Irish Times-Principal’s Corner

Speaking of good news . . .

Our Home and School has implemented a new program for parents called, “What’s the Buzz!” These are quarterly seminars on parenting tips. I had the privilege of speaking at the first seminar. My topic was, “Keys to Raising Independent, Successful Children.” I chose this area because parents are frequently reaching out to me with concerns about their children’s self-esteem, their grades, lack of friends or choice of friends. I believe all of these areas can be improved upon if we teach our children to be more self-reliant. Self-esteem will never come from merely telling a child how great they are; our children are much too smart for that! Self-esteem comes from building skills and mastering challenges on your own. Often times a child’s greatest achievement is failing at something, hanging in there, and coming back to master it. I’ve included under Parenting Tips, two hand-outs used in the seminar: 1) Six keys to raising independent, successful children and 2) a checklist of independent tasks children should be allowed to practice at different developmental stages. You may also want to take a look at the Ted-Talk, “How to raise successful kids without over-parenting.”

As we begin our second quarter of this school year, let’s work together and intentionally find the good in people and situations and let’s commit now to never do for our children what they can do for themselves.

See you at conferences on October 26!

Lynn Brown

Principal