Find Help Fridays: There’s a School Counselor for That!

By Pamela Harris, HRI Guest Blogger

I totally get it. You as a parent or caregiver have a TON on your plate. Not only are you expected to make sure your child wakes up on time, eats a nutritional diet filled with more than just candy bars and chips, and help him with homework (wait—when did 4th grade math start looking like calculus?), but now I’m asking you to add one more item on your never-ending “To Do” list. You already understand the importance of meeting your kid’s teachers and the school principal, and now I’m throwing the school counselor into the mix. Right at this moment, you’re probably asking yourself: Doesn’t the school counselor just fix my child’s class schedule?

Well—WRONG.

Okay, maybe you’re a LITTLE right. But school counselors certainly offer more than just course selection. Your child’s school counselor can provide services in the following three areas:

  • Academic: Does your child not have the best study habits? Struggling with test anxiety? There’s a school counselor for that! School counselors have tips and strategies for time management, test taking skills, and a variety of study techniques that can cut down on some of that homework time—and thus, freeing up your evenings!
  • College & Career: Yes, even if your child is in kindergarten, it’s never too early to think ahead. School counselors have many career resources—whether your child wants to find part-time work, community service possibilities, or even guidance on how to apply for two- or four-year post-secondary institutions. This road map can begin as early as elementary school—with activities such as Career Day to expose your child to different vocational possibilities.
  • Social/Emotional: Getting through school is not without a few hiccups—and the school counselor can help your child overcome common social issues like: peer pressure, stress, anxiety, and the emotional roller coaster of friendships. In the school counseling office, your child has a safe space to process these issues—and to develop coping strategies.

Hopefully, you’ve been sold on the awesomeness that is your child’s school counselor. Now the question remains: how can you connect with the school counselor? Here are a few ideas:

  • Schedule a meeting BEFORE the start of the school year. This is especially important for children that are anxious about school. School counselors are usually available about a week prior to the beginning of the school year. This is the perfect time for you and your child to not only tour the school with the school counselor, but also learn about all of the programs/services that your school counselor will be offering for the school year.
  • Sit in on academic and career planning sessions. Let’s be honest. YOU are the expert of your child. School counselors are often required to meet with students to sketch out their class schedules, and discuss how these classes may influence their goals after graduation. As a parent, you are welcomed to attend these planning sessions—it’s a great way for everyone (you, your child, and the school) to be on the same page about how to best meet your child’s needs.
  • Is your child dealing with a transition? Let the school counselor know! If your child is going through a stressful event, more than likely this will spill over onto their academic performance. Your school counselor can serve as a liaison between you and the school. School counselors can share as little or as much of your child’s back story to school personnel to ensure that school can be a facilitative environment for your child’s success.
  • Pick up the phone. Or check your email. Or send the school counselor a tweet! School counselors completely understand that there are times when you cannot physically get to the school—but you can still stay connected through phone calls, email updates, and other forms of social media in which your school counselor may be involved. That beginning of the school year meeting is the PERFECT time to learn the modes of communicating with your child’s counselor.

Keep in mind that I’m merely scratching the surface. In order to truly understand how the school counselor can best help you and your child—pay them a visit! And maybe, just maybe, they can take a little off your plate.

 

Dr. Pamela Harris is an Assistant Professor in the UNCG Department of Counseling and Educational Development, where she trains future school counselors. To learn more about Dr. Harris, please visit http://soe.uncg.edu/directory/faculty-and-staff/bio-pamelaharris/.

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Parents for Safer Schools: How Parents Can Help Prevent and Respond to Bullying

By Christine Murray, HRI Director

With the start of a new school year, many parents are thinking about how to help their children succeed academically in the coming year. In addition to academics, parents are concerned about their children’s social and mental well-being. One major issue that causes parents great concern is bullying. With the increased attention to bullying in recent years, parents are well aware of the risks that can arise for children who experience bullying.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, bullying is defined as “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time.”

Parents play an important role in creating schools in which bullying isn’t tolerated. And yet, many parents remain uncertain as to how they can talk about this sensitive issue with their children, as well as how to work with their children’s schools to create safer schools that are free from bullying.

