Welcome Back to Term 2
What a wonderful first week we have enjoyed, with the sun shining and the school once again delighting in the ambient glow of excited chatter and laughter. It is going to be another spectacularly busy term, starting with Bound for Broadway on Friday and Saturday nights and of course leading up to the extravaganza that will be the Junior School production of Finding Nemo Jr. The excitement is rising already and I for one can’t wait to see all that hard work burst into colourful life on the stage.
We ask a great deal of our children these days, but then to be fair, they ask a great deal of us in return. So many of our young folk lead incredibly busy lives. They get tired, they experience setbacks, yet somehow they keep going. It is one of the reasons that we devote a significant portion of our pastoral care programs across all areas of the school to the development of resilience.
There exists a wealth of literature on the craft and practice of building resilience in our children in the hope that the inevitable disappointments that life will throw their way can be met with courage and acceptance. In literal terms resilience means returning to our former state after being bent out of shape by someone or something. The Latin root resilere means to recoil or to spring back, so that today we use resilience to refer to our capacity to bounce back from particular challenges without allowing them to push us off course.
Dr Kenneth Ginsburg, a paediatrician from Philadelphia, uses a formula involving seven C words to help the children he sees as patients develop resilience. They are as follows:
- Competence
- Confidence
- Connection
- Character
- Contribution
- Coping
- Control
Obviously, they are all inter-connected. If our children feel competent about their ability to deal with the world and the challenges it presents, then they will grow in confidence and in the belief that they are sufficiently equipped to deal with the vagaries and vicissitudes of life. They need to feel connected, to know that there is a host of people watching their back, caring about them, ready to assist when required. They need to develop character, the ability to recognise right from wrong and to act in ways that reflect this awareness. They need to feel that their presence in the world is making a difference, that they have a voice which is heard and appreciated, that they are contributing positively to their surroundings. They need to have an armoury of positive coping strategies and we as parents need to avoid the temptation to constantly tell them what not to do in favour of suggesting positive practices and pathways that will help them to get the most out of life. Finally, they need to feel they are in control of their lives rather than having their life controlled by others. Being in control doesn’t mean being able to do exactly as they please. Boundaries need to be in place, and they need to understand that privileges have to be earned through responsible behaviour. We need to encourage them to make good choices, to exercise when necessary the self-control that will ease their passage into healthy adulthood.
Like all such contrived lists, Dr Ginsburg’s seems a little formulaic and limited in its range and scope, yet they resonate with me in terms of developing that inner strength we all need to overcome the adversity that visits all of us from time to time. I hope they prove useful for you.
Special thanks this week to the Year 10 cohort for their exemplary behaviour on camp. Those teachers who accompanied them have spoken about the joy they felt in being with them and how proud they were of their behaviour. They spoke of what a privilege it had been to be present and to soak up the remarkably positive energy that exists in this wonderful year group. Well done Year 10 and well done everyone for such a terrific first week.
Patrick Wallas
Headmaster
