Homework!  53% Complete

Nice Start White River School!  We had 53% of students returning homework last week.

During Class Counsel this week students in grades 3-5 were taking the Panorama Survey of Social Emotional Learning and Wellbeing.  Some of the anonymous survey questions make great conversation starters at home.  

• Thinking about everything in your life right now, what feels the hardest for you?  

• How excited are you to go to class? Why, why not?

• Overall, how much do you feel like you belong at your school?

The Social Emotional Homework for next week is to have two conversations about school.  Working to build relationships and conversations with children is a protective factor for many mental health issues including bullying and depression.  VABB acronym is a good one to remember when talking with your children about their days-- VABB (it's fun to say, /Vv-aaa- buh buhh/) .  It stands for Validate, Acknowledge, Build Bridges. 

 As a parent, it can be hard to hear your child tell you something difficult or explain their negative emotions.  Often our emotions get the better of us and we try to 'save' them from their feelings or situations.  A more productive and protective action is to first Validate and Acknowledge.  This means affirm that you understand the way they felt.  And confirm they had a right to feel whatever it was they felt.  By so doing, we are increasing their feelings of acceptance and belonging and over time this helps their internal structure and sense of self get stronger.  Building Bridges happens next and that's when you help them, if necessary, reframe the experience and either learn from it, see it in a more positive light, or plan how they might want to handle it in the future.

Here is a quick article that goes a little deeper into this idea; https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/compassion-matters/201112/how-bully-proof-your-children-building-their-resilience

If you are stumped for conversation starters here are some good ones:

• Who'd you play with at recess today?

• What was the hardest part of the day for you?

• (Rose and Thorn is a great one)-- What's one good thing from today (rose) and one thing that was not so good (thorn)?