Message from Michele Marquet, Head of Junior School
Dear Parents and Carers
Last week was a busy one at the Junior School campus. Apart from the palpable joy felt at our Mother’s Day morning, it was so wonderful seeing Y6 students and their parents fully engaged in using design thinking to come up with some very creative solutions to the challenges that carline brings and hearing about the learnings our Year 5 boys had gathered during their visit to Taronga Zoo! Several Year 5 and Year 6 students are currently away at Bundanon, on the South Coast, taking part in what is now an annual art immersion allowing some of our most passionate artists the chance to develop their art skills in a beautiful setting with gifted art teachers.
Recently, I read an interesting article on how we can provide our children with the vital life lessons they need on their journey to adulthood. Reflecting on a book published a few years ago by Julie Lythcott-Haims, former dean of freshman at Stanford University, How to Raise an Adult, the author of the article (Katherine Martinko) compiled 11 skills she believed an 18-year-old needs to have mastered as they leave school:
- Talk to strangers – know how to engage appropriately in a conversation with someone they don’t know.
- Navigate new locations – know how to find their way around a place they are unfamiliar with.
- Manage their time – know how to organise their schedule and workload without a parent overseeing it.
- Cope with adversity – know that obstacles are a normal and regular part of life and know how to cope with ups and downs.
- Handle conflict – know how to handle most interpersonal conflicts without needing others to solve the issue.
- Remain focused – know how to sustain focus and resist distraction and what it feels like to enter a state of flow.
- Help run a household – see what needs to be done around the house and have enough initiative to do it without being asked.
- Care for themselves – know how to wake themselves up in the morning and ready themselves for the day in a timely fashion, exercise and eat well, and maintain good grooming habits.
- Earn and manage money – know what it means to hold a job, understand the cost of things and how to live within one’s means.
- Take risks – be confident enough to try something new, join a new group, travel somewhere they have never been or pursue an interest on their own.
- Sit alone with their thoughts – know how they can occupy themselves happily and productively without a screen for a few hours daily.
It is a given that most of these skills are going to need to be developed as our children grow up, rather than, miraculously, during the 18th year of life! So, I have been pondering how we can help our 6-year-old, 9-year-old or 11-year-old child to be able to do these things in an age-appropriate way, so they are indeed fostering these skills as they grow up. Undoubtedly, this takes ongoing commitment and work from an adult with the child, sustained over time – but it is important too. Psychologist, Martin Seligman, says that it is crucial for humans to experience something called ‘contingency’ – that is, knowing that their actions matter and impact outcomes. When the adults in their world do most things for a child, they experience ‘non-contingency’, which ultimately can result in passivity, depression and poor physical health in humans. It is always faster for the adult to do the job, whatever it might be, but it is not the thing that will most help our child in their journey to becoming an optimally functioning adult.
It seems a key to building these life skills is the approach taken. Similar to the way teachers scaffold skill development in subjects at school, an approach that works well follows this intentional training pattern, maintained over time:
- First, the adult demonstrates the skill with the child watching
- Next, the adult and the child do it together
- Then, the adult watches the child do it themselves
- Finally, the child does it for themselves independently, without the adult needing to be present
Each stage might take some time and the type of task we might be practising to continue to develop that skill will change over time.
But what skills might we look to develop at different ages? Below are some ideas that reflect appropriate child developmental stages:
| 5 – 6 years | 7 – 8 years | 9 – 10 years | 11 – 12 years |
| – Put away toys – Dress themselves – Put dirty clothes in the wash basket – Clear plates from the table – Set the table – Brush teeth – Wash face – Know their full name, address and phone number – Know how to make an emergency call – Pack bag for school – Carry own school bag | – Perform simple jobs around the house – Help with basic laundry – Put groceries away – Wash dishes – Stack and unpack the dishwasher – Straighten up bathroom after use – Make bed without assistance – Use basic cooking techniques – Mix, stir and cut with a dull knife – Make a basic meal like a sandwich | – Fold clothes and put away – Simple sewing skills – Care for outdoor toys like a bike – Care for personal hygiene without being told – Use broom and dustpan properly – Prepare a simple meal from a recipe | – Create a shopping list – Help with simple garden duties like watering and weeding – Take out rubbish – Go to a local shop and make purchases alone – Change own bed sheets – Use washing machine and dryer – Plan and prepare meal with several ingredients – Use oven to bake foods – Read labels – Use basic hand tools |
The idea is these skills should be developed over time with lots of practice and focus on building up the level of independence and responsibility as the child gets older.
The joys and challenges of guiding children into adulthood is a joint venture between teachers and parents. One of the pleasures of the last year was seeing so many of our ex-Junior School students at Senior School making positive strides towards responsible, reliable and engaged adulthoods. Our teaching teams are honoured to share this journey with the families at Cranbrook Junior School during the earlier years where steps towards adulthood are set in motion.
Kind wishes,
Michele Marquet
Head of Junior School
