over the last 15 years. We describe how to measure and promote hope in school-aged children. Moreover we summarize the content of a program to foster students’ hope, along with its implications for use by psychologists and educators.

Appendices

Appendix A: Some Suggestions to Work and Refine with Teachers and Parents to Enhance Children’s Hope

• Let teachers and parents know that children build hope through learning to trust in the ordered predictability and consistency of children interactions with them.

• Explain the importance of being firm, fair, and consistent in engendering hope among their children.

• Explain the importance of creating an atmosphere of trust, where students are responsible for their actions and supported to establish growth-inducing stretch goals.

• Emphasize that children should be praised and rewarded for both their efforts and achievements.

• Encourage teachers and parents goals that are made concrete, understandable, and are broken down into subgoals.

• Work with them to focus on long-range as opposed to short-term goals.

• Emphasize the importance of preparation and planning.

• Develop an atmosphere where students are focused on expending effort and mastering the information rather than a sole focus on obtaining good outcomes (e.g., high grades or stellar athletic records).

• Encourage an atmosphere through a give and take process between teachers/parents and students.

• Teachers should be encouraged to remain engaged and invested in pursuing their own important interests and life goals outside of the classroom.

• Let them know that being a hopeful adult has many benefits. High-hope people perform better at work (Peterson and Byron 1997), have higher well-being (Gallagher and Lopez 2009), and live longer (Stern et al. 2001).

Appendix B: Content of the BHF

Sessions with Students

Session 1: Learning about Hope

• Goals. The primary goal of this session is to improve the students’ understanding of hope theory and its relevance to the change process and to achieve positive outcomes.

• Content. This session offers the participants an overview of the topic of hope, including its three components (pathways, agency and goals). Additionally, the central role that hope plays in daily communication is addressed by learning, identifying and practicing the vocabulary used in the model.

• Example of an exercise. The students are asked to acting out the hope picture.

Session 2: Structuring Hope

• Goals. A major goal of this session is students learn to recognize pathways and agency components of hope, and obstacles to a goal attainment. In addition, this session aims to help students build or identify personal goals (salient and attainable) they could work with for the next 4 weeks.

• Content. This session encompasses three important elements, the discussion of stories and goal-oriented characters, the brainstorm of goal-oriented ideas from the past life and the identification of present goals they would like to work.

• Example of an exercise. Participants are asked to identify goals, obstacles, pathways and agency, first from stories or past situations of their real life, and after from present situations they would like to work with the hope buddy.

Session 3: Creating Positive and Specific Goals

• Goals. The goals of this session is to practice the model, refine personal workable goals in order to be more specific, positive and clearer, create multiple pathways and identify agency thoughts for each personal goal.

• Content. First, the introduction of new narratives and group activities offers the participants to reinforce and practice the model. This session also draws on the progress of personal goals and collaboration can occur to adjust or modify any disparities in actions or thinking that may hinder the successful achievement of the desired goals.

• Example of an exercise. Participants are asked to reorganize goals in a “goal enhancer worksheet” by making it more specific and positive.

Session 4: Practice Makes Perfect

• Goals. The goals of this session are to judge, identify and create an “hopeful talk”; to reinforce the hope model; and to review and introduce personal workable goals in a personal hope story.

• Content. Hopefulness communication patterns, as well as hopeful communication behavior are presented and supervised role plays to help students better identify and understand hopefulness and hopeful voices is reinforced. The progress of personal goals is continually monitored.

• Example of an exercise. Each student is asked to share with the buddy the progress of his/her goal through a “Hope Buddy Journal”.

Session 5: Review and Apply for the Future

• Goals. The primary goal of this session is to enhance exchange of personal hope stories and to plan future steps.

• Content. This session proposes to the students the exchange with the group how they implement the hope theory to their unique life experiences. The process over achievement is emphasized as well as the next steps in the goal process.

• Example of an exercise. Participants are encouraged to evaluate the process and discuss next steps with the hope buddy and finally share his/her personally hope story with the rest of the group.

Shared Considerations across the five-sessions

• Each session started with a 10 min segment dedicated to modeling and developing enthusiasm for the program and to reinforcing ideas learned in the previous session.

• The sessions are based on the theoretical and applied work of Snyder and colleagues (e.g., Lopez et al. 2000; Snyder 1994; Snyder et al. 2002; McDermott and Snyder 1999).

• The sessions integrate solution-focused, narrative and cognitive-behavioral techniques.

• The sessions offer psycho-educational, skills training and group process components, and include structured activities, roleplaying, brainstorming, and guided discussion.

• The program is designed to be controlled for adult attention, group cohesion, social support, the discussion of hope components, sharing thoughts and feelings with peers, and engagement in session’s activities.

Session with Parents and Teachers

The direct work with parents and teachers is supported by a manual designed to: (1) increase parents and teachers awareness of the principles of hope and enhance their goal-setting behavior; and (2) promote goal-setting behavior in their children/students. This manual has three sections: The first section is dedicated to “Learning about hope” (e.g., hope concept, research on hope, how hope can be cultivated, reflection questions). The second section is the “Instilling Hope” section and participants are first oriented to a “Hope Finding” (e.g., self-evaluation with the Hope Scale from Snyder et al. 1991) and next to a “Hope Bonding” (how to build hopeful relationships). The third section, “Increasing Hope”, is dedicated to “Hope Enhancing” (this segment provides basic steps associated with hope enhancement) and “Hope Reminding” (this segment provides strategies and practical exercises to improve their own hope and in their children/students).