Out in the open: independent schools are confronting the challenges facing their students by offering parent seminars on topics such as drugs and partying. Photo: Louie Douvis
A generational gulf between adults who came of age in the 1970s and 80s and their teenage children who face today’s challenges has prompted schools to offer innovative parent-education seminars.
Drugs unknown 30-40 years ago, violent online pornography, binge drinking, sexting, online gambling and party culture are part of the parent-education seminars being undertaken across some of Melbourne’s leafier suburbs.
Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School will host a drugs information evening for its parent community, and principals and teachers from nearby schools, on Thursday and at the heart of it will be Drugs 101, an educational resource produced by former Fairfax journalist Eileen Berry, whose experience of a teenage relative’s drug use has prompted her involvement in educational publishing.
Ms Berry says her user-friendly parent guides, which will include Sex, Social Media, Body Image, Resilience, are designed to begin and build conversations between parents and teens, as well as the school communities.
Drugs 101 includes information parents have never confronted such as what dealers say when they sell drugs to school-aged kids at music festivals and when to call an ambulance for a passed-out teenager.
For Strathcona, Drugs 101 is the latest in a decade-long commitment to parent seminars designed to ensure care and attention for their community.
Terri Oprean, Strathcona’s Dean of Students says four or five seminars per year are held, designed to promote student resilience and well being and to strengthen parents’ connection with the school.
The seminars and resources are part of an ongoing dialogue, rather than the expectation of a magic wand. Ms Oprean says alcohol remains “a drug of concern” for the school, particularly when students start attending more parties. “We need to work with our parents to raise their awareness regarding the laws in providing alcohol to people under 18 and strategies to prepare their daughters for different scenarios.”
The school has previously offered Safe Partying Seminars, run by Sonya Karras, creator of Whole New World, to inform girls and parents. Ms Karras has run the seminars, which cover everything from legal requirements to safety issues – and what to do with all those backpacks full of booze teenagers arrive with – at about 150 Victorian schools.
Across town at Brighton Grammar, the school has found a hunger for information from parents who recognise their own teenage exploits were nothing in comparison to today.
Director of marketing and communications Natalie van Wetering says the school runs two seminars a year and parents turn up in droves.
Last June, the school ran one entitled The five most important conversations to have with your son. “We expected about 100 and 450 parents turned up,” Ms van Wetering says.
The next seminar, It’s time to talk about his time online, dealt with gaming, gambling and pornography, with three guest speakers, and was similarly packed.
For 2015, the focus is on boys and violence and Australian of the Year Rosie Batty will speak. “The stats are that in any group of boys one will be violent. Our focus is about creating respectful relationships,” Ms van Wetering says.
Links
Drugs 101 eileen@eileenberrymedia.com