At St Paul's I have self control - 'Stop, Think, then Choose what to do.’

In weeks 3 & 4 the students of St Paul’s have been learning, I have self control.

When we have self-control, it means we’re in charge of our thoughts, words and actions. We don’t just react however we want. We remain calm and choose the right way to respond. Self-control is hard. It actually takes more strength to hold back than it does to just react in a moment.

When we have self-control, we keep ourselves safe from out of control behaviours that can hurt ourselves or others. For example, self control will protect us from hitting our sibling for breaking our favourite game. Or, from saying something mean to a friend that really hurts their feelings. 

We encourage parents and caregivers to work alongside us with teaching your children strategies they can use to help them build their self control.  This may be done by discussing various scenarios where they may get upset, such as a friend saying they don’t want to play with them or being told no, then discussing how they can respond to this in a respectful and responsible way. 

Remind them of the Stop, Think, Choose strategy in our school. When something happens, stop and think about how they can handle this situation and choose the best strategy, whether that is apologising or taking a deep breath and counting to ten.