Some people say that the first 3-6 months of anything new, especially when moving to a new country or to a new school feels like a honeymoon, as you are experiencing all new things and noticing all the beautiful and positive things around you and everything is so exciting. Then comes a period, where things may not seem as great anymore and our emotions take over and start running its old programmes in our head and we start focusing on the negative things instead of the positive. I don’t think anything changed on the outside, but our own thoughts did, so even though I am aware that our journey in Tenby International School seems like a honeymoon, and that it may be replaced by a different reality at some point, I wonder whether it’s our own thought patterns that is playing a role in how we perceive and react to the things and issues we face.

There has been a lot of writing and studies done about this and many people believe that indeed our thoughts, whether negative or positive, are directly linked to the experiences we have in life. Simply put if you have a negative thought pattern within yourself, you will look at life through this negativity and that is what life gives you, because you only pay attention to the negative things, whereas if you have a positive and supportive outlook on life, you will mainly experience life in a positive and helpful light. An example is if a child has some emotional issues and starts paying attention to the negative thoughts in their head, they may be experiencing incidences at school where they feel they are being unfairly treated by their teachers, more punished than others or picked on etc. even if it’s not entirely true from other people’s perspective. If you have a child that see things in this way, what do you do as a parent? Scold the teacher for treating your child unfairly and demand the teacher to leave your child alone or do you try to find the reasons why your child is seeing and experiencing things the way he/she does, as it may well be that it’s the child’s own negative thoughts and feelings that are causing them to feel that others are treating them badly or they themselves who, with their body language, is attracting negativity back?

I would try to find the reasons and then do my best to help my child overcome this problem and if possible together with the teacher, as I feel it’s important that a person who is around the child many hours a day understands the child’s issues and support them in working through the issues with them, as a child may not be able to do it alone at school, but needs the encouragement, reassurance, support and caring from an adult that is prepared to help the child along this journey of overcoming negative emotional issues.

It’s not an easy thing to do, but I feel it’s important to look into this to ensure that children have the best chances of succeeding in life regardless of where they come from, the baggage they carry and the emotional issues they have to overcome.

Recently I have received comments from a person who uses emails that bounces back when I respond back through email, which I feel uncomfortable with, hence I am not sure whether I want to post the comments or not, although I am still considering it.

Please rest assured that I welcome constructive feedback and therefore don’t hide comments that give a different point of view than my own. However I reserve the right to not post comments that I feel won’t contribute to a genuine, healthy and constructive discussion and also to take my time to respond back and post comments, as I don’t work on my blog all the time.

Also I need to make it clear that I don’t have any power to get the school to act on any issues, as I am a parent like everybody else, hence my blog shouldn’t serve as a channel for complaints in the hope that something will be done about it. Issues with the school should be addressed to the school directly.

My blog only serves as a mechanism for me to write about my observations, reflections and opinions about what my children and I experience with the school and about other things too, and I would be happy to hear your comments to learn about your thoughts and opinions. It is my hope that my blog will help teach my children now and in future how to look on both sides of the coin, understand others and the situations we are in, and how to deal with the challenges we face in life with a positive approach and frame of mind.

Thank you for your kind attention and understanding.

Best regards,

Ghita