Vital support in challenging times

The rising cost of living, technology and the fast pace of life are challenging families in new ways, with support provided by school chaplains more important than ever.

Nicola Saad has been a SU Australia chaplain at Humpybong State School for 16 years, training as a Triple P facilitator about eight years ago to provide additional support to families in the school and wider community.

“I had completed a Bachelor of Arts (professional majors in human services, Psychology and Counselling and Ethics and Human Rights) as a mature age student, mostly studying at the kitchen table while my children were at school. I was fortunate to be offered the role of chaplain soon after completing my degree,” she recalls.

“I was attracted to chaplaincy as I was passionate about wanting to help children and families.”

A changing world has thrown new challenges at families, with many needing support and tools to navigate them.

“Financial pressures mean that it is increasingly common for both parents to have to work, so families face significantly increased time crunches, which makes it more difficult to have time to put in the hard yards when parenting children,” Nicola explains.

“I don’t mean that working parents can’t parent well, because they certainly can. But when I do Triple P seminars and speak to parents about strategies like ‘time out’, where it is important to have time to permit children to self-regulate and to practice calming themselves, I hear frustration that this is difficult to do when parents have to rush out the door for work.

“From my experience of working at schools, when parents don’t have time to ‘out-wait’ their child who may be having a meltdown, they will often short-circuit the learning process, which makes it much harder for children to learn these important life skills.

“To support these parents, I use Triple P to help them learn how to support their child to develop important skills like self-regulation, which take time.”

Advances in technology also present challenges to parents, trying to balance educational benefits with the impact on their emotional and social development

“Our children are now digital creatures, often playing on screens before they can talk. For them, everything from getting answers to their questions to entertainment is instant and as such they have a far lower likelihood of learning to delay gratification,” Nicola says.

“This also has a big impact on their ability to regulate their own emotions. Screens are also interfering with how they socialise with others.

“One of the things parents ask me about most often in Triple P is how to manage screen time for their children.”

Nicola says the cost-of-living crisis has had a huge impact.

“Families are really doing it tough and this means that children often don’t have those basic things that we see in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – food, shelter, clothing etc,” she explains.

“As a chaplain, I do a host of practical things to help. I have been running the Chappy Lunch program for about 15 years, providing sandwiches for students who need them. We also have the Chappy Fruit program.

“I also volunteer two days a week in the Brekky Club, which is a joint venture between the school and the YMCA, serving toast to hungry children.

“I work with local organisations annually to provide stationery packs to the children whose families struggle. I have pre-loved uniforms and shoes which I can donate to children … and I work with the school support team and with churches and local organisations to provide food hampers when families are struggling.”

Nicola has been running Triple P seminars for about eight years, giving parents a solid introduction to the program’s proven strategies to skill children for life.

“The beauty of Triple P is that parents are much happier and calmer when they are confident in what to do when faced with difficult child behaviour and this leads to much happier children in the long run,” she explains.

“I also do what is called ‘primary care’ support. This means that when families face a particular issue – for example, a child with separation anxiety – the parents can sit with me one-on-one.

“We pull out the excellent Triple P tip sheets and I explain the relevant strategies. Parents are then able to go back and implement those strategies in their families. It is a brief, relevant intervention with gives parents proven strategies to help them parent their children effectively.”

Nicola says chaplains play a unique role in schools.

“In my role, I combine practical support for families with social and emotional support for students and quality parenting support for parents. It is never the same from one day to the next,” she explains.

“With regards to Triple P, I often tell parents that I was not a Triple P parent, and I made a lot of mistakes, as we all do.

“I have been a Triple P grandma and I have seen the difference that it makes to the ‘parenting’ that goes on in my relationship with my grandchild. I would love to see every family ‘do’ Triple P as I believe it is a fantastic grounding for family life.”

Find out more, visit triplep-parenting.net.au/qld-en/triple-p