Student Wellbeing
by Felicity Shiel-Jones, Student Services Leader
Box Hill High School
Respect Program
BHHS RESPECT Program theme for Term 2 is Mood Mechanics.
Our Year 7 – 9 students will be examining emotional awareness and regulation both for themselves and their friends. It would be wonderful for families to chat with their child about ways you cope when feeling big emotions and how to work through those or how you self-regulate when you need to tame an emotion.
Year 7 Classes will be visiting the Wellbeing Hub and having a lesson with our Wellbeing Team about help-seeking.
Adolescent Drug Use - Reach Out Organisation
Your teenager may come into contact with drugs for the first time during adolescence and it can be a challenging topic to bring up with them for many reasons.
Handling the tricky topic of vapes, drugs and alcohol with your teenager can feel daunting. Starting an ongoing conversation about drugs with them is the first step to dealing with it together.
Staying informed about the risks and having clear rules and boundaries can help guide your teen to make the right decisions.
If you think your child may have a problem, knowing why teens do drugs can help.
See below for more helpful tips and strategies on addressing drugs with your teenager.
Speaking to your teen about drugs can feel scary. However, it doesn’t need to be one ‘big talk’. In fact, the sooner you start talking regularly with them about drugs, the more comfortable it will be for both of you.
Scientific studies show that your parenting style and how you speak to your teen can affect their decision about whether or not to try drugs.
If you and your teen have difficulty talking, here are sometips for effective communication.
Make ‘the talk’ an ongoing conversation
As a first step, start some conversations with your teen about drugs in general. Bring up events in the news. Ask them if they have any questions about them. Listen to what they have to say, without making judgements. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
The use of scare tactics can backfire and make your teen less likely to believe or trust you.
Be honest about the real risks.
Where possible, avoid directly accusing them of doing drugs.
Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know something. Look it up and learn together.
Authoritarian vs. authorative parenting style
Take the quiz – What’s Your Parenting Superpower?
There is no perfect thing that parents can say to guarantee their child won’t do drugs. However, research has shown that parents who use strategies based on the authoritative parenting style can help their teens make good decisions.
The authoritative parenting style boils down to:
You balance strictness with unconditional love (firm, but warm).
You set boundaries, and explain why they’re in place.
You guide your child to think about the impact they have on others.
You agree on the rules, and on what happens when they’re broken.
You let your child know that you care for them and are involved in their life.
The BHHS Wellbeing Team are available if you have any concerns for your child experimenting with drugs or alcohol and we are able to provide you with external support services that specialise in this area.
Resources for Parents
Understand and support your teen’s mental health. FREE Teen Mental Health Matters webinar to gain practical tools for starting supportive conversations about mental health with your teen.
Clearly Me appfor TEENS Developed in collaboration with young people, ClearlyMe is designed to support teens experiencing depressive symptoms, psychological distress, or, in other words, going through a tough time.
Landmark Australian study tracking 6,000 teenagers shows how mental health problems progress throughout high school - Black Dog Institute | Better Mental Health Sleep problems, bullying, adverse childhood experiences and low school connectedness strongly predict poorer mental health outcomes.