It goes without saying that we are all feeling the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and current community restrictions. We have been ‘locked down’ for almost the entire term and many of us are trying to work fulltime as well as support our children with their home learning and run a household.

Some of our families are reporting that their children are losing motivation to learn and some, even getting out of bed. Instead of becoming more independent with their schoolwork, they are becoming more needy of attention and time.

Our staff and school leadership are committed to supporting our students with not only their learning but also their mental health and wellbeing. If you are in need of additional support, please contact us. You child’s teacher or a member of the Wellbeing team would be your first point of contact, but other staff will also be able to provide ideas and strategies. Cath Buckland, our Student Health and Wellbeing Coordinator and Anne Lawry, our School Chaplain are only a phone call away. We are also happy to provide support as needed.

We would like to re-share an article with you, that we first shared this time last year. The article below has been written by Michael Grose, founder of Parenting Ideas. Michael is a former teacher with fifteen years’ experience and for the last thirty years has been working in parenting education. He also holds a Master of Educational Studies from Monash University specialising in parenting education. It is an important time to look for new strategies to help maintain the mental health and wellbeing of our students.

Maintaining Kids’ Mental Health during the Coronavirus Pandemic

By Michael Grose

While there are concerns about the negative impact of physical isolation is having on children’s learning, we should also be concerned about their mental health. Teachers and health professionals report that the strain of physical isolation is starting to show for many children and young people. Any anxiety and fear they experience is heightened by

isolation from friends, lack of access to their usual sports and leisure activities and a lack of certainty about the future.

In these challenging times kids’ mental health needs to be a high priority. The following plan laid out by the experts at Parenting Ideas will show you how to lay a solid foundation for good mental health, and outline key behaviours that will help build the resilience and psychological strength that kids need in these difficult times.

Build the foundations for good health

A healthy diet, plenty of exercise and good sleep patterns are basic to good physical and mental health. Get the foundations right and you establish optimum conditions for your child to flourish even in difficult circumstances.

Eat a healthy diet

The ‘healthy body, healthy mind’ mantra that we grew up with needs to be updated to ‘healthy gut, healthy brain’. Recent research has revealed the links between a child’s gut health and good mental health. Kids who experience anxiety and depression typically have imbalances of adrenaline (which keeps the brain alert) and GABA (which calms the brain down), that can be rectified with good gut health.

A framework for healthy eating includes eating real rather than processed foods, consuming small and regular meals, starting each day with protein and complex carbs, drinking plenty of water and keeping kids away from caffeinated drinks.

Get plenty of exercise

Exercise not only promotes good mental health. It’s also a tool that kids can use to manage their mental states. Exercise and movement send endorphins through their bodies improving mood and relieving tension and stress. Exercise and movement relaxes the muscles and reduces feelings of anxiety that build up over time.

A framework for exercise includes starting the day with some movement, taking regular movement and game breaks, finishing the school day with movement that gets their limbs moving and hearts pumping.

Maintain good sleep patterns

The benefits of good sleep patterns are immense and far-reaching, impacting kids’ learning, memory and emotional stability. Sleep restores the brain to optimum conditions

and rejuvenates the body, allowing hormone levels elevated during the day to return to normal. Consequently, sleep-deprived kids experience greater anxiety doing routine tasks and have a propensity for pessimistic thinking, which is associated with anxiety and depression.

A framework for good sleep patterns includes finding an optimum bedtime; creating a regular, relaxing routine, eating and exercising at the right time, creating a sleep sanctuary and getting up at regular times each day.

Add the pillars of good mental health

Mental health is complex and is impacted by many factors including a child’s social and emotional wellbeing. The following four pillars have an insulating effect on your child’s mental health, acting as circuit-breakers when life becomes difficult and complex.

Maintain social connection

As social beings we long for connection to others and a sense of belonging to groups. While time alone can be restorative, sharing experiences, thoughts and stories with others is absolutely essential to your child’s happiness and wellbeing.

A framework for social connection includes one-on-one time with family members and other loved ones, having shared family experiences to confirm a sense of belonging, having shared time and experiences with peers from school and the neighbourhood, and a connection with the broader community through shared experience, cause or goal.

