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Helping kids and parents thrive

Part 1 - the basics
You have in your hands a model that can DNA-V is a holistic way to help your child
help your child grow well. We call the learn how to discover their talents,
model DNA-V. connect with their feelings, use their
minds, learn how to be with themselves,
Hidden inside DNA-V is the latest and make friends and social connections.
scientific knowledge on growth and The model is designed to work
development for kids, for their whole body developmentally with kids from 5 or 6
and mind. DNA-V is made for kids, based upwards.
on a developmental awareness of what
kids can do and what they need to do to This handbook describes the basic skills
reach their full potential. of D, N, A and V.
Part 2, coming soon, will bring you social
and self development skills.

© Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com

 Part 1 Contents
1. Vitality and value
2. Noticer
3. Advisor
4. Discoverer
5. The DNA-V Quickstep

How to use
These tip sheets are designed for easy use by parents, teachers and professionals —
adult learners. Although the information can stand alone, we have found the best way to
understand how to use DNA-V is to show adult learners. It is best to give out one sheet
at a time, and allow learners to slowly build their skills. Build skills experientially. Help
learners step inside DNA-V and you will be giving them a powerful tool to help their
child.

Part 2 - Coming soon

1. Becoming our self
2. Building friendship
3. Handling difficulties with friends
4. Handling problems at home
5. Working in groups

Part 2 will be released in June 2016. Go to www.thrivingadolescent.com and sign up for

our newsletter. Never miss a new DNA-v free resource again. No spam, ever!

© Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com

 DNA-v tip sheets for families

VITALITY
is living with all
your heart:

Our DNA skills are used to help us

live well, to learn, and to grow with
courage and strength. When we do
this, we are living with our value OR
vitality.

What you can say:

“See the centre of the DNA-v circle, that is a V, it stands for value or
vitality. This is just a fancy word for what you care about most, or what
is in your heart.
You can even make your own word for this - the voom!!!”

The words you choose and way of speaking will depend on the age of
your child. Value is an abstract older person skill. Being able to truely
connect current behaviour to long term value takes all of our childhood and teen years to
learn. We don’t want to pull kids into adult ways. We simply want to help them develop a
language for things they love. A foundation for the future.

Play the 6 ways to wellbeing game

You can use the spinning wheel to have fun together

and create new ways to play with vitality. You simply Noticing now Connecting

spin the wheel and do whatever activity the pointer

lands on.

Imagine you land on ‘giving’. The task is to give a gift. Caring for yourself Challenging yourself
So you say, “Lets both do a giving thing right now”. I
know, how about we give each other a hug!”

You can play this alone, with family or with friends but
Giving Being active
it’s much more fun together. You can even make your
own wheel for the fridge.

Click here for a link to a spinning wheel game

! 1 OF 2 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com
Tips for parents to connect behaviour to value:

1. Try to connect your child’s behaviour to what they care about most. “I loved the way you
worked on your drawing, it’s great to see you being creative.” Do this so they are encouraged
to connect words to their loved activities.

2. Use the 6 ways shown above to help balance your child’s leisure and play activities.

3. Finding value is not about pressuring kids to behave or do what adults want; it is about
helping them connect with their own heart.

4. Mostly, kids want similar things to adults – love, caring, connection, being heard. They can
look different when they try to get it though!

If you are working out a problem, explore what they care about with some
discussion or games like:
1. What am I/we doing this for?
2. What are your heart messages?
3. What did you love the most today? What was the hardest thing today?
4. What do you/we care about here?
5. What do you/we love to discover?
6. What kind of person are you/me building on the inside?
7. If you had 3 wishes what would they be? (if they were not about money or buying
things but about you)
8. What is this counselling/help for?

! 2 OF 2 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com

 DNA-v tip sheets for families

Step into the NOTICER space:

Noticers learn to be aware of their body, the signals coming in from the world, and their
feelings that come and go. Helping kids to notice gives them opportunities to learn about
their body and how it works. They can learn that feelings are messages, some need to be
answered, while others can just pass on by.

