Addressing one challenge can often mean another challenge is created and wisdom, thought and flexibility is needed to strike a balance. Like the balance between reading and exercising, speed and economy, comfort and cost, recreation and income, hats/sunscreen and Vitamin D, kindness and honesty, spending and saving, protecting the values of the past and living and learning in the present, and on it goes. I would like to talk to you about one balance we have experienced challenges with in recent years in schools.

One of the difficulties in schools over the years that needed addressing (and continues to need addressing) is bullying of students. Most of us reading this experienced times when there was repeated and sustained harassment by another student – not a once or twice meanness or hurtfulness, but an ongoing and continual situation. That is what bullying is. I am glad that we have made great headway in our schools and workplaces to give voice to those who are on the receiving end and have structures, process and people in place to support those being subjected to bullying and put a stop to it. I would be the first to admit that we all still have work to do here, but we have made progress. The challenge that we are finding, at least anecdotally, is that we now have to help our children to develop independence, resilience and the skills for solving interpersonal differences. By bringing the offensiveness of bullying to the foreground and telling our children to make sure they tell an adult (which is very important to address ongoing bullying), we are finding that rather than developing skills in solving differences of opinion, children are very quick to go to an adult and expect things to be sorted for them. This may seem a little harsh at first, but if you think this through, we really need to help our children gain these important skills, or we run the risk of having them grow into teenagers and young adults without the life skills to help them enjoy the independence and maturity that comes from being able to work through differences of opinion with those around.

I’m not advocating a “put ‘em out in the playground and let ‘em sort it out approach,” but I am saying that reinforcing a “tell on them and let the teacher or parent sort it for us” approach doesn’t really work either. Adelaide author Mark Le Messurier writes, “Collective research confirms that children who engage with peers, attach to them, and feel as though they have healthy relationships have a much greater chance of happiness and well-being as they grow. Without explicitly teaching children how to successfully connect and work with differences, we run the risk of some becoming discouraged, or worse.” (Le Messurier, 2014) This is something we are working on here at school and plan to work more on in 2019, but raising independent children is something we can’t only do at school. Perhaps this week you can do some analysis of how things happen in your family and look for opportunities to increase your child’s independence, especially in being able to work through social situations. After all, independent, resilient, caring, balanced, thriving, respectful, loving young people is what we are wanting for each of our children. Building more independence doesn’t have to be a huge change to start with. Neither does it have to be confined to relationships with other students. We also need to develop independence in other life skills as well. It may be as simple as having your child pack their own bag in the morning and carry it in to school, rather than you doing it for them, and move on from there.

So here’s an idea for these Christmas holidays, have the kids solve at least one conflict situation a day with minimal input from adults. The skills they learn will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Have a great week with your kids,

Mark B