Cardinal Family Newsletter
It's A Great Day to Be a Cardinal!
Parent Newsletter: March 4
Dear FFMS Students, Parents and Guardians:
Happy Monday. Track and field starts this week. If your child is in 7th or 8th grade and would like to participate, please have them stop by the office. This Friday is Spring Pictures. Also, be sure to mark your calendars for out first family STEM Night on March 19th at 5:00. We are looking forward to a great turn out.
Have a great week.
Mrs. Hiler
Upcoming Events
March 4- Track Begins
March 8- Spring PicturesMarch 15- Skool Aid Presentation
March 18- Pro- Core Cycle C Testing
March 19- STEM Night-5:00-6:30
March 20- PTO Meeting @ 6:00
March 22- School Play Little Mermaid @ 7:00; Down on the Farm
March 23- School Play Little Mermaid @3:00
March 25-29- Spring Break
Spring Ahead 1 Hour March 10th
Pasta for Pennies Fundraiser
Fifth Grade Newsletter
Seventh Grade Newsletter
How to Help Kids Learn to Fail Only through trial and error can children become resilient adults
Parents tend to see their mission as helping their kids succeed. But there’s a growing realization among teachers and other professionals who work with children that kids increasingly need help learning how to fail.
Not learning to tolerate failure leaves kids vulnerable to anxiety. It leads to meltdowns when the inevitable failure does occur, whether it happens in preschool or college. And perhaps even more important, it can make kids give up trying—or trying new things.
That’s why Michael Jordan, one of the world’s greatest athletes, has spent years preaching the importance of losing. Jordan has spoken extensively about how perseverance and resilience in the face of challenges on and off the court are what have made him a winner.
Unfortunately, as the world puts increased pressure on kids to be winners, and parents feel compelled to enable them in every way possible, we’re seeing more and more kids who become distraught over even the smallest misstep.
Take Sara’s son John, who started taking piano lessons at 6. “Every time he played a wrong note he would pick up the music booklet and hit himself on the head with it!” she says. “His piano teacher said she’d never seen akid who was so hard on himself. I told him when he made a mistake to treat himself the way he’d treat his younger cousin, that no one can learn if someone’s being mean to them, and that he wasn’t allowed to be mean to himself.”
When Alicia’s daughter Sara was 14, she became so distraught over not getting into a selective high school, while friends did, she began to self-harm. “It was so terrible: the pressure, the disappointment,” says Alicia.
Clearly, distress or frustration tolerance is an important life skill to master. When it comes to school, “the ability to tolerate imperfection—that something is not going exactly your way—is oftentimes more important to learn than whatever the content subject is,” says Dr. Amanda Mintzer, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. “Building that skill set is necessary for kids to be able to become more independent and succeed in future endeavors, whether it’s personal goals, academic goals, or just learning how to effectively deal with other people.”
So how do parents teach kids to fail? Dr. Mintzer offers a multistep process:
First, show empathy
Empathize with your child; see that she’s in distress. “Don’t just say, ‘It’s okay, you’ll do better next time,'” Dr. Mintzer says. “It’s invalidating to brush off a child’s feelings of frustration and disappointment.” Instead, parents need to change their language: “I see you’re really disappointed, I know you really wanted to do better.”
Make yourself a model
You can explain that failure is a part of life and happens to everyone, even you. You could share examples of “failures” you’ve had. “Parents can model how to handle their own disappointment,” such as losing out on a promotion at work, Dr. Mintzer says. “Kids aren’t necessarily exposed to the reality that life includes mistakes, missteps, and even failures. As much as everyone likes things to go according to plan, it’s important to teach our children that it is also okay when they don’t.”
Make it a teachable moment
A child’s failure is a chance for parents to teach acceptance and problem-solving skills. You and your child can try to come up with what she could do the next time for a better chance at success. For instance, could she study differently or talk to the teacher about any problems she’s having before a test?
“It’s a balance of acceptance and change,” Dr. Mintzer says. “It’s about accepting that the situation is what it is and building frustration tolerance while also asking, ‘Can we change something in the future. Can we learn from this?'”
The minefield of social media
At the same time, kids need to know that sometimes when we fail or face disappointment, there’s not a lot we can do about it in that moment; we have to accept it as a part of life and move on. Dr. Mintzer notes as an example the minefield that is social media.
Say a girl’s friends tell her they can’t hang out with her and then she sees them together on Instagram or Facebook.
“That really hurts,” Dr. Mintzer says. “There are lots of emotions: frustration, disappointment, sadness, anger. How does she deal with that? Calling friends and screaming at them only makes things worse. She could ignore it and pretend she never saw, but that’s not going to make her feel better or change what happens in the future.”
What are basic social media rules for middle school students?
Here is the response:
The reality is that most kids start developing online relationships around the age of 8, usually through virtual worlds such as Club Penguin. By age 10, they've progressed to multiplayer gamesand sharing their digital creations and homemade videos on sites such as YouTube. By age 13, millions of kids have created accounts on social-networking sites such as Facebook. Here are the essential safety and responsibility guidelines for middle schoolers:
- Follow the rules. Many social sites have an age minimum of 13 for both legal and safety/privacy reasons. Encourage kids to stick with age-appropriate sites.
- Tell your kids to think before they post. Remind them that everything can be seen by a vast, invisible audience (otherwise known as friends-of-friends-of-friends). Each family will have different rules, but, for middle school kids, it's a good idea for parents to have access to what their kids are doing online, at least at first, to be sure that what's being posted is appropriate. Parents can help keep kids from doing something they'll regret later.
- Make sure kids set their privacy settings. Privacy settings aren't foolproof, but they can be helpful. Take the time to learn about default settings and how to change privacy settings on your kids' favorite sites, and teach your kids how to control their privacy.
- Kindness counts. Lots of sites have anonymous applications such as "bathroom walls" or "honesty boxes" that allow users to tell their friends what they think of them. Rule of thumb: If your kids wouldn't say it to someone's face, they shouldn't post it.
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To Contact Me
email- hilert@felcityschools.org
Phone- 513-362-5382