Student Wellbeing
Student Wellbeing News
Mirror Program
The Mirror Program was a 5-week program in term one for a small group of year 7 and 8 students who learnt about and reflected on different aspects of life. The program was delivered by Raj, Sandra, and Celeste from the Student Wellbeing Team – many thanks to Celeste for designing such a positive program for the students! The program involved lots of fun group activities, discussions, and creativity-inspiring art techniques including watercolours, alcohol paints, and drawing. Keep reading to learn more about what we accomplished.
- Strengths. We discovered some of our strengths such as wisdom, humour, creativity, and hope. This allowed us to learn more from each other and to be proud of ourselves.
- Resilience. During the second session covering resilience, we did a fun activity with jelly beans. The aim of the game was to pick up as many jelly beans as we could using nothing but chopsticks. Through this activity we learnt that even though we fail sometimes, we can always continue trying.
- Friendship. We talked about some of the things we find are important in our friendships including being considerate, trustworthy, selfless, caring, and respectful. We did a group activity where we had to carry a pole and work our way down towards the ground without dropping the pole. This required lots of teamwork, communication, and taking initiative to be a leader for the rest of the group.
- Emotions. We did a fun art activity using alcohol paints to represent all of the different emotions that we feel. Every person associates different emotions with different colours, and our feelings can also overlap with each other.
In the last week, we celebrated the end of the program and all of the different things we learnt. Something that one of the students, Nelson, learnt from the Mirror Program that we should always remind ourselves from time to time, whoever we are, was:
‘There’s always going to be someone like you, going through the same thing you are. You are not alone.’
-Nelson (7B) & Sandra Pham (School Counsellor)
Some Body Image Tips for Parents
Everyone deserves to feel comfortable and confident in their own skin.
BEING A POSITIVE ROLE MODEL
Is about doing simple, positive things:
• Avoid making negative comments about your own body or appearance (photos too) in front of your child.
• Speak kindly about all body shapes – celebrate diversity
• Focus on what your body CAN do
• Avoid fad diets, diet foods & excessive exercise regimes
• Use positive words to describe food and exercise
• Demonstrate self-pride over self-obsession
• Disengage from ‘Fat Talk’..So…..WHAT IS ‘FAT TALK’?
….“Do I look fat in this’?....
….‘I feel so FAT’….
….‘You look great, have you lost weight?
In other words talking that reinforces thin beauty ideals is FAT TALK!
A POSITIVE BODY IMAGE HOME
• Be mindful of language – work to reduce the use of negative words such as ‘fat’ ‘skinny’
• Be mindful of the labels on food packaging – diet foods or ‘no fat’ can send a strong message to a child
• Don’t put up with weight or appearance based teasing
• Be mindful of the language used when watching television shows or at meal times
• Place scales (if you must have them) away from view to discourage a child/teen from weighing themselves – especially during puberty!
ESTABLISHING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD & EXERCISE
• Use words such as ‘Everyday’ & ‘Sometimes’ foods – not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ food
• Encourage BALANCE, MINDFULLNESS & AWARENESS around food and eating
• Help them understand the difference between eating when hungry and emotional eating (tired, boredom, stressed). It takes 20 minutes for our stomachs to feel full!!
• Encourage them to listen to their tummy. Are they hungry, full or satisfied?
• Encourage exercise and activity for fun and health instead of weight loss or weight management.
By Josie Mitchell, Secondary School Nurse