assistant principal's message
dear families,
Last Thursday night, approximately 30 families attended the “Being the Big Kid” Information session facilitated by Kristy Elliott. This was one of the last sessions in our sequence of family information nights for 2019.
Kristy spent the 1 ½ hours facilitating very rich and engaging discussions targeting “Restorative Parenting”. While this concept may be new to some, it resonated strongly with me and aligned with the journey we’ve engaged with this year. As parents, it is our daily practices, based on our values beliefs and as Kristy would say, ‘family agreement’ that help shape our children’s behaviours. It is what we do that builds our children’s skills to prevent conflict, as well as helping them to fix or repair relationships when the inevitable conflicts arise. See the below table for more details.
The Framework at school:
As a school, we are working to support children develop the necessary preventative strategies. The Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum central to the Respectful Relationships program, is a core element of our approach. As a Restorative Justice school, we work side by side with students when supporting them to restore relationships. In 2020 we are planning on providing students with additional opportunities to learn problem solving skills so as to reduce the need for relationship restoration. More information will be provided as the year progresses.
At home:
Kristy introduced the following Parenting Styles Window (adapted from McCold and Wachtell). This tool is helpful when thinking about how our children experience our parenting style. She asked us to think about: How firm and fair is our parenting style? Remember to think about how our children experience it rather than how we ‘wish’ we operated. Realistically, most parents spend time in all four quadrants of the window, how long we spend there is usually dependent on various factors such as our own health and wellbeing – emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual, etc. Please read the attached handout for more information about Restorative parenting.
We have used the above Window at staff meetings, and like parents, while we’d all like to operate in the “with” quadrant for the majority of the time, we acknowledge that this can be very challenging. How I use this tool is when explaining to children about their choices and actions. At school, children will always be given the chance to fix their problems and to repair relationships. If this doesn’t happen then we may need to be more punitive.
This year, we have worked together to learn more about supporting our children’s resilience. This included unpacking student data, with Helen McGrath speaking to us about resilience. Some of us “Tuned into Kids” with Anthony Woodruff and many of us attended the “Tuning Into Teens” workshops with Christiane Kehoe. This extensive program, provided an opportunity for families to learn more about the challenges facing their children, while addressing some of the issues directly impacting both them and their children on a daily basis. One such area was linking this with the ‘learning pit’ and being emotionally tuned into your children’s emotions so that we can coach them, not dismiss strong emotions.
I know I can speak on behalf of Deb when we take the opportunity to thank all parents for engaging in this year’s program. We have especially appreciated everyone’s vulnerability when sharing personal stories. It speaks volume of the trust within our community and the support that you provide. It help create a very safe space for all involved. This is a very special and quite frankly unique aspect of our school community.
While I make no promises, I understand that many families are interested in “Tuning into teens” being run next year. I am already in talks regarding this and more information will be provided when it comes to hand. Please go to the following link to further reflect on this year as well as indicate if there are other topics you’d like us to explore further, including if you know of brilliant facilitators.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/165txZNPZJBp4XohcQMXJPLMR8WZEh1BciYet9ZQN4Fk/edit
Take care,
Wendy White