It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve made it to June! Parents and students have done a remarkable job navigating distance learning – hats off to you! As we are looking toward the coming days of closing out the school year in this incredibly unconventional way, Ms. Shaw wants to share a few tips to help support students through this transition:
- Talk about and validate your child’s feelings. As your child processes all of the transitions that the end of the year brings, it is so important to be talking about their feelings and validating their experience. This is a great article that offers a few simple ideas to do so.
- Create new rituals to mark the end of the year/start of summer. There are many year-end celebrations that can’t happen this year but creating some special family celebrations is a wonderful way to honor your child’s completion of another year and make some special memories. Check out this article to get some fun family inspiration.
- Focus on the positive and look for hope. Try to help your child avoid ruminating on the loss and negatives. What positives can you find? What new opportunities does this time present? What are you grateful for? It is so important to spend a few minutes a day focusing on something positive. Here is a simple gratitude activity.
As always, Ms. Shaw’s webpage has many additional resources for parents. She also has a page entirely dedicated to specific COVID-19 resources for helping children understand COVID-19, answering their questions, managing their feelings, and ideas to foster family connection and harmony during this time.
Highlights this Month
- Dr. Tina Payne Bryson (co-author of “The Whole-Brain Child”) has been creating some great content for parents during this time, such as a 7-minute video called “Helping Our Kids Manage Disappointment Over Cancelled Camp and Summer Plans.” There are some really valuable tips in there!
- With so many in-person summer camps being canceled, Camp Kindness Counts is going virtual and offering a one-week virtual summer camp focusing on “building kind, courageous kids.” This camp is geared for children aged 5-11 and is scheduled for June 22-26.
- For a fun family activity, try these COVID-19 Time Capsule pages. Fill these out as a family to remember this historic time.
If you have any questions, please reach out to Ms. Shaw. She has wonderful ideas and resources to help families during these unprecedented times.
