Prep School

Building resilience

We often hear about the need for our boys to build resilience and be more resilient. A leading author and educator in this area is Maggie Dent, whose research and work in educating and parenting boys is a rich source of information and guidance for parents.

Compellingly, she notes that despite all the information and tools we may have at our disposal today, raising resilient boys in today’s modern world remains a great challenge.

A great resource for parents is Maggie Dent’s blog post ‘Little Things Are Big Things: Building Resilience’, which draws from her popular book Real Kids in an Unreal World.

She outlines resilience and 10 building blocks for primary-aged children:

1. Positive healthy pregnancy
2. Good nutrition
3. Safe, nurturing care within the circle of family
4. Plenty of play
5. Build life skills
6. Meaningful involvement with positive adults
7. Clear boundaries
8. Absence of stress
9. Self-mastery
10. Strengthen the spirit

Maggie goes on to say:

Parents need to be constantly reviewing what is happening in each of their children’s lives. This act of reflection with the other parent or family member or another person deeply involved in their child’s life is very helpful to stay in tune with an individual child’s development.

Please avoid comparing children—that is disrespectful of a child’s individuality and essential human potential and has the tendency to invalidate the child.

Children need to experience disappointment, challenge, failure and boundaries to fully develop the interpersonal and personal skills that allow people to live in society. They also need to have a voice and age-dependent moments of autonomy where they get to have a sense of control over their life. However, too much will lead to overindulgent, permissive and unpleasantly challenging behaviour that will create conflict and distress.

Young children need help to manage strong negative feelings and learn how to communicate their needs to significant adults.

Unmet needs are the main driver for inappropriate behaviour in children—and helping them to understand what need is unmet is unbelievably important for later life.

This is where children learn the difference between assertiveness, passivity and aggression.

Everyone has a toolkit of life skills that they have accumulated throughout their life. Children have an imaginary toolkit hanging off their shoulders. A simple metaphor to remember in building resilience in children is the more tools in their toolkit, the more resilient they will be.

Maggie Dent, 2012

Prep School value of the week: enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is being cheerful, happy and full of spirit. It is doing something wholeheartedly and eagerly. When you are enthusiastic, you have a positive attitude. Enthusiasm is being inspired.

Attribute of the week: balanced

Understand the importance of intellectual, physical and emotional balance to achieve personal wellbeing for yourself and others.

Setting a culture of confidence

• Encourage your child to try new things. Although he may struggle at first, once he accomplishes his goals and learns new skills, he will feel more capable and competent.
• Assigning age-appropriate responsibilities affords children the opportunity to feel like they contribute to making their home and the world a better place.

Reader of the week

Congratulations to the readers of the week:

• Week 3 – Joe Ge, Dhruv Bansal and Winston Rodgers
• Week 4 – Fletcher Dacombe, Caiden Dastoor and Nico Pople.

Around the grounds

Traffic and parking

The safety and wellbeing of our boys is paramount. Please ensure when accessing the drop off and pick up zones around the school, you observe the local road rules and conditions. We are happy to provide staff in these areas to facilitate an efficient, orderly and safe environment for our boys.

Mark Wyer
Head of Preparatory School