Supporting Student Mental Health

Today’s students are dealing with unprecedented changes, issues, and demands. Author-educators Joey Mandel and Kathy Lundy have the tips and tools you need to respond to kids’ feelings, questions, and challenges in proactive and positive ways.

How do you support your child, without taking away their opportunities to attempt difficult tasks or navigate hard moments? Joey Mandel, author of Keep Growing, will focus on how we can respond to children when they are having BIG feelings, so we can begin to understand…
• when to move in and help a child through a struggle
• when you can help a child most by stepping back and letting them experience a difficult situation
• what tools we can give children so they are able to take initiative, and attempt to tackle challenges on their own

School should not be a difficult place for students to be. Instead, it should be a place where they are nurtured and cared for as well as challenged and taught. Kathy Lundy, author of Teaching Fairly in an Unfair World, 2nd Edition, will illustrate ways that we can support the mental health of our students by making them feel valued, welcome, and safe. As collective “communities of conscience” emerge, each member of the classroom will have an ethical responsibility to understand each other, be sensitive to differences, and be kind to one another. Once the groundwork has been done by everyone, exploring curriculum connections to oneself and others becomes richer and more authentic.