Deputy Principal - Student Development and Wellbeing

Learning to Say NO!  An Important Life Skill

Learning to say "no" to whatever is detrimental to one’s physical or mental wellbeing is everyone’s right and, dare I say, responsibility.  Children who are taught refusal skills are more likely to make positive choices and refrain from engaging in high-risk behaviours.  It is important, therefore, that as a community we help our young people identify when the behaviour of others becomes unsafe, and know how and when to remove themselves from these risky situations.

The Love Bites program which is taught to students in Term 3, helps students to recognise the types of behaviours that are not acceptable in relationships.  Students are helped to understand that it is not okay for a person to control them by criticising the way they look, act, or talk.  Furthermore, It is not okay for another person to put them down in public or physically control them, whether they are under the influence of personality-altering substances or not.

Some of the key topics studied in the Love Bites program include:

• Identifying different kinds of abusive behaviour and being a bystander
• Definitions of sexual assault
• Consent
• Sex and relationships
• Relationship rights and Rrsponsibilities.

Enabling our young people to recognise the signs of a controlling relationship is vital, and the Love Bites program goes a long way to begin the conversation, but it is not enough. While some parents/carers may find talking about such issues challenging, as the primary educators you have the opportunity to help them grow the courage to take charge of who they are.  While it may seem too late as adolescents enter their later teens, parents need to remember that they still have the capacity to provide the moral compass, and to ensure that their child has a safety plan should saying "no" not be heeded.

It is interesting that students can already share their own stories of sexual or physical harassment from their experiences on public transport or at parties.  Our young people need ways to 'find their brave' so that they have the tools to speak up or ask for help if they encounter such a situation.

Last Thursday, parents were able to take advantage of a free seminar - Courageous Parenting.  Those parents who were able to attend took home some useful strategies to address key concerns of parenting adolescents.  One such strategy focused on the importance of connection as a precursor to being able to open the lines of communication with their child.  Trying to have conversations around safe partying, consent, the use of alcohol, vaping, or sex is not going to go well if you and your child do not already have a connection.  This is something, therefore, that needs to be built upon if it doesn’t already exist.  Tanya Meessmann and Diane Harner (Courageous Parenting) suggested that to begin to reconnect you need to focus on conversations where your child is not the agenda.  A water cooler chat where your child is not the centre of attention will grow the opportunity for re-connection and the possibility of focused conversations at a later time.  The eventual outcome would be to rebuild the connection you were hoping you had never lost.

As a community we share the responsibility of teaching students how to be their own advocates for safe practices.  Sometimes our children need us to role model what this may look like or, at times, become the excuse for why they can’t partake in something that they already know may not be a healthy situation.  When conversation allows it, you may like to explore some instances when the following words may become useful in helping your child remove themselves from a difficult situation:

• I would like to, but I really have to do … instead.
• I am not ready for that.
• I don’t feel comfortable.
• No, thanks.

As the adults in their lives it is impossible or, dare I say unhealthy, to send in the helicopter to rescue our young people from the challenges they may face.  What we can do is provide them with a toolbox of strategies that they can use when a curve ball is thrown their way. By enhancing this toolbox we can ensure that our young people can grow the confidence to say NO, build the resilience to stand firm, and become the strong and purposeful young adults we want them to be.

Annette Butterworth