3 steps to sharpen your child’s noticer skills:

1. “Become aware of your body by scanning it to see what is happening right now, like you might
watch a tree to see if the wind is blowing it. Or like you have
stepped inside an awareness scanner. Just notice what is
going on in your body right now.”

2. “Name whatever sensations are in your body right

now.” (Give examples if
needed, e.g. butterflies in
tummy, tight face; and wait a
little longer than you think you
need to.)

3. “See if you can describe what feeling goes with these messages
from your body” (Help them label their feeling if you need to).

4 things you can do next:

• Praise their effort, e.g. “I like the way you stopped to really notice
your feeling signals” (Avoid praising the child, i.e “good boy”). Or,
•Encourage your child to take a slow breath.
Or,
•Show empathy and teach them to allow the
feeling to be there, “I don't like feeling sad
either, let’s see if we can just watch what
happens to the feeling”. Or
•Move to helping, but only if they ask for it,
or you see a need to. Perhaps say something
like, “What do you think we can do about
this?”

1! OF ! 2 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com

Emotions are not just “in our The benefit of
heads” — teaching noticing:

Emotions are in our whole body, from head to toe. Our

brain does not just do things all on its own. Emotions are
an exchange between the world, our bodies and our
brains.

Our bodies are efficient at detecting

danger or finding safety in the world.
Humans have 3 ways we respond to
danger signals*:

1st. We seek help from others, and

then;
2nd. We fight or flee from the danger,
and then;

Just like our phones, our bodies are constantly 3rd. We freeze (helpless)
scanning for signals from the world.
All mammals respond in this way to
We get signals from our friends and family and use this to
danger. That is why attachment,
understand how to be with people, to tell if we are safe,
and to detect if there is danger. connection and modelling with safe
people is so critical. These social
As we grow we learn to label our body sensations with connections teach us how to have
feeling words. This helps us make sense of the signals. If
distress in our bodies and to know
a child is able to label emotions as they arise, s/he will be
more successful at relationships, friendships, and what to do with the feelings that can
academics. overwhelm us when we are small.

Parents, family and teachers have an important job to help

* (Porges, S. (2011). The polyvagal
kids learn how to be aware of their body, to name the
sensations, and to describe feelings. theory. New York: W.W. Norton.)

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2 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com
 DNA-v tip sheets for families

Make friends with your ADVISOR

The advisor is simply a metaphor we use for always listen to teachers”). It is just a way
our inner voice or self-talk. of talking to ourselves.

All of us have an inner voice, or advisor, With some help, kids can learn to use their
that is constantly talking to us. It also advisor in helpful ways. They can listen when
judges ("Be careful that person might be it’s helpful, and defuse from it when it isn't
mean to you), it predicts ("You'll never be helpful. Sometimes they will need to test out
any good at sport"), and it tells you want the advice to find out if it is helpful or
you should or must do ("You should unhelpful.

Sam gets tired of having an advisor. He tries plan B.

Things you can say and play

You can help your child hear their advisor is things like, "You are not good enough. You
by playing games together. The best way should just give up." The key point is, we
to learn is to have fun and playful don’t need to fight our advisor, this is a
discussions. You want your child to normal human tool and we can choose
discover that sometimes the advisor says whether the advice is helpful. Below are
useful things like "You have to work hard to four examples to play with. It is best to use
succeed.” Other times it says unhelpful these slowly rather than all at once:

1! OF ! 3 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com

 1. Advisor is a superpower
“Advisor is a word we use for the voice inside “I'm always bad at….”
our heads – like our thoughts. Would you like
to do a little experiment to hear your advisor? Whatever your child says doesn’t matter. No
Ok, I am going to say something, and you say need to reassure them here, you are instead
the first thing that comes to mind.” just wanting to playfully hear their inner voice.

“This cup is filled with snot “ (or you can pick • Discuss why humans might have this
any food your child hates). inner voice. Try to playfully come up with
ideas rather than telling them. You want
"Would you like to drink this cup of snot?" to end up with an understanding that we
Whatever your child says about the contents, use our advisor to help us fix problems,
say in response, ”Good, that is what we call to follow rules, and to warn if there is
your advisor. Your advisor is always trying to danger.
judge and figure things out? And see how
your advisor made you feel icky, even though Finish with: “Our advisors are like a human
there really wasn't any snot in the cup?” superpower. It is always good to know when
to use it, and when to not use it. Even
“Ok, now let's see what your advisor says superman does not always want to use his
next. I'll say some words and you complete flying superpower. Imagine him trying to fly
the sentence”. and eat dinner.”
“I'm always good at…."

