Competence and community

My mother is driving me crazy,” says Ramon (not his real name), 23, whose parents founded a retail business.

“We are stuck in the same house. She nags me to study accounting, but I am bad at numbers. I don’t get good grades in anything. Thankfully, classes are called off.”

“Are you seriously glad about this pandemic?” I ask.

“No,” Ramon says. “Quarantine forces me to stay home. In school I can be with friends. At home I cannot escape my mother’s constant nagging.”

“Is there really no subject that you like?” I ask.

“I kind of like psychology. My friends say I give good advice. But I am a business major. I am supposed to take over our company after graduation.”

But Ramon’s mother says, “He does not know much. He can barely graduate.”

“Your son seems to be a good listener,” I tell her.

“So what? We are a food business that’s getting hit in this pandemic. He needs to know logistics and accounting, not HR.”

This standoff calls to mind the webinar “The Need for a Sense of Competence” by National Social Scientist Maria Lourdes “Honey” Carandang on the MLAC Youtube channel.

Carandang is my mentor, and the top clinical psychologist in the country today. In her book “Back to Basics,” she discusses our seven fundamental psychological needs: personal significance, unconditional acceptance and affirmation, clear and consistent limits, competence, affiliation, self-expression, transcendence.

Last week, we discussed the need for limits (“Disciplining with dignity,” June 4). Now let us look at the fourth and fifth needs: to know that we are capable, and to know that we belong.

“Every person must know that they are good at something,” Carandang says. “They need to know what they are good at and be recognized for this.”

Carandang talks about a 10-year-old boy acting out in school. His parents listed 14 negative things about their son. When prodded by Carandang to come up with something positive, they said that he was only good at running and biking.

“I was bright before, but now I am not,” the boy told Carandang, whose team then facilitated play therapy.

“We also started with these two seemingly insignificant things,” Carandang says. “The boy joined the track team. He also started showing his friends how to ride bikes.”

As the boy’s two abilities were recognized, his self-worth grew. After some time, he announced, “I am bright na!”

“His sense of competence in these two skills generalized to other areas,” Carandang says.

We need to build on Ramon’s existing skill, I tell his mother. Even if listening well may not appear to directly influence the company bottom line, this can help improve interpersonal relationships, essential for business and life.

More importantly, recognizing this one skill will hopefully motivate Ramon to enhance and transfer this sense of competence to other areas, such as accounting.

Why do some people cope well with adversity (war, abuse, pandemic, etc.) while others do not? Carandang draws from global research that identifies two factors: Individuals who thrive have a personal sense of competence and an inspirational person who believes in them.

“Now in this pandemic is the time to discover what each person is good at,” Carandang says. “Seventy-year-old ladies good at sewing are making masks and duster dresses for other people. Scientists and others are giving what they know to the world.”

This urge to help is tied to the need to belong. Carandang quotes the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh, under whom she trained: “The interconnec­tedness of all human beings is the basis of compassion.”

“We need to know that we are part of a family, a community,” Carandang says. “If not, we feel alone, excluded, rejected. In this pandemic, social distancing makes us physically disconnected, so the need to belong is even more important. Ask yourself: Who do I feel connected to? How have I nurtured my relationships? How can I reach out to others?” Get Carandang’s “Back to Basics: Seven Psychological Needs” and a book we cowrote “The Filipino Family Surviving the World” at www.anvilpublishing.com or www.mlacinstitute.com. View Carandang’s webinars on Youtube at the MLAC Institute channel.