Stay in the present

The human mind is restless, taking us all over the place. It can make us feel happy recalling memories of loved ones or happy times and it can also drive insecurity connecting us to events in the past or future that fill us with dread, and make us feel anxious. Kids’ wandering minds need to take a rest and settle in the present, stopping their mental chatter, giving them the chance relax. Mindfulness is an essential mental health tool that enables children to keep their minds in the present moment, allowing them to feel safe and secure.

A mindfulness framework includes regular mindfulness exercises, doing one thing at a time, using mindfulness during an anxious moment, practising self-kindness and forgiveness.

Enjoy yourself at play

The term ‘child’s play’ is demeaning to children and dismissive of the place of play in our lives. Play is absolutely critical to our happiness and wellbeing. Borrowing from the work of Dr. Brene Brown, play is defined as any activity that’s fun (therefore highly anticipated), free (that is, self-directed) and involves flow (we don’t want it to stop). Play helps kids manage anxiety and depression as it lifts their mood and is therapeutic by nature.

A play framework includes space and time for play, child-initiated activities, a mix of lone play and group activity, some social or physical risk may be involved.

Spend time in nature

Recent studies highlight what we already knew – that time spent in natural environments benefits our happiness, our sense of wellbeing and reduces stress and tension. The rejuvenating benefits of time spent in the bush or by the sea may be difficult to acquire during times of physical isolation but walks to the park, spending time under a favourite tree or even bringing some green shrubs inside have proven to be just as beneficial to children’s mental health.

A time in nature framework includes management and reduction of screen time, exposure to natural environments in the neighbourhood, bringing the outdoors inside, and spending some time each day outdoors.

Practise protective behaviours

Our daily habits contribute to our wellbeing and mental health. Some habits such as spending too much time in front of a screen may be detrimental. There are a number of behaviours, when practised continuously, build our resilience and resistance to daily difficulties. These include:

Keep foundation behaviours

Routine behaviours such as waking at the same time, having breakfast, exercising, showering and dressing get us ready for the day ahead.

They underpin productivity, learning and wellbeing. Remove the structure provided by these foundation behaviours and many children and young people struggle, particularly those who are prone to anxiety and depression.

A foundation behaviour framework includes morning routines and rituals to prepare for the day, after school and evening wind down routines, and routines that prepare children for sleep.

Practise deep breathing

Recognition of the benefits of deep breathing dates back to ancient Roman and Greek times when deep belly breathing was used to rid the body of impurities. Modern science informs us that deep breathing instantly engages our capacity to relax and stay calm. When a child becomes anxious or fearful their breathing becomes shallow. Taking deep, slow breaths when they become overwhelmed by anxiety is the quickest way to return to a calm state. Deep breathing has great preventative powers helping the mind stay in a state of focus and calm.

A deep breathing framework includes practising deep breathing spontaneously throughout the day, combining deep breathing with mindfulness practice, using deep breathing to restore energy when tired, and breathing deeply during an anxious moment.

Check in on feelings

If children and young people are not tuning into their emotions they are missing a rich vein of information that will assist decision-making, learning and importantly, their wellbeing.

It’s relatively easy to tune to into behaviour and our thoughts, but much harder to detect our emotions. The skill of emotionally checking in, developed by Prof. Marc Brackett from the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence, helps children and young people to identify how they are feeling at any given time. It requires kids to stand still, close their eyes, take some deep breaths, identify and give a name to their feeling. This simple habit of checking, once practised and learned is a wonderful life skill to acquire.

Looking after your child’s mental health may seems like a mystery at times. But there is a great deal we can do. By laying a foundation for good general health and then working at maintaining the pillars of mental health and teaching kids the protective mental health behaviours you provide them with a solid framework for maintenance of good mental health that they can take into adulthood

Wellbeing Supports and Services for Students and their Families

It can be challenging to process and manage changes to routines and the uncertainty that comes with COVID-19 and related restrictions. To support our school community during this time, resources and support are available for parents, carers and families. These resources will help to support the mental health and wellbeing of our students and the young people in our care during this time. We encourage everyone in our community to access these resources and take care of themselves during this time.

A Quick Guide to Student Mental Health and Wellbeing resources is available for students, parents and carers looking to access expert guidance and resources to support wellbeing.

Supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our students remains our priority this year, especially during the continued COVID-19 pandemic and while students are learning from home during the current circuit breaker restrictions.

For students, the guide includes resources to support their own mental health and wellbeing.

