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Wellbeing

 

Dear Parents and Guardians,

 

It has been wonderful to welcome back our Year 12 students.  They have returned to school enthusiastically, showing determination to complete their final year at Killester in a positive way.  With only a number of weeks until final VCE exams begin our Year 12 teachers are working hard to prepare them.  We value the partnership we have with our families and understand the important role parents play in supporting their daughters.

These “Tips for parents of Year 12 students” has been adapted for our Killester community from an article 5 Tenacity Tips – D. Merza

Tips for Parents of Year 12 students

​In “normal” circumstances, parenting is a rollercoaster ride and Year 12 is a pretty stressful year for most students across Australia, especially at this time of the year. The pressure to perform, the fear of failure, a study load and waves of future uncertainty represent some of the stressors ordinarily experienced. But 2020 has been far from normal with Covid-19, remote learning, lockdown, public health fears, uncertainty around the calculation of ATAR, and the restrictions on graduation celebrations, collectively creating an extraordinary year.Stress is a normal part of life and essential for building resilience. It cannot be avoided, only managed. What can be avoided is distress. So, with less than 2 months to go till the finish line, what can you do as a parent to help your child manage stress and avoid distress heading into their final Year 12 exams? 

 

1. Tune in

Keep a constant eye out for signs of distress by monitoring your daughter’s day to day behaviour. Your daughter is likely to be distressed if they are constantly panicking, agitated, nervous, fatigued, nauseous, keeping distant, forgetting to eat, and losing sleep. If your daughter has a meltdown, the best thing you can do in the moment is to just empathise with them. Acknowledge their stress. They might argue with you, and if they do, just let them and don’t take it personally, because in fact, it’s not your daughter that’s attacking you. It’s stress that’s attacking you, and this has been caused by a variety of factors. Extreme stress on anyone leads to mood changes, so empathy and patience are pertinent.By tuning in as a parent, you can use your observations as a pathway into an open and honest conversation with your daughter to identify the root causes of their distress.

 

2. Encourage & Empower

Behaviours that a distressed child manifests are a product of thoughts. Open “non-confrontational” dialogue, to identify the root cause for your daughter’s distress, provide a safe outlet for your child to express their feelings. 

 

“Listen with ears of tolerance. See through eyes of compassion. Speak with the language of love” 

 

What thoughts is your daughter carrying? Perhaps it’s one of the following:  

  • There’s no way I can achieve that ATAR
  • I don’t want to let my parents down. 
  • I have no idea what I want to do when I finish school and it’s freaking me out
  • So, what’s the point of trying? It’s not going to change anything. This year has already been messed up.
  • I feel like giving up.
  • I’m feeling so overwhelmed - too much work. 

These are just thoughts that foster a sense of powerlessness. Acknowledge and validate their concerns and show that you believe in them. 

 

For example: “I understand you might not believe you can achieve that ATAR, BUT if you try your best, you’ve got a much better chance than if you didn’t, and that’s all I expect from you. I’m proud of you regardless of your ATAR because you persevered and stayed the course.” 

 

This empowers them to adopt a champion’s mindset - encouraging them to be solution focused and to turn their pain into gain - in strength, appreciation, perspective and resilience. ​

 

3. Focus on the Fruit

As a parent, your joy comes from seeing your daughter succeed and happy, but ask yourself what does success look like?

 

It’s really important to establish a healthy definition of success, for the sake of your daughter’s wellbeing. Success is more than just an exam score.  An exam score should not define a person’s worth.

