Conferences & School Parent Evenings

Raising Resilient Children and Teens

How to help our young people fill their Resilience backpack

We all want to see our children reach their best outcomes and mature into healthy, strong resilient young people. Resilience involves the ability to ‘bounce back’ or recover when things go wrong or negative experiences impact us. By giving our children key strategies to develop resilience, we prepare them for life.

During this session, parents will be provided with key skills and strategies our children require in order to be resilient, strong and capable young people.

The six key areas that children require to develop resilience:

• Navigating difficult relationships
• Conflict management skills
• The personal values and attitudes we want to foster in our children
• Developing positive relationships
• How to foster optimistic thinking and self-talk
• Coping with stress and anxiety

Guarding our Girls

Audience- For those who work with Secondary aged girls

Raising girls can be likened to riding a roller coaster. At a time when girls are coping with a myriad of changes to their bodies and often complex social environments, they are bombarded with an avalanche of mixed messages in the media and through music as to how they should look, feel and behave.

Added to this are the pressures of friendships, boys and fitting in.

Having worked with and having run programs for adolescent girls for many years, Sharon has a special interest in helping parents and educators understand the challenges faced by our girls in an emerging culture of hyper sexuality and media influences. During this thought provoking and highly informative workshop, Sharon will discuss the key issues she sees our teen girls face on a daily basis in her career immersed in teen girl world. A practical resource sheet will be provided at the conclusion of this workshop.

No Body’s Perfect

Understanding body and self-image issues

Statistics reveal that issues surrounding Body Image are of major concern to young people. Research tells us that negative body image can affect self-esteem and general well-being, inhibit social activities and affect mental health.

During this workshop, author and educator Sharon Witt will unpack many of the key influences on our young people in relation to Body Image and self esteem and strategies that can be utilised with the young people you work with. 

Key topics include:

• Why body image has become such an issue for our girls and why they need to develop a strong inner voice.
• How body image directly affects the self-esteem of so many girls and women in our society
• To explain where girls derive their benchmark for body image and how this has been vastly distorted over many years.
• How images of the ‘perfect body’ for girls have changed over centuries
• How the media use digital retouching technology to make over 40 changes to the average image before going to print

Surviving High School

For parents and their children entering High School

Entering High School can be just as daunting for parents as it is for their child. It is a huge time of change, and coupled with the fact that starting high school often coincides with the onset of puberty, it can be quite a roller coaster ride! During this one hour presentation, with additional time for questions, Author and educator, Sharon Witt will cover the basics- what parents must know before their child enters High School and how they can help their child transition well into secondary school.

Topics covered include:

• What to expect in the first few weeks and months of High School
• Getting Organised
• Social Media and technology
• Physical and Mental Health of your child
• Homework
• Stress