News from the Deputy Principal

Dear Parents and Carers,

This week we had the privilege of listening to Maria Ruberto speak with the staff at St Brigid's Healesville, Sacred Heart Yea, St Mary's Mansfield, St Mary's Alexandra and St Joseph's staff about the effects of trauma on children.  The parent session, which followed the staff session, focused on building resilience in children.

What is resilience? (Raising Children Network)

Resilience is the ability to ‘bounce back or bounce forward ’ after challenges and tough times. It’s also the ability to adapt to challenges and tough times that you can’t change and keep on thriving. In fact, when you’re resilient, you can often learn from these situations.

Children’s resilience can go up and down at different times. And children might be better at bouncing back from some challenges than others.

Children build resilience when they have:

• strong, supportive relationships with you, other family members and their community
• emotional and practical skills that help them respond well to challenges
• helpful thinking habits and attitudes.

It is important to build resilience so that children can grow and move on from setbacks. Children often show signs of anxiousness (sore tummies, sleepless nights, school refusal, friendship issues etc) when experiencing setbacks or problems.  During this time it is important for children to build confidence around dealing with problems with the help of a trusted other.  When children feel safe, loved and secure with their family members, this gives them confidence to have a go at dealing with problems they may face.

How can parents and families help their children with resilience?

• Be a role model for resilience. When your child sees you try again, handle your emotions or think positively in difficult situations, they learn that they can do the same.
• Find positive role models for your child. These people can show your child that it’s possible to handle challenges and be OK. For example, if you and your child’s other parent have separated, it might help your child to have an older friend who shares this experience.
• Avoid predicting and preventing every problem for your child. When your child experiences small disappointments and learns to do things differently, it will help them with bigger challenges. For example, it’s OK to let your child hand in homework that you know is wrong.
• Build your child’s self-compassion. Self-compassion helps your child deal with disappointment, failures or mistakes by being kind to themselves. In turn, this helps them to move on from difficult experiences.
• Help your child recognise and acknowledge when things are going well, rather than focusing only on the difficulties. For example, you could make it a habit during family meals for everyone to share one positive thing from the day.
• Encourage your child to see themselves as resilient. You can do this by reminding them of a time they were resilient. For example, ‘I remember you were nervous about joining the team at first. And look at you now!’

Our upcoming Maria Ruberto sessions are  29th July  (St Brigid's) and 14th October (St Joseph's) 5-6pm. Each session builds on the concept of building resilience in children.

Support Services

If you or your children are experiencing difficulties and are in need of psychologist or counsellor support, please see the links below.

PSG Meetings

It is time again to review the goals, progress and successes of students on NCCD. PSG meetings will be held at the end of this term.  They will be held on Monday June 30th and Tuesday July 1st.  Any families who work or cannot attend the meetings during this time are invited to attend the Parent Teacher Meetings on Thursday  3rd July from 12pm - 8pm.

Emails will be sent to families whose children are on NCCD funding.

What is the NCCD?

Please find attached below an information sheet (English and Vietnamese) detailing how NCCD data is collected for schools.

If you would like to discuss any of this information further, please feel free to contact me via email or pop into my office.

Kind Regards,

Katie

kvranken@sjyarrajunction.catholic.edu.au