This school year, consider the following suggestions for how parents can help promote safety and prevent bullying in schools:

  • At age-appropriate levels, parents can initiate conversations with their children to help them understand what bullying is, know how to recognize if bullying is occurring in their schools, and know whether and how to intervene if they witness bullying.
  • Parents can work with their PTAs to organize events to educate students and parents about the dynamics of bullying and to promote nonviolence and kindness within their schools.
  • Parents should take time to learn about the bullying prevention and response practices and policies in their children’s schools, such as through the Guilford County Schools’ Bullying Prevention resource.
  • Parents can take time to learn about newer forms of bullying with which they may be less familiar. For example, cyberbullying is a growing risk as children get older, and many parents find they are less technologically-savvy than their children. By educating themselves about this dangerous form of bullying, parents can become better equipped to discuss it with their children and respond if they are at risk.
  • Parents can proactively teach their children to promote nonviolence and kindness in their children. Rather than waiting to address bullying after it occurs, proactive parents actively help their children to learn ways to show kindness to their peers and to the teachers at their schools. These actions may feel small, but they go a long way toward creating safe, nonviolence school cultures in which all students can thrive.

Through the Healthy Relationships Initiative, we offer a workshop for parents on bullying to local schools in Guilford County. If you are interested in learning about bringing this workshop to your school, please Contact Us for more information.

 

Managing Back-to-School Stress through Mindfulness

By Rossana Magalhaes, HRI Guest Blogger

You might have heard the word “mindfulness” a lot lately. Whether in articles, books, or scientific research, the benefits of mindfulness are clear. Mindfulness is paying attention, with intention, to the present moment, in a non-judgmental way (1). This applies to adults, adolescents, and even your young children. Yet, I have noticed that the work of mindfulness can seem mysterious to some of us. As back-to-school time approaches, mindfulness might be a great help to you and your children.

In my practice as a therapist I hear comments such as, “Oh no, I cannot stop my mind, it is too busy;” or “I don’t think I can sit still for hours.” This makes perfect sense! I also feel sometimes that I cannot stop my mind. As parents, I am sure it seems next to impossible to imagine getting your kids to stop for a moment and be present. Guess what? It is okay.

Yes, it is okay to intentionally practice mindfulness even with a busy mind. Mindfulness meditation is more about noticing and accepting how busy the mind is, and intentionally training the mind to pay attention to the present moment, rather than completely stopping the mind.

The ability to pay attention in the present moment is available to all of us. We may doubt it because we are not trained to notice it. So, if we consider meditation as a mind training, perhaps the resistance will be changed to curiosity, such as: “Okay, let’s be curious about how to begin training the mind.”

You might be asking, “But, why should I care? I have so many other things to do!” That is where science comes in the picture. There are many benefits that come from practicing mindfulness and mindfulness meditation, however one of the most important is brain development! Research shows that mindfulness meditation opens the possibility of growth in the gray matter of the lower brain stem. (2). The gray area is the area in the brain involved in muscle control, memory, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-regulation. This could be a great strength for our kids in both the academic world as well as in their social development.

Parents of teenagers might be interested to know that the practice of mindfulness and mindfulness meditation has been associated with improvement of the Executive Function for adolescents. The Executive Functions (EF) includes the ability to plan, remember, prioritize, pay attention, and so on. (3)

Science and scientific information might not be the most motivational factors for kids and adolescents, right? So, why not try an experiment with them before class starts in a couple of weeks. Here is an idea for a project that provides a great visual of a mindfulness practice.

  • First: A quick trip to the dollar store, if you do not have the materials at home. We need: Play Dough, Toothpicks, Glue, Tissue Paper (white, orange, yellow and brown, or the colors that would represent the four seasons, summer, fall, winter, spring), cotton balls, note cards, markers, and artificial flowers (if you wish).
  • The Project: Using the play dough we shape a mountain. Then, we decide the season we will cover the mountain with, using the tissue paper to cover the dough mountain. Then for example, if they decide to have a summer mountain, kids could draw the sun, flowers, birds on the note card, cut it, and glue it using the toothpicks, and decorate the mountain. Invite kids to change the season on the mountain. They can choose another season and change the tissue paper as well as the toothpick with the drawings.
  • Reflection: The mountain is the same. The seasons change and with it the outside of the mountain also changes. Yet, the mountain is still solid and stable, no matter what is happening on the outside. Encourage kids to reflect on things that happen on their outside, such as disappointments, anger, changes that will happen when school starts, and ask them to see themselves as stable as the mountain. We can incorporate belly breathing as a way to help them connect with their instability inside. Even if the connection is only a couple of seconds, it is a good start.

Have fun connecting with your kids and teenagers.

If you are interested in further exploring mindfulness and mindfulness mediation contact me at rossana@famsolutions.org.  For more information about me: http://famsolutions.org/rossana_magalhaes/.

Rossana Magalhaes, LPCA, is a counselor at Family Solutions. She can be reached at 336-899-8800, extension 25. Please visit the Family Solutions web-site at www.famsolutions.org.

 

 

(1) Definitions adapted from Jon Kabat-Ziin’s Mindfulness definition, © 1990 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Full Catastrophe Living.

