ACEs Recovery Toolkit Blog – Week Four
Dust yourself off and carry on…. 
So, we’re back this week, following a short break for the school holidays.
It’s important to bear this in mind when you’re running programmes, as asking a parent to commit to sessions over the holidays, when childcare may not be available, could be an almost impossible task.
We chose not to run sessions over the holiday, so as to allow the family time to spend together, and avoid any further stress for the parents arranging childcare. If you’re able to offer childcare when running a programme, even better.
This week’s focus was on resilience and self-esteem.
We had 9 through the door (with apologies from 4) – which wasn’t too bad, given that we’d had a two-week break, and some schools still hadn’t returned.
The parents in the room struggled to put into words what resilience was, but when we went through it, one parent commented
“it’s just about dusting yourself off and carrying on”
The parents really enjoyed the videos from the Recommended Video List (which is provided as part of the programme), and felt that it was easy to understand, and put ‘Resilience’ in simple terms.
Parents were then given time to complete the Self-Esteem checklist.
It was really lovely to see the couple in the room, talking about how they rated themselves, offering each other words of praise, and also providing some light-hearted entertainment about each other’s sleeping habits.
It really brought a feel-good element to the room, and opened up discussion with other parents, about how they had scored themselves.
Parents were in agreement, that in order to improve our self-esteem, we needed to focus on ourselves, as well as our children.
Parents were then able to identify what children need to develop resilience, and used the ‘9 strategies to building resilience’ as a guide.
Some parents needed some assistance with understanding the wording, but once it had been broken down a little bit for them, they were able to contribute some thoughts and ideas.
The homework this week, was for parents to look at how they could develop their children’s resilience, which is supported by handouts given during the session.
We ended the session with a game, as I felt it was important to end on a positive.
One parent commented that she loves this programme, as she doesn’t “feel bored” and it “guarantees to put a smile on her face every week”
…and because of comments like that, I know this programme is working wonders already!
Next week, we introduce emotions….I feel a bit of Bee Gee’s rendition coming on!
Chris
Read more about our ACES Recovery Course here