Why humans have an advisor: do this very quickly and efficiently. Language
(thinking, speaking, listening) helped us survive, to
find food, and to look out for dangers. It also
helped us communicate with each other so that
our very weak human babies could be cared for
and survive. For example, some tribe members
could care for babies, while others stood guard or
went in search of food.

Even though we don’t face lions and tigers today,

our minds are still designed to look for danger first.
So we often have thoughts about whether
Our language ability developed to an important something is risky, if people will hurt us, or whether
purpose. Let’s go back to the days when humans we should hide.
first roamed the earth to see how this happened:
Once we know our advisor’s job is to detect
Back in the days on the Savannah, speaking danger, we can pause and decide if it is ‘right on’
helped us communicate to other members of our today. Or if we are stuck and should step out of our
tribe that there were dangers close by. We could advisor space.

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2 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com
2. Advisors loves rules
“Your Advisor’s ‘job’ is to keep you safe and • Discuss: Play with all sorts of rules
to look out for danger. For example, if you get they have learned. Notice that some
told to look both ways when you cross a road, rules are helpful and some are just
you can remember what you have been told, coming along for the ride..e.g. “Don’t
so whenever you stand at the curb, you know make the teacher mad.” (helpful). vs
to look carefully. We collect rules from “You must put you pants on before your
everywhere and sometimes we need to test top.” (not very helpful)
them to see if they are useful”

3. Advisors can be magical

“Do you know your advisor can also do again, but really stand up. Do you see there
magic? We can make anything be anything, is a difference?”
just by using our advisor? Watch this: Think • Discuss how thinking of standing up is
about standing up, but don’t move out of your almost as real as standing up, but it is
chair not the same. See how many other
(keep child sitting down). Close your eyes, advisor magic things you can create
keep your body still, but use your thoughts to (you are after things that are real just
see yourself stand up. Ok. Now, lets do this inside our minds).

4. Advisor have a dark side

“So, if your Advisor’s job is to keep you safe,
and it can make you feel like you have
moved, without moving your body, or
make you feel sick eating horrible food 4 ways to deal with an unhelpful advisor:
without even eating it, do you think that
1. Remember the advisor’s main job is to protect us,
maybe your advisor can say tricky things
too? Like you might tell yourself bad so it is always on the look out for problems.
things are going to happen, or that you 2. Advisors are not always helpful.
always get things wrong, or that you’ll
3. Advisors create rules about what ‘is’ or ‘should
mess up?”
be’.
• Discuss how your advisor is a
superpower for keeping safe. 4. We often need to check that our advice matches
Sometimes we tell ourselves its what the world is showing us. To do this, we can
better not to try than to fail. The real
step into the noticer or discoverer skill (see
test of our advisor is by stepping
Noticer and Discoverer tip sheets).
into the discoverer space and
seeing what is in the world of
experience (see Discoverer tip
sheet).

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3 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com
 DNA-v tip sheets for families

The DISCOVERER helps us try, track and build

Discoverer is a skill we teach children to help them broaden their abilities and make social
connections. We use discoverer skills to try new things, to assess how we are going, to
find and create values, and to build our strengths.

Helping your child become

a discoverer:

Step 1. What you can say:

“A discoverer skill is a bit like an
explorer, student, scientist or even
mountain climber. Discoverers explore
and test things out.”

Step 2. Talk about A Advisor: “What do you think would happen if you tried to climb
and N a mountain using just your thoughts?”

Step 3. Discuss discovery:

Share with your child about the things
you have found out by trying, by being
a discoverer yourself; e.g. if you
wanted to know what climbing was
like, you’d need to put one foot in front
of the other and physically climb, then
you’d know what it is like.

