Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships

The NEST is warm, cozy and buzzing with conversations about how we can best support our children to be healthy, safe and happy. We are focusing on a shared language between home and school, and understanding developmental stages and changes in our children. We have been watching an online webinar with autistic author and educator, Dr Emma Goodall about how to help children and young people with autism to navigate healthy relationships and boundaries. If you are interested in watching the seminar, please click on the link below:

Dr Goodall has written and co-authored the following books if you are interested in some holiday reading: 

Term 3 in the classrooms is all about how we relate to other people and how to better understand consent and body boundaries. We have been learning about how to differentiate between family, friends, acquaintances, professionals, helpers and strangers (see sample diagram below). This is a helpful tool for supporting our children to know how to set boundaries and understand social safety. 

The RRRR program has also supported the online safety workshops we had with our secondary students last week, through the “Think U Know” program. We have been covering consent, “Online Friends and Strangers” looking at topics like who is a friend IRL (In Real Life)  and who is a stranger. We are exploring strategies for managing unwanted contact, cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and how to ask for help from safe adults. 

Parents are often concerned about their child’s access to the internet and how they can keep them safe. Depending on the devices or apps your child commonly uses, they may have varying degrees of access to different parts of the internet. Here are some suggestions to help keep your child safe and cyber-smart online:

One of our favourite songs at school this term is "That's a Boundary" by Hopscotch. If you pop this on at home, it is a great learning tool for teaching our kids about body boundaries and personal space. One of my faves too! 

Wishing you all a happy and healthy holiday break and I look forward to connecting with you in Term 4.

Mim Papinniemi