Advice and resources for students about ways to adapt their learning during COVID-19, to look after themselves and where to get help.
Wellbeing activities featuring AFL and AFLW players with tips on managing stress, staying active and gratitude.
Smiling Mind mindfulness activities for senior secondary school students, including short videos, online tip sheets and meditations.

The guide also includes resources and supports for parents and carers to help them build their child’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.

This includes:

resources to support children’s physical, mental health and wellbeing
wellbeing activities and conversation starters for parents of parents of primary school-aged children and parents of secondary school-aged children
Raising Learners podcast series
how to talk to your child about COVID-19
headspace is running webinars for parents and carers about offering support when they are concerned about a young person’s mental health.

Wellbeing guidance for parents and carers is also available:

on the Department’s website
headspace has created a video providing tips to support parents and carers during lockdown
through the confidential parent support hotline, Parentline, available 8am to midnight, seven days a week, Phone: 13 22 89.

Food Hampers Available

Food Hampers continue to be available to members of the Bimbadeen community, thanks to the generosity of Foodbank Victoria, through our school Breakfast Club program.

If you or someone you know would benefit from receiving a food hamper, please contact the school office during school hours and we will organise a hamper for you.

National e-Smart Week

Next week is National e-Smart Week (6-12 September). This is a great opportunity for families to discuss the importance of being safe online. We continue to be amazed by the number of students in our upper year levels who have access to Tik-Tok, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram etc that have clear age restrictions in place. These age restrictions are in place for a reason.

As our students are learning at home, many spending more time on digital devices than ever before, it is important that students are making good choices that help keep them safe. Students should be having lots

of face-to-face interactions with peers and adults to support the development of their social emotional skills as well as relationships and connections.

It is through these conversations that we help our children develop their emotional intelligence and understand the impact of their choices online.

Listed below are 10 tips from the Alannah and Madeline Foundation to help start a conversation with your child:

Care about the Share

Social media wants you to share as much as you can bear! But the share should be rare. NEVER share: passwords, private/personal information, your location.

Privacy Matters

If you care about the share, you’ll protect your privacy, no matter what. Regularly check your privacy settings on social media, and always think before you post. It’s amazing where data ends up – usually all over the internet.

Respect the Privacy of Others

Treat others’ privacy as you would your own. Ask for your friends’ permission before uploading photos and videos of them. It’s not all about you.

Keep Everything Updated

Any idea what causes the most security breaches on the internet? Software that isn’t up-to-date. Seems crazy simple, but it’s true! Be vigilant about updating software, including apps, anti-virus and even the humble browser.

Spam

Even with the best anti-spam and malware software – that’s up-to-date – spam is the modern version of junk mail. It’s everywhere! Learn how to tell the difference between real emails and messages, and dodgy things with dodgy links. Sometimes they don’t look so dodgy...always be suspicious of hyperlinks in emails.

Control the Troll Within

There be trolls out there – beware! Don’t feed them, don’t give them what they want: an angry response. Block/Report the trolls. But also: resist the inner troll. If you’re not adding something to the debate online, don’t bother. Don’t be part of the problem.

Cyberbullying and Harassment

If you’re being targeted by this kind of behaviour, know what you can do, and where you can get help. Visit the National Centre Against Bullying website and the Office of the eSafety Commissioner's website.

Keep Your Friends Close and Strangers at Arm’s Length

Do you know how many true friends most people have? Three. Yup, those four thousand and fifty-two Facebook ‘friends’ are a combination of acquaintances, people-you-met-once, people-you can’t-remember-meeting-once, and probably, some ‘randoms’. They don’t need to know what you had for breakfast, or what concert you went to last night, do they?

Feel the Flow – Keep Your Life in Balance

Technology is incredible. Gaming, networking, apps…online shopping! But make sure you take time out and find the right balance for you. Too long on tech can put the world out of whack. Have Fun, Friend Always remember to chill out and keep things in perspective. There’s too much information online to take it all in!

Focus on each moment, and enjoy.

(Alannah and Madeline Foundation)

Newsletter Contributions

During this period of remote and flexible learning, we would love to continue to celebrate student learning and achievements in our fortnightly newsletters. If you would like to share an image of your child engaging in learning at home or a special piece of work they have produced, please send a photo to your child’s teacher so these can be included in our next newsletter.

We hope you and your family enjoy a lovely weekend together. Please reach out if you need support during this challenging time.

Adele Gregson and Sabrina George

Remote Learning Year 2