Head's Blog: Encouraging Resilience

Dear Parents,

It was Michael Jordan, who said, ‘I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.’

The children at Handcross Park are faced with a whole host of challenges during their time at the school, be it passing an exam, taking a scholarship, running a race, reciting a poem, doing a reading, playing an instrument, making friends, using your knife and fork properly, remembering your manners: the list is endless. How should we approach this? I was always told that ‘prior preparation prevents poor performance’ and I believe that still rings true in most situations. However, sometimes you can work really hard for something and it was just not meant to be and you are unsuccessful. How should you react to that? Everyone talks about resilience and ‘growth mindset’, and that is obviously important but the reality is that it still tough being a parent. When your child has not succeeded in something and they are upset – what do you do? Give support? Tell them that there will be other opportunities? You can only do your best? What can you learn from it? We try many different ways to help our children. But we don’t want to behave like a ‘snowplough’ and try and remove anything that may affect our child’s perceived happiness or self-esteem or confidence. We have to give them the right tools to approach the ‘slings and arrows’ that we all have to face from time to time.

A few helpful thoughts:

· Accept how you feel - processing the situation and accepting it is essential;

· Remember: you’re not a failure just because you had a setback – perseverance is key;

· Be constructive and ask the question, ‘ what can I learn from this?’

Finally, we are also very lucky that Handcross Park is such a warm and nurturing environment. The staff continue to work so hard in helping and guiding all your children at whatever stage of school they happen to be – it is a team effort. I remember a parent once said to me - ‘we just need to be reminded that the education of our children is a marathon not a sprint.’