(2) David R. Hamilton, PHD. Author of “I Heart Me: The Science of Self-love” and “How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body.”

(3) Riggs, N. R., Black, D. S. and Ritt-Olson, A.Riggs, N., Black, D., & Ritt-Olson, A. (2014). Associations Between Dispositional Mindfulness and Executive Function in Early Adolescence. Journal Of Child And Family Studies, 24(9), 2745-2751. doi:10.1007/s10826-014-0077-3

 

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Stronger Together: Supporting Children by Partnering with Educators

By Lindsay A. Whitley, Director of Guilford Parent Academy

When summer winds down and the air starts to cool off, you know it’s back-to-school time for more than 72,000 students in Guilford County Schools (GCS).

For our children, this is the season of a fresh start. It’s that exciting time when everyone is eager to learn, and we, as parents, have the perfect opportunity to support our children in school.

As a father of two, I want nothing more than for my children to be successful in school and in life. And as the director of Guilford Parent Academy (GPA), I’ve met many different parents and families across GCS. One thing I’ve learned is no two families are alike—but we all share something in common, and that is that we all care deeply about our children, and we all want our children to succeed.

However, what is the best way to help our children?

Research suggests that when parents are involved some amazing things happen – children achieve at higher levels, have higher attendance rates and do better overall in school and in life.

The bonds established between home and school can be powerful in terms of the effectiveness of any classroom. When parents become partners in the classroom, students are afforded a wealth of exciting educational possibilities.

Back-to-School Tips

As you meet your child’s new teachers and send them off on the first day of school, here are some tips to get the year off to a great start:

  • Open the lines of communication. Send an email or a note to your child’s teacher introducing yourself. This is a great idea, even if you meet him or her at open house. Throughout the school year, don’t wait for parent-teacher conferences to follow-up on your child’s progress – feel free to schedule time with your child’s teacher, as needed, to support their learning.
  • Share information about your child. Make sure the teacher knows your child’s greatest strengths, skills and challenges. In doing so, it will provide the teacher with important information that can be used to support your child’s learning.
  • Partner with the school. Volunteer in the classroom, if you can, but if you can’t – which is the case for a lot of us – see if there are other ways you can help. In many cases, the greatest support is needed at home – encouraging academics at home, setting high expectations and expressing the importance of reading each day.
  • Sign up for GPA. Guilford Parent Academy is a department of GCS, which was created to help forge the important partnership between families and educators. Through GPA, families can receive a wealth of information to support the success of students. Sign up online here.

More About GPA

GPA provides information and training on a variety of topics for parents, grandparents and family members caring for children and young people in Guilford County. Planned by parents and a diverse team of educators and community members, GPA is designed to help parents help their children succeed.

GPA has three major components:

  1. Learning Experiences/Events. GPA offers workshops and special events for parents and connects them to information and resources. Events include Family Fun Day, Reading with Curious George, STEM Forensics Night and more.
  2. Information. GPA is a one-stop shop for parents to learn how they can support their children. The website houses and organizes a multitude of information in an easily accessible way, including FREE 24/7 online tutors, interactive academic tutorials and informational videos on social/emotional topics.
  3. Connections to Support and Resources. Creating access to parent resources and making it easier for parents to navigate the school system are of paramount importance to GPA. GPA is also a point of connection for parents to various resources offered by partnering organizations throughout Guilford County.

When parents have questions about how to help their children, GPA has answers. We are here to help our fellow parents navigate through the school-age years. We hope you will see what we have to offer and join us at an upcoming event or take advantage of our online resources.

To learn more about GPA, sign up for monthly updates or register for free classes, click here, email parentacademy@gcsnc.com or call 336-279-4924.

 

Lindsay A. Whitley has been the director of Guilford Parent Academy, a department of Guilford County Schools, since 2013. Prior to joining GCS, Lindsay served as the director of communications and family engagement for Montgomery County Schools in Troy, NC.

 

 

 

 

Getting Back into a Routine after Summer

By Christine Murray, HRI Director

Did you know that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that families develop routines to help support children’s development? Routines are especially important for younger children, but they’re helpful for children (and adults!) of all ages because they offer a sense of predictability and stability. Although it’s important to keep some flexibility in family routines, a sense of predictability and stability provides a solid foundation on which children and teens can face new challenges and try new things.

For many families, summer is a time to loosen up routines, so the back-to-school season can feel like a shock to the system. Early morning wake-up times to get out the door on time, along with homework and extracurricular activities in the afternoons and evenings, thrust families into figuring out new routines as the school year begins. This can lead to fights and frustrations.

