The Mental Emotional Health Blog

Have you ever heard of the Ripple Effect? Jacob Kounin wrote a book in the area of education, Discipline and Group Management in Classrooms (1970), discussing the idea that when one student in a class is reprimanded or disciplined, other students may tend to comply even if they were not addressed directly. According to Wikipedia, The Ripple Effect is a term also used in sociology, economics, and spiritual activism.

For people that use systems-thinking, which views individual problems (or components) as part of a larger system, The Ripple Effect makes sense. For any direct intervention there are other effects because one person or situation is also part of, and therefore interacts with, a larger system or situation.

So today, I want to use the Ripple Effect angle as a way to emphasize how important it can be to be positive and healthy. Whether you say that laughter is contagious or smiles are contagious, you’re absolutely right. Positivity affects other people positively, just as negativity tends to affect people negatively. When a positive and negative person meet and influence each other, whoever has more patience will have the greater influence. That is where health becomes part of the equation.

A healthy person will tend have positive energy and generally will have the patience to stay positive. But the thing about positive people is that they also tend to share their positive energy with others, and that promotes health in a workplace, classroom, or community. If enough people buy into positivity and health frequently enough, a healthy culture is established. People are more productive, more supported, more supportive, and less stressed.

And that is why genuine smiles and compliments are so important. They ripple out to people beyond the people you shared your positive energy with.

As children grow into teens, they develop more mental and emotional resources. Compared to childhood, teens are generally more able to adapt, keep themselves occupied (not always entertained, but occupied), and have a better understanding of the world and where they fit into it. They also have a better understanding of manipulation games, avoiding responsibilities, or covering up their behaviors at times.

After several years of parenting influence and life experience, older teens start to practice acting like what they perceive is adulthood whether they are ready or not. I’m not going to get into all the pressures teens and young adults face, although some are very tough to deal with. I am going to emphasize the power to make decisions.

Teenagers know enough at a certain age to make decisions. Parents have acheived the majority of their core parenting and influence by the time a child reaches 13. It seems most of the parenting of a 13-19 year old involves problem-solving, troubleshooting, and some social training. A parent continues to influence their teen into adulthood, it’s just that the main part of parenting is mostly done.

This is why it is important to realize as a parent that your teens are making decisions on their own. Control is an illusion, there is only influence. As teens get older, parents tend to influence less in general.

But during the young adult years, these teens frequently receive mixed messages from adults. Sometimes they hear, “No, you can’t do that”, in the same conversation as “Grow up”. Or they might hear, “You never talk to me”, as often as “I don’t want to hear it”. The actual words may be different, but no wonder teens are confused and frustrated.

Adults have been through childhood, teenage years, and adulthood. Teens have been children and are still developing into adults. Teens are old enough to make some decisions and have reasons for those decisions. They aren’t always correct or proper, and then once in a while their reasoning is better than ours as adults (usually when we are not being objective and rational). Overall though, they are practicing their adulthood, which is what we ask them to do.

I guess I’ll sum up by suggesting this to parents: Give teens several chances, recognize where they are in life, and hold them accountable for the decisions they make. Connect with other parents, talk about what works and what doesn’t work, and model appropriate attitude consistently before expecting it.

Although this site is devoted to mental and emotional health, it is important to recognize that physical and spiritual health play a part in you as well. Physical health is what I’d like to talk about today.

Your physical health is directly connected to the other types of health listed above. Here a common example (hopefully not too common for you): you have a headache that developed after an emotional event that made it difficult for you to concentrate. <Physical> developed after <emotional> affecting <mental>. That’s one reason it is essential to maintain and improve your physical health. That’s why going for daily walks, getting regular physicals with your doctor, staying hydrated (with water), decent nutrition, and getting enough rest are mentioned so often by health providers, including therapists and psychiatrists.   

Everything is connected when it comes to your health.  It is ideal to cope with emotional and mental stress directly before you develop physical effects (headaches, stomach discomfort, digestive concerns, chronic muscle tension, heart concerns, etc.). But you can often improve your emotional and mental health through appropriate physical activities.