Firstly, thank you for the warm welcome I have received from the College Community.
I look forward to meeting and interacting with more families over the coming months.
Early on a parent said to me that above all she just wanted her child to be happy. I suspect this comment resonates with many families at College. As parents our job is to love, care and nurture our children. Of course, we want the best for them. We naturally try to protect our children from difficulties and do all we can to make our children feel good or happy.
However, is happiness really the goal we should be aspiring to for our children?
As we know life is full of adversity and disappointment. We know firsthand how much our lives have been disrupted over the past two years. Life for some over this time has been far from happy.
Teaching our children to bounce back when life doesn’t go to plan is key to coping with difficulties. Rather than simply creating happiness, it is more beneficial to allow our children to experience challenge in order for them to develop resilience.
My challenge to you is to find opportunities to let your child fail safely. Let them experience disappointments in order to assist them to develop healthy coping strategies and to build resilience.
When schools and home partner to intentionally nurture and model resilience, we shape and develop young minds with the necessary skills needed to navigate life well in the future.
And that’s the goal.
