Dear Parents and Carers,

A very warm wish to all the dads, grandads, and father figures in our community. I hope you were thoroughly spoiled over the weekend! It was wonderful to see so many of you join us last Thursday morning for our Father’s Day breakfast. The sun was shining, the coffee was flowing, and the smiles said it all, thank you for being part of such a special morning.

And of course, congratulations to the Sydney Roosters for taking out the match against the South Sydney Rabbitohs! A bit of friendly rivalry always adds to the fun. I hope our lucky door prize winners were able to make it to the game.

I’m also delighted with the news that Mrs Jacky Guardascione has now been appointed as our substantive Assistant Principal. We are thrilled to have her officially in the role and know she will continue to lead with dedication, wisdom, and heart. Jacky has already made a significant contribution to our learning community and I am energised by the possibilities that lie ahead

Wishing you all a wonderful fortnight ahead!

Warm regards,

Kylie O'Donnell

Reminders....

Kiss 'n' Go Reminder

To keep our morning drop-off safe and efficient, we kindly ask all families to drive to the end of the Kiss 'n' Go zone, even if no other cars are there. This simple step helps prevent congestion and keeps traffic flowing smoothly for everyone. A quick stop, a cheerful goodbye, and you're on your way.

Swimming Program

A reminder that our swimming program is fast approaching. Please ensure you help your child/ren prepare by ensuring they have the items they need and their permission note completed via compass.

How To Build A Strong, Resilient Family

This fortnight I am sharing the first article in a six-session Special Series from Michael Grose on How To Build A Strong, Resilient Family (Especially When You're Busy.) This topic really spoke to me because let’s face it, we're all busy - I hope you enjoy the read.

4 Research-based Tools To Help You Build a Strong, Resilient Family

Part 1 of a six-part series by Michael Grose

Here’s what kids tell us they want from parents when life gets busy.

Feeling time-poor?

Got too many things on the go?

Never seem to be able to make time for your partner or kids?

If you nodded your head vigorously to any of these questions, then you’re not alone. Lack of time and competing priorities have long prevented parents from being the kind of parents we all aim to be.

This gave rise to the notion of Quality Time, which was in vogue two decades ago, and it still crops up in my work with parents.

Quality Time is a Con Job.

It’s a meaningless term that makes parents feel better about not focusing on the things that matter. So what matters when it comes to building strong relationships with kids and raising close families? I first researched this question over 25 years ago, when I wrote Working Parents, my guidebook for busy, working families. After learning about the work of the Families and Work Institute in New York, which asked American children what they wanted from their parents, I carried out similar research in Australia.

Surprise, surprise, Australian kids wanted the same things.

They identified four key activities (tools) that their parents used to build strong parent-child relationships and keep their families close. These four tools have formed the basis of much of my professional work (when writing and speaking about parenting).

Let’s explore these four tools together and discover how you can apply them to your family.

Tool # 1: One-on-One Time

The best way to build relationships with kids is to spend time with them. I’m not talking about grand gestures such as going to the movies, although, as I’ll mention further on, that has its part. Rather, the ordinary, everyday interactions you have with kids regularly are key.

In my work with Australian children, I heard repeated stories about the simple times they spend with a parent doing every day stuff.

Getting breakfast.
Playing a game.
Watching a program together online or on TV.
Going for a walk.

It was always the everyday, low or no-cost activities they enjoyed. But one-on-one, not the whole gang.

Don’t let your partner explain your kids to you

Some parents have relationships with their kids vicariously through their partners- who spend a great deal of their time explaining the kids to them (“You know, Benny had a bad day at school today….”) and vice versa (“Your father is very busy at the moment”).

That’s not how relationships work.

Although some parents are separated from their kids due to work or other circumstances, which is incredibly tough. If this is you, then make the most of the times you are together. Look for opportunities to spend time with each child on their own. Establish personal rituals that link you with each child, even when you’re not around. (More about this below)

Remember middle children

The research shows that eldest children and youngest children receive more one-on-one time with parents than middle children, who always seem to have siblings around when they are with you.

You may need to be a little sneaky and intentionally ask middle children to come with you when you go to the supermarket, or invite them to play a game with you.

Expert tips for One-on-One Time

Choose the same place: Recall a place or space where you experience successful connections with your child. You will have one. It may be a chair, a couch or a play space outside. Return to this place when you want to talk or feel at peace with your child.

Understand their connection preferences: Dr. Gary Chapman's work on love languages is profound. My three kids prefer to connect in different ways, and understanding this has been a real bonus. One enjoys chatting, another loves doing activities together, and the third responds to acts of service. Aligning with their love languages makes it easy to bond.

Do things you enjoy with your child: Two reasons for this. First, when you share your passions, things you love or the activities you want, you are more likely to loosen up, relax and show your human side. Second, kids love it when you share something of yourself with them. It builds their sense of belonging and deepens their connection to you.