 

Whilst exceptional test scores, awards and recognition are all important motivating milestones to have when striving to be “successful”, true success is never about the result or destination, but more about growth gained along the journey. The fruit is in the pursuit, and the person your daughter becomes in striving for success, regardless of the result. It’s about learning how to dance in the current pandemic storm and develop skills and lessons that will last a lifetime

 

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” (Arthur Ashe)

 

To focus on the fruits as a parent and alleviate any fears of failure your daughter might have, close the expectation gap by mutually agreeing on what’s realistic and achievable. Throw out the ‘ATAR’ expectation and replace it with the ‘personal best’ expectation.  Regardless of the final score attained, you will be proud of them for taking personal responsibility and becoming the leader of their life. It’s about maintaining personal integrity to finish what was started and sign off their schooling journey with personal pride. A practical and powerful exercise to encourage your daughter to complete so they can taste the “fruit of success” in advance is to write a short letter of congratulations to themselves, as if they were a friend, dated in December 2020. In the letter, encourage them to express the feelings they’d like to have at that point in time, and also, to personally acknowledge the effort they put in to finish strong. 

​

4. Support the Basics

Here are 5 suggestions for you to help your daughter to keep a healthy mind and body to alleviate pressure and allow for optimal performance over the coming weeks. 

  1. ​Support healthy eating, adequate rest and exercise for boosting brain power and memory, as well as igniting those important happy chemicals such as endorphins and dopamine to feel good, because when we feel good, we usually do good.
  2. Encourage regular study breaks for your child to sustain energy and focus and avoid burnout.
  3. Encourage time-out for family fun and connectedness
  4. Help out in the background like cooking favourite meal or keeping the noise down at home
  5. Deliver daily doses of encouragement, reminding them that you will love and support them, no matter what.

5. Gift Perspective

Year 12 exams and corresponding results are a moment in time, and one of many tests and challenges that life will throw at your daughter. As parents, it’s vital while your daughter is perhaps in the midst of pressure, overwhelm, uncertainty and insecurity, to give them the gift of perspective.

 

“It's not what you look at that matters. It's what you see.” (Henry David Thoreau)

 

Here are three suggestions of things to say:

  1. Reinforce the fact that ATAR is not the be-all and end-all and there are pathways galore post-Year 12 to move confidentially and optimistically in the direction of their dreams.
  2. Whether your daughter needs a certain ATAR to get into their desired university course or not, remind them that educational institutions and employers will be looking at more than just academic results when it comes to choosing candidates. In recent times, some Australian universities have been admitting students without an ATAR. Universities, training providers and employers want to see someone who has successfully completed their final year, demonstrating commitment and character, especially amid a global pandemic, and can provide a CV that shows a track record of leadership, service and character.
  3. If your daughter does not get the score they need to get straight into university, let her know that universities do consider other factors, but also, TAFE.

To conclude, while the ATAR might be an entry point to university, no ATAR will ever be as valuable as the tenacity muscle built by your daughter to finish what they started and maintain personal integrity. By staying the course and finishing strong now, they can leave feeling proud and accomplished and can count on that tenacity muscle in their future endeavours. 

 

Continually remind your child that you will love them no matter what result they get, that they are a success in your eyes for applying themselves to the very end, and that there are abundant opportunities in life for them to live the life of their dreams, regardless of what final result they get.​Persistence and encouragement wins all races.

 

Our Year 12 team of Homeroom Teachers, Year 12 subject teachers, the Student Development Leader – Mr Peter Harte and our Wellbeing Team of Counsellors are available to guide and support your daughters in these final weeks.  It has been a pleasure to work in partnership with parents in supporting our young women.  Please contact the school if you have any concerns.

 

Regards

Ms Luana Doko

Wellbeing Leader

Killester Holiday Program

 

Killester's September Holiday program had a different look this year with students participating in a range of 'virtual' events including a movie marathon, cooking, zumba and games as well as a Spring photography competition.

 

Lucy, from our Food Tech department, was generous enough to film herself cooking Marie biscuit balls for us, we did online zumba via #thisgirlcan and watched various Pixar short-films online together.

 

Around 40 students participated in the events, with over 20 students submitting almost 40 entries for the photography competition, judged across three categories.  The outstanding photos, shown here, are taken by Amelia Meyn, Richi Mathew and Erica Bou.

 

It was great to still be able to offer the students a Holiday break program and while it was not the way we usually offer this program it was great to have the opportunity to still connect with the girls and do fun things together.

 

Ms Katie Mills

Student Support Worker