As the district administration revises the curriculum to address social and emotional development in students, a presentation by George Scott, an educator and licensed marriage and family therapist, will touch on the importance of family and building resiliency in children. Organized by the district’s Community Education department, the “Parent University” program is on Thursday, November 12, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the High School South theater. The event is free but registration is required via www.ww-p.org.
The speaker participated in a Community Education program last year, and he has previously conducted WW-P staff training on suicide awareness and prevention.
“I know there is recently a letter sent out from the superintendent,” Scott says. “He is right on the money on that. I will be borrowing from the letter at the event.”
Scott grew up in Hamilton Township. Neither of his parents graduated from high school, but he says his “folks were very insistent on my going to college.” In graduate school he studied educational administration and he has worked as a director of student services for more than 30 years in the Hamilton, East Windsor, and South Brunswick school districts.
Scott left the South Brunswick district in 2007 and received his marriage and family therapy license around the same time. He has a counseling service in Ewing, where he also lives, and he helps individuals, couples, and families heal from trauma. In addition, Scott is an adjunct instructor in the College of New Jersey’s counselor education department.
The big question is how to help kids stay on a good track, and for Scott a child’s health and resiliency starts and ends with the family.
“Children are barometers of what is going on in the family,” Scott says. “The healthier the family is, the more resilient the child. The biggest thing that affects kids is difficulties between mom and dad. Part of what I want to do is for parents to have an assessment on their own households.”
Structure and positive affirmation are important for the developing child, and Scott points to family dinners and chores as practices that instill responsibility and respect, which in turn lead to a healthy family environment.
“Buying kids more and more things does not raise healthy kids,” Scott says. “More screen time does not raise healthy kids. Parents are busy, I understand that, but parents may have turned their heads from kids. Moms and dads are busy checking their E-mail.”
In addition, Scott says parents’ generalized anxieties, arising from high levels of concern for their child’s safety or happiness, can interfere with a child’s development of resiliency and inhibit independence.
“It traumatizes their learning systems,” Scott says. “A lot of the symptomology from kids who are high stress and traumatized is the same as those who are diagnosed with ADHD.”
If there is concern for a child’s behavior, Scott says reassessing the family is important to understanding the underlying issue.
“Parents should be able to take a look at the behaviors in the children, ask what might be causing them, and see if there is anything they can change,” Scott says. “Kids have no power; parents have the power.”
He notes the overuse of medication sends a wrong message to children that there is a pharmacological solution in the form of a pill. “Rather than go quickly to medication, let’s look at other things that may be influencing kids,” Scott says.
For the WW-P district, a central concern is the stress resulting from the drive for academic achievement. Scott says balance is healthier, and the focus on the brain doesn’t focus on the emotional and social aspects.
“High stress kids, or kids who have a lot of hurt, will isolate themselves,” Scott says. “As our kids grow older and older, if kids are not healthy they will isolate themselves more and more.”
