Navigating the Complex Landscape of Parenting
Wednesday 4 September 2024
With parenting experts everywhere, how do we know who to listen to?
“ One thing for certain is that navigating the current landscape of youth wellbeing has never been more complex for parents.”
Some of the issues affecting the wellbeing of students include school refusal, social media trends, body image standards, study stress, screen time, gaming, gambling, sexting, consent, cyberbullying, neurodivergence, gender fluidity, anxiety and many more.
These issues are also significantly different to when parents were at school due to technology changes, the rise of social media and the increasing age of having children. For most adults the generation gap feels enormous and when young people are in distress, parents face a large task in trying to navigate complex topics.
In my time spent working with students in crisis, you quickly find that behind each struggling student, there is a parent doing their best, but often feeling lost and needing support. So before things start to take that path, how and where can parents find trusted advice and support?
The following resources are my go-to for parents (and friends) for any parenting queries or topics of interest. They provide practical, positive information delivered by actual experts and are easy to navigate and digest.
1. SchoolTV – One of the main parenting resources that the College provides for our parent community is access to SchoolTV. It encompasses a range of videos on different parenting topics presented by leading experts. You may have even seen some of the special reports promoted through the newsletter, or the links to SchoolTV resources included in wellbeing articles. Each STL parent has access to SchoolTV and if you haven’t been on, I urge you to check it out. Access SchoolTV .
2. Raising Children Website – Easily the most comprehensive parenting website, Raising Children is a federal government resource which has a range of articles, videos and interactive resources tailored to different ages and stages. The website takes you from nurturing a newborn to raising a confident, resilient teen – it also includes ways to help parents to look after themselves too! Their Raising Healthy Minds App is one to check out if you have children aged 0-12. Access Raising Children .
3. REACHOUT One-on-One Support for tough times with teens – Reachout offers parents who are supporting teens through a tough time, 4 online phone coaching sessions with a parenting professional. Online sessions can help to identify effective parenting tools and develop plans and strategies to suit your particular situation. Check out Reachout’s website .
Alongside these amazing online resources the College’s parent program also invites a range of professionals to the College each year specifically for our parent community. Sessions are delivered after the school day has ended and we endeavour to invite in speakers who provide our parents with practical information about parenting in the current climate. This year we have seen sessions around sensory regulation, safe partying for teens, thinking traps and budgeting.
This year we have also provided STL parents with access to the CyberSafety Project’s online parent webinar series. This series of seven webinars provides parents information about the digital world of our young people which they can view at home.