色控传媒

Wellbeing: A Journey, Not a Destination

It’s sometimes believed that wellbeing is a destination, but that’s not actually the case. Wellbeing is not something we achieve; it’s something we work on, like physical health. If you go to the gym every day for six months when you’re 19 and come out with amazing shoulders and abs that you could grate cheese on… does that mean you’re set for life? No, of course not. You need to maintain your physical health, and mental health is just the same. Our children are learning about the world at an astonishing rate right now, and their awareness of their mental health is something that could prove invaluable, especially in our modern world.

The Teenage Brain: A Work in Progress

Here at Nord Anglia 色控传媒 Rotterdam, we want our students to understand their mental health on a deeper level. Understanding your brain, and why it can be so very unreliable, is a key step. And there is no more unreliable brain than the teenage one. The prefrontal cortex, the area most responsible for decision-making, long-term planning, and basically being sensible, doesn’t fully mature in humans until about age 26. You may have noticed, and indeed may remember from your own childhood, teenagers are not always the best decision-makers. Well, believe it or not, it’s not (entirely) their fault.

Managing Stress: The Key to Thriving

So, how can we help them? Firstly, we have implemented programs that teach students about their mental health, something we hope to develop in the coming months so that strategies and lessons can be rolled out to other and benefit as many children as possible. The idea of stress gets a negative press, but in fact, stress can be a hugely positive driver in our lives. How to manage it is the key.

Move Your Body, Strengthen Your Mind

Physical activity is scientifically proven to alleviate stress and create better neural pathways for young people. It’s absolutely imperative and harder and harder to enforce in an increasingly digital world. We should all try to make sure our students have as much chance to experience sport and free play as possible. The intangible skills they will gain from it are invaluable to their wellbeing.

Leadership, Responsibility, and Growth

Speaking of intangible skills, the chances students have to experience community events and interactive events are important in building their social understanding and also their sense of self-esteem. Organising an event through student council or a  "kindness club" is a big responsibility, and it’s through this responsibility that our children grow and develop the skills that will stand them in such good stead in later life. In between event organising, field trips, and our after-school activities, children are always given the opportunity to embrace leadership and responsibility at NAISR. But that does come with its own challenges, and that’s where resilience comes in.

Facing Challenges Head-On

Some parents want to protect their children from facing negative, difficult emotions head-on—to protect them from struggle or despair. It is both entirely understandable and, ironically, one of the worst things you can do for them. Just as lifting progressively heavier weights is hard but makes us physically stronger, encountering progressively more difficult situations makes us mentally stronger.

The Classroom of Life

School is the perfect place to encounter opportunities for personal growth. Students’ mental strength, their ability to deal with people they don’t get on with, conflict resolution skills, how much people like them, or how stable they are in stormy weather—these things aren’t graded, but they are taught in schools every single day. But the lessons can be tough. Our children have to learn their strengths and their weaknesses. Peers and teachers will criticise your child. I’m really sorry about that, but it’s true, and it’s also really, really good for them. Sometimes that criticism will be fair, sometimes it won’t, but it is all part of the learning curve of life. Do they acknowledge that they have failings and decide to work on them? Or do they disregard the criticism because the person giving it is not someone they like or respect, in which case they strengthen their sense of identity and personal conviction? Of course, bullying is never acceptable. But learning how to negotiate life and its various idiosyncrasies? It could be argued that it’s the most important thing we learn in school.

Tender Accountability: The Balance of Support and Structure

We believe in tender accountability. It’s important to have those boundaries. Children LOVE to find excuses. But they also understand, respect, and indeed need strong boundaries at home and at school. If they do something wrong, that doesn’t make them a terrible human, but it does make them wrong. So we hold them to account and don’t let them get away with it. We ask them to confront their feelings, emotions, and motivations for their actions. They hate it, I’m afraid, but that’s why it’s so good for them. It's like choosing sports instead of social media; their instincts will tell them they don’t want to do it, but remember, their brains can’t make good decisions yet, so sometimes adults have to do wellbeing to them before they get it and start choosing it for themselves.

Preparing for Life’s Ups and Downs

Of course, we want to support children as they go through their lives, and they now have access to a great wellbeing team at NAISR who can help them with anything with which they might struggle. Our students make regular appointments with me for counselling and also develop their resilience through the concepts and activities that we explore in our CVP groups each morning. We know that whatever a student’s academic achievements, whatever they choose to do in life, they will need resilience. We want to keep them safe and protect them, but not from life itself. There will be people they don’t like, classes they don’t like, teachers they don’t like… all of those things are challenges that can only be overcome by going right through them. Going around them won’t help in the long run, and who they become in the long run is important.

Conclusion: Building a Resilient Future

By equipping our students with the tools to navigate challenges, manage stress, and build resilience, we are helping them lay the foundation for a fulfilling and successful life. Wellbeing isn’t just a lesson—it’s a lifelong skill, and one of the most valuable gifts we can give them.