Letter to Parent Association

Building a Healthy Emotional Foundation for our children

At 12 years old, I remember being curious about my feelings but unfortunately, I adopted many misconceptions about my emotions.  At 45 with some help, I started to understand my emotional system.  Adolescents 12 and older can develop a healthy emotional understanding that will allow them to thrive and work through the “stuff that happens” in their lives.

If you have personally worked through a difficult life event and experienced growth through that challenge, this program will resonate with you. The value of understanding how to process life’s difficulties is a hard-earned and is necessary for our emotional growth.

Current School Emotional Education

The majority of school program and therapeutic programs are now focused on managing the symptoms of emotional distress.  Breathing techniques, gratitude journals, reframing problems, prescribed medications are all methods to manage symptoms of distress.  These are easy to teach, or ingest, but they don’t get to the underlying issue; Why am I anxious or Why am I depressed or simply What is going on.  This trend of symptom management strategies is starting to hurt our children because it’s not balanced with knowledge on how to process their feelings; so kids can stay stuck managing and coping with symptoms instead of processing their feelings and building resilience.them.

Students have told us that How are you Feeling? program came at the right time and was incredibly valuable. As 14-year-old, Simone, put it,

“Understanding our feelings is arguably the most important topic school can teach.”

Parents have echoed similar sentiments, sharing how much the program has positively impacted their children.

Why the Parent Association

We are reaching out to Parent Associations because you can help make this program a reality for your children and your school. We know schools can be reluctant to add additional curriculum hours for emotional health, but this type of program will help them build good relationships and avoid serious mental health problems that can develop in their late teens.

To support the program’s implementation, we are offering a $50,000 endowment to the Parent association and school for running a pilot of the HAYF program. Being a past parent of 3 boys at St Andrews College, I recognize your time is important so the first $10,000 will be allocated no-strings attached to running a book club with interested parents to assess the program. You can then decide if you believe the program would be valuable to your children.

If this program resonates with you, I encourage you to read through the attached Appendices referenced in this letter. We’re hopeful that with your support, we can work together to bring this crucial program to all your students.

Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you. Please let me know if this is not an interest at this time and I will pass this opportunity to another school.

Appendix - Further Reading