Wellbeing
National Walk Safely to school Day
The objectives of National Walk Safely to School Day are:
- To encourage parents and carers to walk regularly with their children, all or part of the way to school.
- To promote the health benefits of walking and create regular walking habits.
- To help children develop vital road crossing skills and ensure children up to the age of 10 years hold an adult’s hand when crossing the road.
- To reduce car dependency and traffic congestion, especially around schools.
- To reduce the level of air pollution created by motor vehicles.
- To promote the use of public transport.
At SFS we will celebrate this day next Monday 23rd May. We encourage as many children as possible to walk to school or at least part of the way to school on this day. We will have 2 meeting points where we will have a walking school bus lead by some teachers. Parents can either drop their children off at this meeting point and walk to school with the staff or join the staff and walk to school with your children. When we arrive at school we will make our way to the school oval and do a lap of the oval. The two meeting points are:
- The Lynbrook community centre
- Figtree Reserve (corner of Alymer Rd and Waterbrush crescent)
We will meet at these two points at 8am and will be ready to leave by 8.10am.
Let’s get healthy together and walk to school!
SFS Twilight Market and Art show
We are eagerly anticipating our annual SFS Twilight Community market and Art Show which will be held on Thursday 3rd November from 5pm until 8pm. We are still looking for more stallholders particularly from our SFS school community. Get together with your family and come up with an idea of something you could make and sell at the market. For all enquiries or for an expression of interest form, please contact rlenko@sfslynbrook.catholic.edu.au
High Quality Parenting
This week’s article from the Happy families website and is written by leading parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson, is all about quality parenting.
“Science tells us that rewards and punishments are not the answer to effective discipline and happy homes. Undoubtedly your own experience backs that up, too.But if we’re going to consider ditching punishment and reward, that means we’re looking at removing all threats and punitive actions including yelling, time-outs, withdrawal of privileges, and smacking. Plus we’re removing bribes and praise.
What’s a parent got left to get kids to do as they’re told?
The best parenting is not about making our children do things. It’s true that since none of us is perfect, we probably will still rely on those strategies in our “weaker moments”. But there are better ways.
Here's 3 ingredients for High Quality Parenting.
- Involvement: The best parents are involved in their children’s lives. They provide appropriate care, supervision, and monitoring. It’s not so much about surveillance as it is, awareness of where their children are and what they’re doing, along with support in times of need.
- Structure: The best parents provide structures and safety for their children. This involves talking with them about challenges they may face (pre-arming) such as friendship difficulties, values-clashes, pornography, and so on, and then working with them on solutions for keeping them safe. Structure is also about rhythm and routine. By creating predictability we give our kids a sense of security and safety.
- Autonomy Support: The best parents offer support for their children to make their own decisions (in a developmentally appropriate way) so that they are not forever reliant on the grown-ups to dictate their every choice.”
The Resilience Project
At SFS we are in our 3rd year of partnership with the Resilience Project. Our focus for term 2 is Empathy. Empathy is being able to put ourselves in the shoes of other so we feel what they are feeling. We practice empathy by being kind and compassionate towards others. At the end of each day, or at meal time ask your children about whether they had the opportunity to show kindness to others today or whether someone showed kindness to them. For more ideas on how to practice empathy at home with your family, check out the resilience project at home website https://theresilienceproject.com.au/at-home/
If you have any concerns about the wellbeing of your child, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Rachel Lenko
Student Wellbeing Leader