Counselor's corner

Escape Fixed Mindset Maze.pdf

Remember that children learn by example, so modeling a growth mindset in your own life is one of the most powerful ways to instill this mindset in your child. Ultimately, fostering a growth mindset can empower your child to embrace challenges, persevere through difficulties, and reach their full potential.

If you need any further support in teaching your child about a growth mindset, contact your school counselor!

What's new

Growth Mindset

Supporting your child's growth mindset can have a profound impact on their development, resilience, and ability to learn. Here are some tips for parents to help foster a growth mindset in their children:

1. **Praise Effort, Not Intelligence:** Encourage your child to value hard work and perseverance over natural abilities. Instead of saying, "You're so smart," say, "I'm proud of how hard you worked on this."

2. **Embrace Challenges:** Encourage your child to take on challenging tasks and view them as opportunities to learn and grow, rather than as threats to their abilities.

3. **Teach Resilience:** Help your child understand that setbacks and failures are a normal part of learning. Emphasize the importance of bouncing back and trying again.

4. **Model a Growth Mindset:** Children often learn from their parents' attitudes and behaviors. Show them that you also value learning and are willing to take on challenges.

5. **Provide Constructive Feedback:** Instead of just praising or criticizing, offer specific feedback that helps your child understand what they did well and how they can improve.

6. **Encourage Curiosity:** Foster your child's natural curiosity by answering their questions, exploring new topics together, and showing them that learning is a lifelong journey.

7. **Promote a Love of Learning:** Help your child find subjects or activities they are passionate about, as this can motivate them to persevere and develop their skills.

8. **Set Realistic Expectations:** Ensure that your expectations for your child are achievable and based on their individual abilities and efforts, not on comparisons with others.

9. **Use the Word "Yet":** Encourage your child to add "yet" to negative statements. For example, "I don't understand this" becomes "I don't understand this yet."

10. **Avoid Labels:** Avoid labeling your child as "good at math" or "bad at art." Labels can limit their belief in their own potential.

11. **Discuss Famous Failures:** Share stories of famous individuals who faced failures and setbacks on their way to success. This can show that setbacks are a normal part of the journey.

12. **Encourage a Growth Mindset in School:** Work with your child's teachers to ensure that they are promoting a growth mindset in the classroom as well.

13. **Celebrate Effort and Progress:** Celebrate your child's hard work, improvements, and progress, regardless of the final outcome.

14. **Foster Independence:** Encourage your child to take responsibility for their own learning and problem-solving. Help them see that they have the ability to learn independently.

15. **Be Patient:** Developing a growth mindset takes time. Be patient and supportive as your child works through challenges and builds their confidence.

988 is Now Live

988 offers 24/7 access to trained crisis counselors who can help people experiencing mental health-related distress. That could be:

Thoughts of suicide
Mental health or substance use crisis, or
Any other kind of emotion distress

People can call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for themselves or if they are worried about a loved one who may need crisis support.

988 serves as a universal entry point so that no matter where you live in the United States, you can reach a trained crisis counselor who can help.

More about 988

General Information from your

school counselors

2023-2024

TITLE IX

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces, among other statutes, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. Title IX states: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Falls Lake Academy does not discriminate on the basis of sex in the employment, education programs, or activities it operates. All Title IX reports should be made to our Title IX coordinator, Logan Allen at loganallen@fallslakeacademy.com.

Why School Counselors and not Guidance counselors?

School counselors are highly trained and support students in many ways in addition to guiding them to college
The role itself has evolved from a focus on post-graduation planning and administrative support to today’s focus on embracing a comprehensive approach to optimize student outcomes in much more than just college planning
Focus areas include emotional support, family intervention, social development, academic guidance, and career planning
School counselors are now a strong, collaborative member of an educational team

Social emotional learning

What is SEL?

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

Elementary School Curriculum

Second Step

The Second Step Elementary digital program is a web-based social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum that allows for consistency from classroom to classroom and easily scales across schools and districts. Its digital format enables continuous improvement based on up-to-date research and feedback.

