Transcription
The following is the Army National Guard's CYS adaptation of the Teen Master Resilience Course as presented by the Army CSF2 and the University of Pennsylvania.
Hi everyone, my name is Diana, and I am the lead chatting youth program coordinator for the Indiana National Guard. Today, I will be talking to you guys about the resiliency topic of the ATC model.
The ATC model focuses on identifying your heat of the moment thoughts to an activating event and the consequences of those thoughts. Once we have a better understanding of this process, it empowers us to take control over our emotions and reactions.
The A in the ATC model stands for activating event. This is the trigger, challenge, adversity, or a positive event. When we are talking about the activating event, we must focus on the facts, which is the who, what, when, and where.
Next, we have the T, which is our thoughts. This is your interpretation of the activating event—our heat of the moment thoughts. This is what we want to focus on, and this is immediately following the activating event.
Next, we have our C, which stands for consequences. Our consequences focus on our emotions and reactions. When we are talking about emotions, this is focusing on feeling words. Please note that everyone has a different feelings vocabulary, so what you may think of as something that is happy, someone else might think of just as content. That also brings us to the point that there are different intensities to certain feeling words.
Next, we have our reactions, and our reactions focus on our behaviors. Our behaviors can be what we do, but also what we don't do.
The example that I'm going to use today to demonstrate the ATC model is kids at camp being canceled due to COVID-19. So that would be our activating event. Our thought for that would be, "Gosh, it sucks to be a military kid. I'm never able to see any of my friends who are just like me."
The consequences for this could be that the emotions are that they're sad, they're upset, and maybe a little depressed. Their reactions to this could be crying. They may also withdraw from their family or isolate themselves.
It is so important that we make sure that there is a connection between our thoughts and reactions because ultimately, our thoughts do drive our emotions and reactions. When we have a connection between our emotions, reactions, and our thoughts, this is called thought-consequence connection.
So we have our thoughts, which are heat of the moments, but then we also have a different category called our thought themes. This is just an overall general category of our thoughts and what box they could possibly fit into.
When we see our initial heat of the moment thought was, "Gosh, it sucks to be a military kid. I'm never able to see any of my friends who are just like me," this would ultimately be loss because this youth has lost something that is of value to them and that they care about. Their emotions and reactions to this would be sadness and withdrawal.
Overall, what we want to do in the ATC model is to make sure that we are focusing on seeing if there are any patterns that we are paying attention to. So when we talk about patterns, we are talking about how our thoughts relate to an activating event.
The key principles of the ATC model are to separate the A from the T from the C. The A focuses on the facts—the who, what, when, and where. Our T focuses on our interpretation of the activating event—our heat of the moment thoughts. Our C is for consequences, emotions, and reactions.
Once we have a better understanding of this, we are able to identify any overly rigid patterns in our thoughts that are undermining our performance and mental toughness. Once we are able to do this, it helps us to focus on our key target, which is self-awareness.
Once you are self-aware, you are able to take the steps to make the changes that you want to see. I hope that this information is helpful to you all. Have a great day!
To learn more about the Army National Guard CYS program, please visit ARNG or reach out to your local child youth program coordinator for more information.