Here We Are

The fact of the matter is:  we need one another.  Life is full of unexpected challenges, and single-handedly navigating all of the twists, turns, and storms that come our way is, while perhaps possible, really hard.  And when you throw the well-being of children into the mix, it can feel completely overwhelming. So, we work together, we lean on one another, we support and encourage each other, and when we hit a wall, we share further resources to get around, climb over, or tunnel under that wall. This is the idea behind our Symbiosis blog. My name is Kara Byrne, and I am one of the School Counselors here at the middle school. I am also a parent and step-parent of three boys, two in high school, and one in college. I feel incredibly lucky to be working with your children -- believe it or not, middle school age kids are my favorite. Working with these students is clearly a large part of my job, but so is working collaboratively with teachers and parents, as well as raising awareness of the different roles of a School Counselor. This blog fulfills part of my role - that of a resource to parents. But, to be honest, I feel like a forum like this, where we can share our collective expertise and experience as educators and parents, is much more valuable than anything I could offer on my own. Additionally, having a more interactive give and take allows us to address issues, concerns, and resources as they come up, or as we learn about them. This idea is particularly relevant when it comes to issues around social media and technology. In fact, technology concerns were the original impetus for creating this blog. How do we keep up with all that is happening with technology in order to educate our children so they can be safe, responsible digital citizens? How do we know what to look for? We don’t know what we don’t know. So - let’s help each other. As far as technology goes, a fantastic resource that I’ve been using since last winter is the site www.screenagersmovie.com. Last spring we showed the film, Screenagers, at the High School, and followed it with a discussion panel. It was a great experience, was well attended, and generated some lively discussion. One of my takeaways from that event was utilizing the Screenagers site as a go-to source for things like Screen Time Contracts, Parenting Apps, and info about Digital Citizenship and Anti-Bullying Campaigns.  There is also up-to-date research about sleep and screens, internet addiction, and other digital media issues. I also subscribed to the weekly blog, Tech Talk Tuesdays. Highly recommended!!  I would love to hear about the ideas and resources you have found to be invaluable in your parenting journey. My next blog contribution will continue with parenting issues, as a follow up to the first (which was on Oct. 26) in a series of four Parenting Classes that we are holding here at the Middle School. Please share your concerns and resources so that I can address and share them in the next post. Thank you, so very much, for reading! And please join in the conversation. We are in this together, and for that, I am grateful!