Getting your family back on a routine as this new school year is starting doesn’t have to lead to stress and conflict! Consider the five tips below to help ease your family’s transition into your new school year routine:

  1. Ease into the new routine. Give yourselves some time to ease into the new school year routine, rather than trying to force every change at one time. It can take time for a new routine to come to feel “normal,” especially if you’ve been on a break from routines over the summer. Identify a few key routines to start with (e.g., a consistent bedtime and morning wake up time), and put others on hold until the most important ones are embedded into your family.
  2. Decide which routines will be flexible, and which will be consistent. As you’re considering your family’s routines for this coming school year, think carefully about what sort of routines are realistic for your family. Identify the ones that are crucial to be as consistent as possible. For example, a consistent wake up time in the morning may be needed to ensure that everyone is dress, fed, and organized to get out the door on time for school. However, other routines may need to be kept flexible. In your ideal world, your family may have a routine to eat dinner together every night. However, in the real world, your family may be lucky to have everyone around the table just one or two nights a week. As important as it is to try and establish consistent routines in your family, allow yourself the flexibility to adapt those routines to your ever-changing schedules and time commitments.
  3. Take a big-picture view of how your family manages time. Time management plays an important role in how well families are able to implement consistent routines. As this school year gets underway, take time to consider if the way your family spends time is consistent with your values and priorities. Check out our HRI Tip Sheet on Having Family Quality Time for some other great suggestions on how to implement time management strategies within your family.
  4. Reduce excessive time commitments. Many families today are overscheduled, which can lead to stress and inconsistent routines. When schedules are overly tight, routines can fall by the wayside when family members struggle to keep up with the many demands they face. Spend some time talking as a family about which, if any, of your current commitments could be scaled back or eliminated altogether. Make an agreement to discuss any potential new commitments with your family members before taking them on. Learning to say “no” can be very challenging, but remember that when you say “no” to unnecessary commitments, you leave room for saying “yes” to the people and things that are most important to you.
  5. Leave time for spontaneity and fun. As important as routines are for children and families, it’s important to maintain some flexibility in your routines to allow for spontaneous adventures and fun. Families who have overly rigid routines can lose their ability to laugh, play, and enjoy one another. So, build your family’s routines with the freedom to experience fun and joy as the school year begins.

Getting back into a routine can be one of the biggest challenges that families face when a new school year begins. Take time to ease into your routines, think carefully about what you want those routines to look like, and consider how you can leave time for fun in the context of your routines. With these points in time, you’ll be back in the swing of things in no time!

 

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Starting Strong: A Family Guide to Creating a Good Start to the School Year

By Christine Murray, HRI Director

Tomorrow, most students in Guilford County’s public schools will return to school for the new school year. Back-to-school season can bring a lot of excitement–and also a lot of stress–for students and their parents! As the slower pace of summer gives way to the busy-ness of a new school year, it’s normal for families to struggle with all the transitions that take place in a short period of time.

When children start a new grade level–and maybe even at a new school–both students and parents can feel uncertain about what to expect. There are a lot of unknowns at the start of every school year: How hard will the school work and homework be this year? What will my schedule be like? How will friendships change from last year? And, how can we balance all the demands on our time and energy this coming year?

Our HRI blog series this week will focus on ways families can work together to get this school year off to a great start. We know this is already a busy week, so we encourage you to take just a few moments of downtime each day to relax and reflect on your hopes for the year ahead. Below are a few questions you might take time to think about or discuss with your family as you ease into the new school year this week:

  • What are you most excited about for this new school year?
  • What are you most nervous about for this new school year?
  • What do you think will be the most different this year as compared to last year?
  • How do you want to balance your family’s time this school year?
  • What sources of support can you depend upon as the school year gets underway?
  • What strategies can you use to cope with stress when it comes up this school year?
  • What are your most important goals for the year ahead, and how could your family members support you in reaching these goals?

A thoughtful and intentional approach to beginning the school year can help you and your family get the year off to a great start. Stay tuned to HRI all week for additional resources and tips for starting strong this school year!

 

 

Find Help Friday: Children’s Home Society of North Carolina

Today’s Find Help Friday featured community resource is the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina! You can find the Children’s Home Society online at https://www.chsnc.org/.

Here are a few of the key services provided by Children’s Home Society:

Educational Services: The educational services department helps families increase their communication and interpersonal skills to strengthen their relationships. They offer parent education and lifeskills workshops aimed at improving relationships within families.

Adoption and Foster Care Services: Children’s Home Society has a solid reputation in working with families related to adoption and foster care. They provide educational services to support permanent homes for all children, using a model that promotes the well being for the whole family.

Thanks to Children’s Home Society for your great work in building strong families and communities and helping children in our community have a safe, permanent, and loving family!