Welcome to Week 3. What a celebration it was for BookWeek last Friday! It was wonderful to see so many children dressed up and moving into a fantasy of ‘Curious Creatures & Wild Minds’. The children really love the opportunity to dress up and our staff are always keen to join the party with their very clever and well-thought costumes. Thank you to all our parents for making this special for your children and a special thanks to Deb Harrip in the library for providing some special BookWeek activities for the classes during the week.
Sports Day is almost upon us. By now you would have received the Sports Day program with a map and outline of events. This day is always a highlight on our calendar and a great opportunity for our Year 6 leaders to shine. Best of luck to all the teams on Thursday, winning is great, but most importantly, competing and having fun is the best part. Please ensure your child brings their hat and wears either a team ribbon colour or plain T-shirt (No logo). Please remember to adhere to the COVID guidelines for the day. All spectators must sign in and only two adult family members can be present on the school grounds at any time. Your cooperation with this is much appreciated.
Resilience Workshop
Last Tuesday St Francis hosted a parent session on Resilience for the 5 schools in the Eastern region. This was well-attended and for those who were able to be here, a great opportunity to learn more about building resilience in your children. Madhavi Nawana Parker was the guest speaker and she provided a comprehensive and evidenced based session on how to build this skill, one which we all have to learn and which is driven by our life experiences. It is hard to summarise 90 minutes of input over a few sentences but I will try and provide some insight into the key points.
In simple terms emotionally confident minds know they – Can think for themselves, negotiate, compromise, make decisions, take healthy risks, connect positively with others and contribute positively.
Most importantly – children who are resilient know that they are loveable, likeable and accepted for the person they are. The job for us as parents is to set them up for this with our authentic love, balanced support and realistic experiences of set-backs in their lives that build their brain neurons to better cope with disappointment and failure as their brain develops.
One of the key points that has stuck with me from the presentation was that being fixers and rescuers when things go wrong for our children is not helpful. Yes, we must display genuine empathy and understanding but we must not come in as adults and simply make it better for them. As Madhavi points out – the 3 biggest killers to building emotional confidence and resilence from parents are Overprotection, Fierce Direction and Over servicing. In other words, doing it all for them, fixing the problem or spoon-feeding them to a point where the child does not actually make a choice and live the consequences will not help their development.
As parents we are emotionally connected to our children and hard-wired to support them in times of need. The challenge is in how that support is provided when their resilience is challenged.
There will be more opportunities to attend sessions with Madhavi next year on a whole range of topics around child development. I urge you to look out for these and make it a priority to attend when the opportunity arises. Feedback from our parents who attended was extremely positive. Do yourself a favour!
In closing I invite any parent who would like to submit a request regarding their child’s class placement for 2021 to put it in writing and submit it to me by Monday 2nd November. Please understand that while your request will be actively considered final decisions will be made based on the needs all children. Your understanding in this matter is appreciated.
Have a great week.
James Meiksans
|
