The Lesson We All Need Right Now... It's time to teach Australian teachers and students how to de-stress

LISTEN HERE: It was great to be able to be interviewed for a national news story broadcast at various stations across Australia.

Students may be returning to Australian classrooms but now teachers are facing one of their toughest challenges yet. They’re dealing with stressed out parents - and students that have been left feeling scared and confused due to the chaos caused by coronavirus.

We’re all managing unprecedented stress levels. And in schools across Australia, as students start to go back this week – there is a lot of confusion and angst amongst parents and the community.

Teachers need help to navigate the stress. The parents stress. The students stress. Their own stress. The communities stress. And the children and teenager’s confusion, shock - and grief, as they isolate from school friends and miss important social connections.

 The education system that used to be structured and reliable, has been thrown out the window due to COVID 19.

 Now mums and dads, teachers and kids are trying to keep the ball rolling, all the while dealing with the emotional impacts of an experience none of us have had before - a global pandemic.

And distress always finds a way to express itself.

3 things teachers can do to help stressed parents and stress students:

1.     Help parents learn how to disrupt the stress response. Give information to parents about stress and what it does to the body and how they can get relief. Send quality information out on school apps and newsletters to parents about helping children or teens with stress.

 2.     Put the oxygen mask on themselves first. We can’t look after a problem if we don’t know it’s there. There are clinical steps teachers can take available online.

 3.     Help parents and the school community find a new normal for a while. While we are keen to “get back to normal” that won’t be happening for a long while yet.  Finding a new normal will be different for every school. Some ideas include engaging parents to form a COVID Care Team and getting experts into the school to run online stress training sessions.

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