You might then explore other things

your child has had to try. i.e. hitting a
ball, riding a bike; anything that takes
Noticer: “What do you think would happen if you just experience to really try. Remember, we
tuned into the noticer? If you got stuck there? rarely have confidence before we try
something. Confidence comes after.

1! OF ! 2 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com

 Learning to track our
What you can say another day: behaviour:
Some other ways to talk to your child about their
discover skills:

1. “Our advisor is helpful for what we already know,

it can make decisions really fast, and it can help
us be really careful” AND “Our discoverer skills
help us learn new things so we can test, try and
explore”.
2. “Why don't we test this out and see?” Remember
to praise their effort, and label the behaviour as
discoverer.
3. “Discoverers get to try things. Things they might
If you were hiking in the mountains, you
never have done. What would you like to try
here?” don’t rely just on your map, you also need
4. “What strength do you have that might help you to look around you to see where you are.
here?”
You look at the hills and valleys to see if the
5. “Let’s see if we can be curious here?
map is correct. That is what we mean by
6. “What do you really care about, let’s see if we
can learn something about that? “ tracking. It is checking how our behaviour is
working in the world; seeing what the
natural consequences of our actions are,

Discoverers - try, track, & build: rather than what our advisor ‘thinks’ has
happened or will happen.
1. Try it - Our thoughts or feelings
To track we simply follow 4 key steps:
(advisor and noticer) are not the
same as trying out an
1. What was the situation?
experience.
2. What did I do?
2. Track it - Our experience helps us
3. What happened next?
decide if our behaviour is on the
4. Did my actions help me get the long
right track. Ask yourself, “What
term outcome I wanted? Or, did they
happened when I did that?”.
make things worse.
3. Build it - We use curiosity,
exploration and testing to build
Many of us, even adults, need to explore
our strengths, create things we
these concepts out loud with others so we
care about, and build
can also learn to track.
friendships.

! OF ! 2
2 © Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com
 DNA-v tip sheets for families

Doing the
DNA-V Quickstep
We use our DNA skills to help us build
flexible strength. This simply means
learning that we can move whenever
we feel stuck in one of the DNA-v
spaces.
For example, if our advisor is
chattering away and we feel stuck with
worry thoughts, we might step into our noticer You can simply say to a young person:
skill. “Whenever you’re stuck, and what you are
If we are noticing our feelings and are still trying isn't working, you can move—you can
unsure of what to do, we can step into our do the walk of life. Just like if you were stuck
advisor or discover skill. Or if we feel like it in the sand, you’d need to move your hands
would be impulsive to do something, we can and feet to get free.’ When you are stuck with
step out of discoverer and into noticer or one DNA skill, just try another”
advisor.

What you can say to your child:

1.“Do you feel stuck?” Is what you are doing making things better? Is it time to try a different
D, N or A skill?”
2.“When we are stuck in discoverer it’s like we do things impulsively or we might forget to be
careful.”
3.“When we are stuck in advisor we might forget to try new things. We just do what our
thoughts say. For example, if your thoughts say , "You are no good at math”, and listen to
that thought and stop doing math, you are stuck in your advisor.”
4. “When we are stuck in Noticing, our feelings are like a big wave washing over us and we
don’t know what to do. We might feel like we will always feel this way”
5. “We wont always know which skill is best, but we can always test out a new DNA skill. If
we are stuck step into another skill and try that”.
6. Sometimes the only way we know what to do, is to connect with what’s in our heart (see
vitality sheet).

1! OF 1 Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com

 Part 2 - Coming soon
Part 2 will be released in June 2016. Go to www.thrivingadolescent.com and sign up for
our newsletter. Never miss a new DNA-v free resource again. No spam, ever!

More reading about DNA-V

For more detailed reading and understanding of DNA-V, go to
www.thrivingadolescent.com.

© 2015 Louise Hayes and Joseph Ciarrochi.

Provided free for personal and professional fair use. Not to be reproduced or sold in
proprietary way without permission.

Hayes, L., & Ciarrochi, J. (2015). The thriving adolescent: Using Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy and Positive Psychology to Help Young People Manage Emotions,
Achieve Goals, and Build Positive Relationships: Oakland, CA: Context Press.

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© Hayes & Ciarrochi (2015). www.thrivingadolescent.com