We are in the final week of Term 3 and looking forward to a break for a couple of weeks before the final term. Thank you for your patience again this term with the COVID restrictions. We will continue to adjust school activities around restrictions and do our best to include families as much as possible. It was great to see many of our parents out on the back oval for Fun Run – almost a bit of normality. Term 4 is looking like a very busy one as we try to fit in adapted versions of events we were unable to have earlier in the year.

In staff worship yesterday morning, Pastor Roland shared with us about a documentary on the impacts of social media he had seen recently. While the documentary has received varying reviews from enlightening to misleading, it got me thinking about how important it is for us to be discerning in what we take in from media. In particular, social media given the algorithms that are analysing our habits and sharing more things with us.

Discernment is sort of an old-fashioned word. The Cambridge Dictionary defines discernment as “the ability to judge people and things well.” I like that. Making good judgements about who we hang out with, who we go into business, what we believe to be true and what evidence we use for making judgements, are all really important things for us, and when you think more about it, really important for our kids. The rise of popularity and access to media and importantly, social media, has made it more important than ever for us to model and teach discernment in these areas to our children.

I made a very poor attempt at this with my children as they were growing up. We would watch a movie as a family. At the end of it, I would ask analytical questions about what the message of the movie was, what the philosophical underpinnings of the message might be, and where those philosophical underpinnings might take us if we follow through to a logical conclusion. Imagine watching a lovely Disney movie and having your father do that at the end. My questions were usually met with something like, “Stop it, dad. You’ve just wrecked another movie. Can’t we just watch it and not think?” My answer was, “No”. I am not sure I was able to achieve what I wanted as far as helping my children be more discerning, but the intention was good.

In these times of intense media exposure on our children, I think it vitally important we help our children to develop discernment skills around what they allow to influence them and their thoughts. Even something as basic as a discussion around the Social Media documentary with your teenager, analysing that documentary, would be a great opportunity to start an ongoing conversation.

Have a wonderful couple of weeks break with your kids,

Mark B