It was fantastic to have Kathryn Berkett at KNS last Wednesday to talk to our community about building resilience and managing anxiety. She shared a wealth of information about the brain, resilience, feelings and anxiety. using real life examples of her own kids.

Here are some of the key messages that came out of the evening:

Resilience

Resilience is feeling heightened emotions and being able to control this and calm yourself down. It is being okay to feel different emotions and for other people to feel different emotions.

Building Resilience

• Needs to be practised - holding emotions to a tolerable level and then calming down

• Exposing our children to multiple moments of tolerable stress. For example, leaving kids to fail/lose, stepping back when they are upset, letting them feel uncomfortable and then regulating their own emotions.

• Play, sport, music, drama are all good ways to build resilience. They will fail, lose, be outside their comfort zone, find things difficult.

• Crying is not a sign that it is intolerable stress. “Can they get themselves out of this?”

• Learn to step back and assess. Can I leave them?

• Providing them with the least amount of support as possible - do not fix everything for them

• Acknowledge feelings, but don’t always save them

• Ask: ‘is the stress tolerable?’ If it is, let it go.

• We need to stretch our kids, take them outside their comfort zone.

• Finding opportunities for children to not be with parents.

Anxiety

• Building resilience decreases anxiety

• Anxiety is normal and is on a spectrum. At the extreme end is clinical anxiety that requires treatment. Anything else is considered normal.

• Anxiety is increased when there is uncertainty and change.

• We have increased anxiety at the moment due to the uncertainty of the past few years

• Access to social media increases anxiety

Other

When your child gets home from school, leave them for the first 30 minutes. Let them be, give them time to recharge. Do not ask them multiple questions about their day. If they want to talk to you about something they will. If you insist on talking to them and ask them lots of questions, they will give you answers so you will stop.

If you would like to discuss any of these topics or have any questions, please email James jappleton@kns.school.nz or Phil pmcintosh@kns.school.nz

Useful Links

Building resilience in children through sport https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY30WM5G2DI

Podcasts: episode 2 is about resilience https://www.engagetraining.co.nz/podcasts -

Ted Talk: Neuroscience of Device Zombies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrOddAuNau8