9 FEb 2023

Worry, Stress and Anxiety Parent Talk

Seaford run regular wellbeing talks with parents.

Jo Forman & Alicia Drummond welcomed parents this week to our ‘Worry, Stress and Anxiety’ talk.

The themes of the talk were understanding good and bad stress, real and hypothetical worries, and anxiety. It explored strategies to help young people manage the worries and stresses of life and avoid the anxiety trap. By understanding techniques from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and research from neuroscience, parents learnt about tools to build their child’s self-awareness and self-management skills and boost emotional resilience.

Jo Forman, Director of Wellbeing, said: “There was a lot of focus on thoughts not being facts and diversionary techniques, basically how thoughts can impact negatively and cause undue stress and anxiety.” 

Fr Colin added: “I thought the message that thoughts and memories are our own creations and when we are fearful it is something we create in our heads rather than it being a reality, was important to think about.” 

Thank you to everyone for your positive feedback about the talk. Many said that it was ‘helpful to hear from another parent (Alicia) who is also a professional in her field. Alicia has a natural, easy way about her and is so realistic with her approach to helping both parents and students. Creating a dialogue around anxiety and stress is so useful and we’d like more of these talks in the future’.