Cultivating clear connections
Wellbeing a vital part of education
PROVIDING one’s children with a good education that comes with positive mental health outcomes is a major concern for any parent, but for many remote area parents, the choice is generally between distance education or boarding school, each of which presents its own benefits and challenges.
The Rural Weekly spoke with Tim Saal, rural and remote programs manager for Rural and Remote Mental Health, about cultivating resilience and other positive mental health characteristics for parents and students regarding education.
When speaking about what parents needed to consider in making the right choice for their children, Tim said he had been a boarding school student, and had benefited greatly from the experience, as boarding schools offered excellent learning, and extra-curricular and social development opportunities, but that each case had to be considered individually.
“There’s no one rule. A lot of the boarding schools now offer amazing pastoral care compared to 40 or 50 years ago, where at times it was quite challenging,” he said.
“I think the advancements in technology now around video conferencing that School of the Air and distance ed have available are also remarkable, and are supported by some outstanding teachers who are driven to make a difference.
“Each person needs to consider that choice with their family.
“As far as the mental health aspects go, I would encourage parents to sit down and have a conversation with their children about it, about exactly what their children want.
“It involves being informed about all this. It takes really good foundations and clear communication on all parts.
“Not just identifying if there is an issue, but knowing how to get help when there is one.”
He said it is also important to recognise that those types of conversations could be challenging with teenagers, but that they could start from as young as six years of age, setting up clear and direct channels of good communication around wellbeing and mental health.
Strategies parents could put into place to bridge the gap of distance from home to boarding school included having scheduled, twiceweekly communication.
“On top of those clear times of communication, a strategy my parents and I had set up was a particular phrase to use if there was a situation that was a real issue for me. This got around the problem of the public nature of phone calls,” he said.
Emails and video conferencing were modern advantages to communication. Tim said those in remote areas with poor internet bandwidth could consider VSee, a free, low bandwidth high quality video conferencing solution for remote area communication used by the US military.
Distance education students likewise need the benefit of clear communication channels, accompanied by clear boundaries set around study times. The advantage here is they are then free to be involved in property work.
Social isolation is possibly the greater mental health issue with distance education, but this could be compensated for by taking advantage of any or all face-to-face distance education activities.
Visits to city-based relatives, residential holiday schools, and sports activities were all options to build social connections.
“Limit access to social media that they engage with, however, simply because of the dangers that are there,” Tim said.
As important as working the family property could be, whether day-to-day for distance educated children, or during school holidays for boarding school students, so too is ensuring a family holiday at least once a year.
Tim said this is important for the mental wellbeing of children and parents, building important connections, morale and memories outside the context of the farm.
“It’s not a luxury, it’s a must; a lot of people will say they can’t afford the two grand to go and have a week at the coast or whatever, but I say that if you’re sailing that close to the wind that two grand once a year is going to send you bust, you probably should get off the place for a bit while you still can, while you’ve still got a relationship,” Tim said.
“As a parent, be open and honest with yourself around how you are doing, because you can’t help others if you can’t help yourself.
“Your own worst critic can be the person that looks back in the mirror.”