Principal's Messages
PRINCIPAL MESSAGE
5 ESSENTIAL STEPS TO HELP CHILDREN COPE WITH STRESS
Over the next 4 weeks, I will be framing a parental support piece on ways of helping your children deal with stressful situations in their lives. Last week we looked at Step 1. Reframing Stress
Recent studies and research show that children and teens are more stressed out today than ever before. The combined pressures of schoolwork, remote learning, high-stakes testing, social life, sports, or other activities, plus lots of screen time have resulted in much higher levels of anxiety and stress among young people.
We can't completely eliminate stress for our children. Plus, shielding your child from the difficulties of life won’t do them any favours. It’s far more powerful to raise a resilient child who can bounce back from hardship and challenges.
Since stress is a natural part of life, your goal is to teach your child healthy strategies for coping with stress.
This week we look at Step 2. SHIFTING FROM A FIXED TO A GROWTH MINDSET.
Reframing stress means your child will need to switch from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Studies show even brief growth mindset training significantly reduces stress and improves grades among teens.
In stressful situations, we often feel overwhelmed and are more likely to fall into a fixed mindset thought process; there’s nothing much we can do to change the situation, our abilities are limited to what we can do, and we might as well stop trying.
For example, if your child is stressed about exams, they might think, “It doesn’t matter how much I study. I’ll never be able to pass these tests. It’s hopeless.”
Help your child look at the situation from a growth mindset perspective - it’s not fixed, it can be improved, and they do have the power to influence the situation.
If you hear your child say a fixed mindset statement like, “I can’t do this,” or, “I’m just not good at maths,” help them find a growth mindset alternative.
Encourage your child to practice growth mindset affirmations, and remind them that putting forth effort and trying different solutions will help them solve the problem and reduce their stress.
Of course, a mindset shift doesn’t happen overnight. Throughout this process, focus on and celebrate incremental improvement.
“A lot of research is showing us that we do much better when we focus on incremental change, on little bits of improvement.” - Amy Cuddy, Harvard psychologist
COVID UPDATE
Now that we are back at school and remote learning has once again been placed on the back burner, we still have to operate under specific COVID -19 guidelines as outlined by DOSCEL.
Car line drop off and pick up will continue as normal at the school admin loop and the Drouin Rec Reserve and we ask that you adhere to a 10 km speed limit.
Please do not park in these areas and walk your children onto the site. Any parents wanting to park and walk their children to the gates at the school site can park in the Church Car park and walk up the ramp to see their children through the gates.
At the moment we can not have parents on site for Whole School Assemblies due to social distance restrictions and our Grade 1 sausage sizzle is currently on hold until we can allow parents back onto our playground area within the school site. We will keep all parents posted as any changes occur.
At this stage Parent Teacher interviews will be conducted via a phone call however if anything changes we will have these on site in the Multi-Purpose hall where we can work to the correct social distance guidelines.