Positive Panther
November/December 2019- 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 mo'nth. 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.
November/December- Attitude of Gratitude
1- Treasure Yourself
Top 5 Do's and Don'ts at Home
2) Do say “thank you” regularly. Showing your gratitude to neighbors and teachers with a kind note or word is one small way to show your appreciation for them. Teaching your children to do the same is important in helping them to feel gratitude for the lives and friends that they have.
3) Don’t let the bad times be all bad. Become an “inverse paranoid” and believe that the universe is conspiring to do you good, and the bad times and obstacles are there to teach you something useful. Try saying to yourself, “I can’t wait to find out what good will come from this!” This helps you look at all situations as leading toward positives in life.
4) Do write a thank you note to your children for what you appreciate about them. For example, you might write and leave a note that says, “Thank you so much for picking up your room today without me even asking. You are an incredible kid and I am so thankful to have you in my life!”
5) Do treasure yourself and take care of yourself as a role model for your child. Many parents treasure their children but not themselves. Think about how you are living your life. Are you maximizing your potential? Enjoying how you spend your time? If parents are not able to live extraordinary lives and let themselves shine for all to enjoy, what kind of lives are we modeling for our children?
2- Be More Grateful
Raising Grateful Teens
Why is this attitude of gratitude so important to a growing field of child development experts? Because gratitude is often recognized as the wellspring from which other character-building virtues follow. And a growing body of research into adolescents and gratitude is finding that tweens and teens who are regularly able to tap into a sense of gratitude — that is, acknowledging the gifts that life bestows — benefit in expected and unexpected ways.
Giacomo Bono, who co-authored a landmark 2011 study titled “Measuring Gratitude in Youth,” found that kids ages 14 to 19 who appreciate what they have are more likely to form strong and healthy friendships and family ties and do better academically. They also experience lower levels of anxiety and depression — a significant finding given the steep rise in both for children. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 25 percent of adolescents suffer from anxiety. In short, according to the study, “Grateful adolescents appear to be happy adolescents.”
Bono, an assistant professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills and co-author of the book Making Grateful Kids: The Science of Building Character, says that for starters, it’s essential to understand what gratitude is not: it’s not just about writing thank-you notes to your aunt and remembering to say “please” and “thank you.” Those basic social skills fall under the grateful umbrella, but gratitude is much more than being polite, says Bono. “It’s a spiritual path that leads toward being your best self.”
Bono adds that the trick is to help teens, so typically afflicted with a myopic “it’s all about me” worldview, discover that being thankful serves not just others, but helps them. Feeling grateful can be the antidote during the often troubled teen years, so that they feel less isolated, misunderstood, and alienated. “When they respond to kindness by reciprocating kindness, they don’t feel so alone. They feel like they matter. They develop more social and emotional competence,” he says.
CLICK HERE for this full article.