Parent Seminar / Wellbeing at Kristin

Parent seminar

We were privileged to host a Parent Seminar, presented by John Cowan. This entertaining evening of wit, wisdom and practical strategies provided our families with skills to keep their head, health and relationships flourishing, while still being a great parent.

On Thursday 25 March we were privileged to hear John Cowan speak about the importance of healthy relationships within our households amidst ever-changing complex family dynamics.

John was Creative Producer at The Parenting Place for more than twenty years, presenting seminars authoring most of their courses, manuals and material. For fifteen years he has hosted a top-rating interview show, Real Life with John Cowan on NewstalkZB. He has weekly slots on a range of radio stations and is frequently on television.

He emphasised the importance of being kind to the people in your immediate family and to be a strong role model for your children through this kindness . For it is in these close relationships that we are “truly vulnerable, yet safe; exposed, yet trusting”. John stated, “Invest in your relationship to be a good parent.”

It was refreshing to be reminded that as parents we are all experiencing similar challenges, that it is OK to reach out for help and that we should not be disheartened when our lives are not Pinterest perfect. “Settle for less and settle for mess,” he

Wellbeing at Kristin

Kristin prides itself on preparing its students to be Future Ready. The appointment of a Director of Wellbeing signals the importance placed on wellbeing for students, staff and our wider community.

While wellbeing has become a catch phrase in the modern world, when we look at the science behind enabling communities to thrive and meet their full potential, we start to see a strong evidence-based practice where we can ensure effective change.

Kristin already has many strengths in place to support student wellbeing; from support structures within each school, the Wellness Team, and a number of curriculum-based education initiatives, we have a strong base to begin this journey from. The shift over the coming year will be moving to a whole-school approach to wellbeing. This involves analysing and evaluating every level of the school’s operations for both staff and students.

To make change in any area of health, we need to understand both change dynamics, and public health concepts that involve building ownership of the project by the whole community. Wellbeing also means different things in different cultures, religions and other

quoted, as he reminded us that we do not have to keep up with the external pressures and standards of perfection. Life will change when you have children and it is OK to have some mess in the house as it is one hundred times more beneficial to spend quality time with our children than to be polishing the house.

A huge takeaway for me was to make sure to take care of ourselves – to fill our ‘I’ bucket – as this will directly affect the positive overflow into our children's lives. John encouraged us, and I now encourage you, to take a moment to think about what will fill your ‘I’ bucket. This might be joining a tennis club, going fishing, painting, or starting back at the gym. I challenge you to set aside a little time over the next week to fill your bucket and experience the positive effects on your family life.

John also talked about understanding our children and loved ones’ ‘love language’. There were five languages that he spoke of: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. Taking the step to understand not only your love language but also the love language of your loved ones, then learning how to use these languages to communicate your love to your children and close family members is life changing. I can think of my own children whose love languages are different from each other, and when taking the time to invest in their love language I can see the happiness flowing from them.

When thinking about the messages I took away from this night, it was to be kind, take time to understand each other’s love languages and to always make time for yourself, for these are the things that will emotionally support our children and ourselves as we continue to grow as parents with our children in this everchanging world.

As we move through each stage, the most important part is having everyone’s voice and knowledge throughout the entire process.

This will be done in a variety of ways to capture the voice of our whole community, and I look forward to working with you all and sharing the information and knowledge that we gain as we move forward on our whole-school wellbeing journey.

While all of this is happening, our wonderful wellness team will continue to look after the day-to-day needs of our students and staff. Our community all have access to our three Guidance Counsellors, our two specialist youth and adolescent nurses, a physiotherapist on-site twice a week, our Chaplaincy service, and of course contribute to the wellbeing of others through our service projects.

Leila Guillard

KRISTIN KINDERGARTEN MANAGER

“Care for your child's biggest asset. That's you.”

JOHN COWAN

minority groups in our school. If we just focus on one component, we will never build a framework that we can own as a whole school. That is why it is so important that we take our time to do this properly. To make sure that everyone has a chance to have their voice heard in the process.

This year we will be embarking on the first steps towards a continuous improvement journey. We will go through a number of steps in the coming months:

– Ensuring that our systems and Wellness Centre function in a way that allows for growth to meet the changing needs of our community – Moving from a reactive to a proactive model of care, no longer waiting for students and staff to reach crisis point before seeking support – Measuring wellbeing for both students, staff and our wider community. This will provide a baseline for us to measure our progress against as we move forward – A full needs analysis across all areas of the school - staff, students and whanau to get a full picture of any inequities that exist, where we are excelling, and what our challenges will be going forward – Deciding on a wellbeing framework that fits with Kristin’s values and culture, so that we can all begin to build ownership of this and work towards the same goals