Letter to Family and Friends

Dear Pilgrim Families,

Be the Brave Second Chicken!

Recently I was fortunate to attend the Resilient Kids Conference along with Bess Sarre and Mel Carpenter. We heard from four of Australia’s leading experts in raising healthy, resilient kids, whether from a parenting or educational perspective. There was certainly a lot of wisdom, common sense and practical tips throughout the day (also a lot of laughs, and some tears too!).

Some of my take aways included:

• From Maggie Dent:
  • “Don’t solve all of your kids’ problems – teach them how to think, not what to think”.
  • “Boundaries give children predictability, a sense of order and reduces stress from uncertainty”.
     
• From Michelle Mitchell:
  • “Our feelings are constantly in a state of flux; when we only accept positive feelings, we invalidate all other human emotions”.
     
• From Dr Justin Coulson:
  • “To a child, love is spelt T I M E”.
  • “Kids are much more resilient when their parents don’t tell them what they need to do but when they support them to figure it out themselves”.

The session that I personally found most informative was listening to Karen Young speak about anxiety. She reflected on how, as a society, we have come to see anxiety as a deficiency, whereas it is a normal feeling that all humans feel, because our brain is wired to keep us safe. Our brain is like a smoke alarm – sometimes it goes off because the toast is overcooked, not because the house is a raging inferno. We are the boss of our feelings, and we check it out and decide what we need to do next when our body is warning us about being anxious. According to Karen, the worst thing for anxiety is avoidance and accommodating (letting children avoid activities and accommodating them in this). Instead of moving children out of the way of activities that cause them anxiety, we need to help them to navigate through them, and help them work through the experiences that they need to handle the discomfort of feeling anxiety. This is not easy as parents because our child’s anxiety may trigger our own anxiety. So, when it comes to being brave, we need to go first!!

Karen gave the example of some chickens. A researcher stared down and stressed out a chicken, to the point where it laid down and played dead. After two minutes of being left alone, the chicken saw that it was safe, and it got back up and started clucking around. Next the researcher stared down and stressed out two chickens. They both laid down and played dead. They both kept checking their surroundings and they both saw the other chicken still on the ground, so they assumed they were still in danger because they could see each other playing dead. It took them both 5 minutes to eventually get up and continue clucking around. Finally, the researcher stared down and stressed out one chicken but left the second one alone. The stressed chicken laid down, but after checking out its surroundings and seeing its friend up and about, the chicken hopped back up and started clucking around after just one minute. So, our job is to be the brave second chicken and, when it comes to anxiety in our kids, we need to be brave, go first and show that we can handle the situation.

If you need some extra support with an anxiety your child is experiencing at school, please speak to your child’s teacher or one of the Wellbeing Team.

If you would like to read some of Karen’s articles, she has many resources on her website:

Blessings,

Jenni Forder

Pastoral Care Worker