Positive Panther
March 2020 Family Edition
The Positive Panther Project & 7 Mindsets for Success
Each month the district has set topics to be covered that will help your student to reflect on how they interact with their peers, family and our community. We encourage you to have conversations with your son or daughter on these topics and to reinforce the importance of these skills at home.
You will receive this newsletter each month. It contains an overview of the lessons provide to your son or daughter on our designated "Panther Day". This is the first Wednesday of each month. When you receive this newsletter, they will have already covered these topics so you can begin discussing them at home.
Helping Teens and Young Children Through This Time of Anxiety and Stress
March- Everything is Possible
Dream Big
Embrace Creativity
Think Positive
Act & Adjust
To 5 Do's and Don'ts at Home
2) Do celebrate and support innovation and creativity in the home. Whether it’s through crafts, play or games, seek opportunities for your children to tap into their imaginations and creative capacity. One major concern with access to technology and devices is our children’s inability to get bored. Boredom has long been the source of innovation and creativity. Create more space in your child’s life and push them to innovate and create. The capacity to use boredom to their advantage will benefit them for the rest of their life.
3) Do model self-compassion. We are so hard on ourselves. It is very important to recognize that our children will observe our tendencies, how we talk to ourselves and unfortunately how unfairly critical of ourselves we can often be. Work on how you view your own efforts, challenges and successes, and consider the self-image you’re modeling for your children. Don’t forget that they really are more likely to do as we do, rather than as we say.
4) Don’t foster perfectionism. Perfectionism is a primary cause of anxiety, locking us up and preventing us from taking action due to fear of failure. This is most prevalent in young people living in a world of reality TV and sensationalism. More than ever, they must understand they are human and that mistakes are a healthy part of learning and growing up happy and successful. Let them do their own work, let them make mistakes and let them learn to grow through adversity while they are under your roof.
5) Do celebrate risk taking and failure. One great practice at the dinner table is to ask your child what they “failed at that day” or what didn’t go very well. Rather than focusing on the mistake or loss, ask them to consider how they can grow from it, what they learned, what new skill could be developed, what relationship would be created or expanded, etc. Congratulate them for trying, and point out that the people who succeed are those who take risks and fail, so your kids are in good company and on their way.