E te whānau

In my new role for 2023 as Learning Support Coordinator, I work alongside teachers to identify learners with additional learning, behaviour and/or wellbeing needs. We work together to best meet the learner’s needs through providing support from within the school. Working alongside other professionals within and outside of the school to seek advice and guidance, I connect with the Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB), Resource Teacher of Literacy (RTLit), Public Health Nurse, Mana Ake, New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education (NZCGE), fellow LSC across our Kāhui, the Ministry of Education and more.

If you have concerns regarding your child please contact your child's pod teacher in the first instance.

I look forward to working alongside ākonga, kaiako and whānau to support the learning and wellbeing of our tamariki.

Each newsletter I will include information that I hope will be helpful to you and your child.

Anxiety in your child - Michael Hawton

TV3 The Project 1/2/23

Michael Hawton is an anxiety coach.

His definition of determining anxiety in your child is when the anxiety gets in the way i.e when they stop doing the normal things e.g: they are no longer joining in social activities as they normally do, they are not attending school. Are they avoiding a challenge or facing a stress - they don't jump in?

For those of you who missed this interview, some key takeaways from this anxiety coach were:

Kids look to adults to know they are ok.

Talking to children can be difficult about their anxiety.

Supporting them is about timing - if your child is struggling, don’t immediately jump in. For kids to be better at managing their anxiety, they need practice at wrestling with discomfort. If we jump in too soon, we steal the moment from them.

It’s important to be factual with kids about scary things - talk about how they are feeling if they look unsure or nervous. It’s important to be accurate yet to not over-reassure.

Message:

“If we jump in on them being anxious, we prevent the child from having many attempts to wrestle with their emotional experience. It’s about helping your child by facilitating their problem solving and reframing their problems so that they don’t come unstuck in the face of stress.”

Note: Michael also has some other great advice on parent teens.