The Second Step Elementary digital program is designed to adapt to students’ needs:

In teacher-facilitated group settings, students connect with the content, each other, and the teacher as they build new social-emotional skills
Variety in media, activities, and interactive components helps engage every learner and provide opportunities for culturally relevant teaching
The look and feel of each grade’s lessons evolve as students grow into new developmental stages

Middle School Curriculum

Second Step

SEL curriculum-Second Step for Middle School
CASEL-aligned
Goal is to empower students with skills for life-holistic approach
Web-based
Topics: mindsets and goals, recognizing bullying and harassment, thoughts, emotions, and decisions, and managing relationships and social conflicts.

High School

Please visit Mrs. Jackson's website for our most up-to-date information.

Bullying Prevention

Elementary School

Into the Cloud™ is NCMEC’s flagship online safety product for children ages 10 and under. Using data from actual CyberTipline reports, each episode focuses on a different element of online safety, from strategies for handling cyberbullying to recognizing and reporting unsafe/inappropriate interactions and content. Into the Cloud™ presents important safety information in an age-appropriate and entertaining manner! Connect your child to their content here!

ITC Marketing One Pager.pdf

College & Career planning

Elementary School

Click here to check out Paws in Jobland on CFNC.org!

Middle School

6th Grade- How Did They Get There?

7th Grade- Time Management

8th Grade- Your Learning Style

High School

Students and parents are encouraged to explore the redesigned CFNC.org website. This is a one stop shop for students and parents to plan for college, apply to colleges, explore careers and sort through resources to pay for college in the state of NC. Planning starts even before high school. Students with CFNC accounts are encouraged to login and click around! Students without CFNC accounts are encouraged to create an account! Go ahead! Explore!

Click here for up-to-date information that colleges, universities, College Board (SAT) and ACT are releasing about COVID-19 and college admissions.

Career Assessments

This is a great time to start exploring career options. Use this link to explore resources that will help you find out things that interest you as well as possible careers that match your profile.

Virtual College Visits

Click here for updated information about virtual college representative visits to FLA. Use this link to join zoom meetings when applicable!

Resume Writing for High School Students: 101

Students often use resumes to apply to summer programs, college, internships, jobs and sometimes recommenders will request it when writing a recommendation for these programs. It is good practice to have a draft ready to go for these activities. It is also recommended to update your resume at least once a year.

Watch this video to gain a brief understanding of what a highs school student resume may consist of: How to write resume

Use this link for example resume templates and a more detailed explanation of a high school students’ resume.

***Reach out to Mrs. Jackson for more assistance.

Summer Programs & Other Opportunities

Use this link throughout the year to explore programs that may be of interest to your student. These are great resume builders and wonderful opportunities to gain experience in areas you may be interested in the future.

This can also be found on Mrs. Jackson’s website under “Career Planning Resources”.

ParentEducator Resource Guide to Section 504.pdf

504

The purpose of Section 504 is to provide students with a qualifying mental or physical disability equal access to his or her educational environment, materials, or program. Meaning accommodations are related to how the disability (or suspected disability) is currently impacting the student at school. It is important that a 504 never guarantees better grades, rather it provides a "level playing field" for an equal chance at success.

#Howtodeal

In this section, we will be including tips or tricks for you on how to incorporate self-care or social-emotional learning into your daily routine! We understand that during our time away from school, it may be a challenge to take care of YOU. So, here you will find some ideas to stay active, healthy, and mentally strong as we cope with this pandemic. Enjoy!

CASEL CARES is an initiative that connects our community with experts to address how SEL can be most helpful in response to today’s circumstances.

Dr. Deborah Rivas-Drake and Dr. Bloodine Barthelus engage in a heart-to-heart conversation around the pain and struggle of being a parent, particularly at this time, and the work that is required of us to mitigate racism starting at home.

Learn more: https://casel.org/weekly-webinars/