Weekly Wellbeing 

The Bubble Story 

When I first started working here at CHPS I developed this story about a bubble. The bubble story was a way of teaching children, especially young children about personal space safety. Since then, we have had to social distance for new reasons. With all the germ related reasons for not invading personal space, we can forget the safety and relational reasons. Children can naturally be very ‘touchy feely’ which is completely fine (if we are not in a pandemic situation) so long as we can teach them to also be aware that not everyone likes to be touched, and some forms of touch are not safe. Here is the story I wrote back in December 2019: 

We all have a bubble around us. It is an invisible bubble, so it can sometimes be easy to forget that it is there, but it is. This bubble keeps us safe and happy. 

When things come into our bubble that we like, we are happy, and we are safe. But when someone puts something in your bubble that you don’t like it can hurt or even pop your bubble. If our bubble gets popped, we are in a danger zone until our bubble is back and safely around us again. 

You get to make the rules for what is allowed in your bubble. You can allow hugs in your bubble, but not allow kissing. You can allow gentle fist bumps into your bubble but not hard high fives. You know best what makes your bubble weak and what makes it strong. There are, however, a few rules that apply to absolutely everyone's bubble in the whole world. One universal rule is that you can never touch someone in their private area, that will pop their bubble. We also do not always know all of the rules of someone else's bubble so sometimes we have to ask them: 

What do you allow in your bubble? 

What don’t you allow in your bubble? 

Are hugs allowed in your bubble? Are high fives allowed in your bubble? 

Can you think of a time your bubble was popped? 

It is important to protect our bubbles because they keep us safe. If someone is trying to hurt your bubble, it is important to tell them that it hurts your bubble, so they know to stop. If someone is trying to pop your bubble it is important to tell the closest safe adult so they can help protect you and your bubble. You should do whatever you need to keep your bubble safe. 

When it is safe, we can, help our friends to keep their bubble safe. We want our friends to stay safe and our friends all need their bubbles. If you see someone try and pop your friend's bubble, we should find a safe adult and tell them what happened, so that they can help.  

The Do’s & Don’ts of Discipline 

On Thursday June 10th at 8pm AEST, Happy Families Education is putting on a free webinar “The Do’s and Don’ts of Discipline”. Please take some time to check it out if it is of interest: 

https://happyfamiliesfamilyeducation.ac-page.com/the-dos-donts-of-discipline 

Feel free to google Happy Families Education if the above link does not work for you. 

Cheyenne Mason, on behalf of the Wellbeing team