The Brunswick Trust

Health & Wellness

continued from page 4 and parents about pervasive and popular misunderstandings of the dreaded emotion in separate assemblies in Baker Theater in early January.

“We have to radically change the way we are talking about anxiety,” she said. “Anxiety is not a bug in the system. It’s a feature. It’s an advantage.

“It has to be uncomfortable, it has to make us pay attention — to make us work to make our futures better,” she said. “We need this difficult, horrible, crazy emotion. We need it, and that means we need to figure out how to work with it.”

Dennis-Tiwary was the second speaker in the inaugural year of the ’WICK Center Speaker Series, which brings leading thinkers to the Upper School for daylong visits that focus on wellness, insight, courage, and kindness.

She delivered her talk, Rethinking Anxiety: Why Anxiety Can Be An Advantage, and What to Do When It’s Not, to Upper Schoolers in the morning before joining students for lunch in the dining hall for questions and one-on-one conversation. She spoke to parents in the evening.

At Hunter College, Dennis-Tiwary is a professor of psychology and neuroscience, director of the Emotion Regulation Lab, and co-executive director of the Center for Health Technology.

Brunswick parents were invited to tune into a Common Sense Media Connected Schools Conversation on pornography earlier this month.

A first of its kind webinar for Common Sense, Move Over Playboy, Online Pornography Is Here and Kids Are Watching livestreamed on YouTube in February.

The conversation featured panelists Dolly Klock, M.D., family medicine physician and founder of AdoLessons; Supreet Mann Ph.D., senior research manager at Common Sense; Peggy Orenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Boys & Sex and Girls & Sex ; and Edward Spector, Psy.D., a psychologist specializing in digital addiction.

The panel reviewed new Common Sense research that showed as many as three quarters of teenagers have bumped into online pornography, often unintentionally, and at an average age of 12.

“We don’t have the luxury of silence,” said Orenstein. “We have to talk to them about what’s real and not real. It’s not like our parents’ generation.”

Panelists stressed the benefits of basic early sex education and open communication, with a focus on the need to filter this subject through the structure and values of individual families.

“As always, we appreciate the efforts of Common Sense to facilitate discussions around difficult topics and to provide parents with some very practical guidance on how to have these discussions at home,” said Molloy.

“Their partnership is valuable for our school, and their website is a wealth of very specific and helpful guidance for parents.”

Watch the recording below t

More resources may be found at Common Sense Media.

A national nonprofit with a mission to educate young people about healthy and unhealthy relationships brought its message to Upper Schoolers in two concurrent assemblies with Greenwich Academy in early February.

One Love Foundation, created in the wake of the murder of University of Virginia senior and lacrosse standout Yeardley Love, offered the two presentations with the goal of beginning the conversation around relationship health.

Juniors and seniors attended the assembly in Baker Theater, while freshmen and sophomores attended their own assembly at Greenwich Academy.

Both presentations focused on the 10 signs of healthy/ unhealthy relationships, and how to safely navigate endings. The Brunswick assembly featured more conversation and student engagement, while the GA talk was more structured, with a video and follow-up discussions.

“This is an important topic to introduce,” said Jonathan Kaptcianos, dean of student life. “Our students face big challenges in all facets of life. Having this discussion gives them the confidence and language to help navigate the various types of relationships they have with their peers.”

One Love has worked with over 100 million people through in-person programming and virtual education. Their mission is carried out by engaging with young people through compelling, relatable films and honest conversations around healthy and unhealthy relationship behaviors.

Note: The final installment of this year’s ’WICK Speaker Series is set for Tuesday, April 25, at 6:30 p.m. in Baker Theater. On tap is Sleep Is Your Superpower, by Matthew Walker, Ph.D.

Recommended Reading

Future Tense: Why Anxiety is Good for You

(Even Though It Feels Bad)

By Tracy Dennis-Tiwary