Tool # 2: Family Rituals

Rituals bind families together. Without them, families inevitably break down.

Popular Australian Parenting educator Maggie Dents says, “Family rituals are positive, which strengthen the sense of warm connectedness in families. This makes sense, given that the number one biological need for every human, is the hunger to belong, and to be accepted, valued and loved.”

So what makes a family ritual?

It’s anything that brings a family together regularly, whether to celebrate something special, such as a birthday, or other celebrations.

Make Rituals Your Own

My family has developed its own set of rituals, including how we celebrate birthdays - yep, they are weird, noisy, with a silly version of the Happy Birthday song, and we also celebrate Christmas and other times of the year. Regular mealtimes are the most critical ritual your family can have. There’s a high correlation between families that eat together at least five times a week and good mental health in teenagers. This is presumably because parents can monitor their teens’ mental health more easily in this setting.

So when life is busy and catching up with everyone is hard, it’s the simple family rituals you’ve put in place that pull you all together. Your rituals are the super-glue that bond you together into a tight family unit.

Expert tips for Family Rituals

Establish negotiables and non-negotiables: Work out with kids which rituals they must join and those they can miss. This is important for teenagers, whose social and school lives are increasingly busy. For instance, being home for a sibling’s birthday is non-negotiable; however, being present for an aunt’s birthday may be up for negotiation.

Be flexible: Adapt your rituals to suit your family’s lifestyle. For instance, for many years, I spoke up to three nights a week to parents in schools and within the community, which made shared evening mealtimes with my family difficult. Our solution was to “do” mealtimes at breakfast. Slow and leisurely…..to a point…was the go. They were more than a fuel stop, as most breakfasts seem to be.

Make sure they happen: One thing stood out in my research into family rituals - they rarely occurred by accident. It usually took a parent - usually a mother — to ensure they happened and to make sure everyone showed up.

Tool # 3: Personal Rituals

What interactions with you do your kids look forward to? Which interactions can they rely on? Is it a Saturday morning walk? An evening bedtime story? Watching a game of sport together each week?

While one-on-one time is generally random, built on the bedrock of good intentions, personal rituals are set in stone. By their nature, they always happen. Kids can rely on them. That’s their magic. They bring predictability to your relationships. They show you are reliable. They help build their sense of security and safety.

Expert tips for Personal Rituals

1. Turn routines into rituals: Bedtime routines that include reading to children or singing special bedtime songs or even just lying beside your child do far more than help your child fall asleep. When these routines are repeated, they create neural pathways that enhance loving connection.

As a grandparent, I always made sure I was the person who bathed my grandkids when they were little, as it was the one chance I had of spending time with them alone. I was the ‘bathguy’ whenever they came and stayed over. (Explanation: two of my kids live a long way from us so they inevitably stay over on family visits.)

2. Make them special: If one-on-one is grounded in the everyday, personal rituals can be special events. A date with a teenager once a month, an ice cream with a young child each weekend, a special birthday movie once a year - are examples of special rituals that both you and your children will long remember.

3. Create greeting rituals: Welcoming and farewelling rituals for each child is essential. How you welcome and reconnect with children after a day away shows them that you have missed them and still love them.

With young children, leave a kiss on their palm. For others, there are special handshakes and or that oldie (but a goldie) “See you later alligator” to which they naturally reply, “in a while, crocodile.”

Tool # 4: Downtime

Pacific islander cultures (e.g. Samoan, Tongan, Maori) are renowned for their strong family ties. One feature they have in common is that they spend a great deal of time in each other’s company- extended families and all. They don’t just gather together for celebrations or special events, but go about their everyday lives enjoying each other’s company.

My research into busy families revealed that close families in Western countries had one thing in common that enabled the type of closeness that was evident in Pacific Islander families. They enjoyed downtime together.

Families who enjoyed some downtime together on a regular basis appeared happier and more tolerant of each other. They had closer ties, shared mutual interests and generally enjoyed each other’s company. Downtime is best described as the time spent with each other when nothing much is happening. Family members are going about their lives, and interactions appear natural rather than contrived.

Lazy Sundays, easy evenings, do nothing much holidays here we come!!!

Expert tips for Down-time:

Recognise its importance: Doing nothing can seem like a luxury, particularly when there are jobs to be done, or work appears to be calling you. But regular time in the evening or at weekends, where nothing productive seems to be done, is good for your mental health and a boon for family relationships.

Guard it: Don’t be afraid to make a call on a child’s second/third organised activity for a day that takes you and/or them away from some downtime. Families in perpetual motion can easily grind to a halt and need someone to keep the guardrails up.

Organise it: If all else fails, call time on everyone being off in every direction and organise a family weekend away every so often so people can chill and enjoy each other’s company. The best parenting is incidental rather than accidental when it comes to building strong family bonds in this current era.

The most important part of making a new habit is making a start! If you want to start establishing family mealtimes, then start with one a week. Make it non-negotiable.

Start small. Experience success.

Repeat.

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