Reaction to Video

Yesterday I introduced my presentation on Bullying Prevention by showing the Conscious Discipline video "How to Build A Bully from Scratch." I got more positive feedback on this presentation than any I have ever done for staff.  I highly recommend using it to educate your staff about what bullying is and is not.  It would be good for a parent presentation as well.

All Staff Training on Bullying

Diaphragm Breathing

Here is a well done brief video to teach breathing to get calm 4-7-8 It is important to teach students to breathe from diaphragm not the chest. The video and a brief practice could be done at the beginning of a lesson or group session.

What Makes Kids Happy? ("Happy" by Pharrell Williams)

Cyberwise

Cyberwise.org has lots of resources for educators and parents.  Check out some of their videos about digital citizenship.

Managing Anxiety

If you are looking for a good resource for parents with anxious children check out this video from Conscious Discipline Managing Anxiety It stresses the importance of name it, claim it, and tame it.  Shows actual case of a girl who carried a card with her affirmation (I'm safe, I'm calm, and I can handle this) until it became a part of her affirming self-talk.

Counseling Advisory Committee

Even though we don't go back to school until after Labor Day I have been getting my "advisory council" organized.  I asked, and they agreed, two new teachers to serve and 3 will return.  We have 2 parents returning and we will recruit 2-3 more when I return in 2 weeks.  We try to have about 1/3 of the committee be new each year.  We are fortunate to have most of our parent members with mental health related field backgrounds. We also try to invite at least two minority parents since our staff is 90 percent Caucasian. We also invite two fifth grade student representatives who are SCA officers. We have always met once a quarter. That keeps the committee in the loop all year but is not a huge burden. We meet before school and the meetings are only 40 minutes long ( and then we generally debrief with the parent members for about 10 minutes longer).  The first meeting of the school year is always in October (then December, February, and April).  We propose draft counseling program goals and solicit other ideas for the year.  We also share the evaluation results from the previous school year.  For example, suggestions for books for our parent-staff book discussion.  Each subsequent meeting we update the committee on the goals. I sent out tentative dates for approval by our administrators.  Officially both our Principal and Assistant Principal are on the committee but they take turns actually attending. We send out an agenda before each meeting with handouts and follow--up with minutes about a week after each meeting. Last year a big part of the Committee's work revolved around our applying to Re-RAMP.