At our Nov. 20 PAC meeting, and in the newsletter from that week, I shared about the book I'm reading: The Anxious Generation, by Jonathan Haidt. A few parents expressed interest in getting together in 2025 to discuss this book and possibly others, and how these themes relate to our kids. 

Would you be interested? You could read the book, listen to the audiobook, or simply just join the conversation! Book club meetings could be in person or online, in the morning or evening- all things we can decide together. I could propose meeting in mid-January to start... We could read books, articles and more as time goes on.

To start, please check out The Anxious Generation, our first book, and send an email to Laura Rhead at lrhead@vsb.bc.ca if you would like to join!

See below for the newsletter post I wrote back in November, as well as the resources I shared in that newsletter. Let's chat!                                                              

From our Nov. 20, 2024 newsletter:

On the playground and in classrooms, our students are working on self regulation and friendship building skills. Social emotional skills like these can be difficult at any age and they take time and direct teaching to fully understand. Often, parents/guardians may ask educators about how they can support their child with their social emotional learning-- one way is simply by being in touch with your child's team at school and know that we care about our connections with your child. Encouraging your child to speak to their teachers and trusted adults at school when they have a problem, or helping them to know that they are cared for at school when things are hard can help. We appreciate your trust! 

 Another way you can support your child of any age, but especially those in the kindergarten to grade 2 group, is to think about their screentime. Growing evidence tells us that in particular, screentime and what children view on screen influences them more than we might realize. Speech development and social skills development is directly related to in-person and experiential learning. 

You might be interested to know more from author Jonathan Haidt. 'The Anxious Generation' is a intriguing read that I'm sharing with parents this month. Would you like to join a book club discussion? Reach out if this is interesting to you- perhaps to me, or to the PAC. It might be great to start reading and talking about child development and how the 'rewiring of childhood' has it's detriments. This book is being read and discussed in other PACs and worldwide this year- what do you think? You can read more in a blog about parent and educator perspectives on 'The Anxious Generation', here. by A.J. Juliani.

 Last month here, I shared tips for intermediate parents who are navigating the online world with their tween. Here are some sites that I would recommend you take a look at for your little one. Kindergarten to grade 2 students are vulnerable and impressionable. I also have experiences with students who have been manipulated by strangers online, and who have been acting out scenes and violence from various games on the playground.

In particular, we ask parents/guardians to talk with their child about concepts of reality and fantasy. For example, if your child plays Fortnite (and I do not recommend this), there is a growing group of students who act out fighting and violence on the playground. There are young students who have been familiar with Roblox and other pop culture shows like Squid Game. All mentioned games/shows here are for age 13+ and the latter rated R-- please do not allow your young child to be exposed to these images/games/shows. Let's keep them in childhood a little longer. 

-Laura Rhead

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RESOURCES- 

Kindly, please use this site to check out the games/apps/shows/movies your child is talking about-- knowledge is power! Then you can make the best, educated decision possible. 

Check out Common Sense Media for this amazing parent info site: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles

more links to resources here from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection: 

https://www.protectchildren.ca/en/resources-research/online-safety/

a pdf resource for Parenting in the Online World: 

and the latest episode of VSB's podcast 'After the Bell', featuring Jesse Miller of Mediated Reality- a local guru of online safety! https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/vsb-after-the-bell/id1647464467

There are many articles that share the pros and cons of each item you search for. It's not all bad, of course! We want our kids to be digital citizens and ready for the world ahead, but knowing the risks and exposure out there is so important. Thank you for helping us with this.

Reach out anytime with your questions and ideas. Would you like a parent night online dedicated to this topic? PLEA Children of the Street will be running sessions for our grades 4-7 students and there will be an online parent/guardian session at 6pm on Feb. 11/25! Registration link coming out soon...