Dear Parents & Friends

Following on from our session on Resilience, please see this article about being mindful.

Mindfulness for children and parents

Some of the benefits of mindfulness training for children include increased self-awareness, social awareness and self-confidence.

Mindfulness has been shown to improve empathy or the ability to understand what another person is thinking or feeling, which improves children’s awareness of others and helps them to build positive relationships.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is about training yourself to pay attention in a specific way. When a person is mindful, they:

• focus on the present moment
• try not to think about anything that went on in the past or that might be coming up in future
• purposefully concentrate on what’s happening around them
• try not to be judgemental about anything they notice, or label things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

What parents can do to encourage mindfulness in children

The best thing parents can do to help their children become more mindful is to commit to some regular mindfulness practises themselves!

Here are four ways to practice mindfulness with your children:

1. Mindful play: Dedicate a window of time each week to mindfully play with your child or children. Turn off all other distractions such as TV, and put your mobile away and on silent. Try to give them your full attention during this time and if your mind wanders off to all the things you should be doing, that’s fine – that’s just what minds do! Use your child as an anchor to come back to every time your mind wanders away.
2. Mindful cooking: Cooking together can be a great way to spend quality time. Help your child notice the colours, smell and taste of the ingredients as you add them to the meal, and the touch of the different items as you cook.
3. Mindful dinnertime: Create a time for your family to appreciate and savour their food at the start of a meal by spending the first few minutes of dinner in silence, just eating and enjoying the food. It’s a surprisingly nice activity to do with the whole family, and done regularly, can become a lovely ritual.
4. Mindful teeth brushing: Getting kids to brush their teeth can be a challenge, so why not make it a challenge, by inviting them to try to do it mindfully with you? Invite them to pay attention to the feel of the brush in their mouth and the sensation and taste of the toothpaste. Ask them three things they noticed that was different about their brushing tonight than from the previous night.

Staff Professional Development Day

Parents just a reminder that we have Friday 10th of August (term 3 week 3) as our day with Michelle Hutchinson on Teaching Children to Spell. OOSH will be available on the day.

Students will return to school on Monday 23rd of July for start of term 3.

Rob will be on Long Service Leave from 23rd July until 24th August. Margie Moore will be on leave from 25th August until 28th September. During our absence Mrs Liz Johnstone will be acting in our roles.

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Flyaway Gymnastics School Holiday Program

Looking for something fun to book your children into these school holidays? Flyaway Gymnastics is offering school holiday programs at both our Albury and Wodonga venues, running Monday to Friday in April  of the upcoming School holidays.. We have our regular holiday feature which is a structured two hour program for Primary school children aged 5-12 years. Children learn to balance, roll, flip and twist. We are also offering Dance gym and Free G workshops  which give children aged 5-16 years something a little different. Bookings are essential. For more information on prices and times please call (02) 60411127 Albury or (02) 60241129 Wodonga or visit www.flyawaygymnastics.com.au