Teenagers face challenges today we never faced during our childhood. While I try to read as much as I can, go to seminars to learn and take my ‘gut instinct’ into account it can be quite overwhelming to know how to help a struggling teenager cope. Fortunately there are some very good experts out there that can help. One such person is Fiona Perella who, along with associated professional psychologists and educators have a business named Art Of Resilience which aims to help teenagers and their parents cope.
Fiona offers a range of workshops aimed at providing a positive environment for children of many ages to express themselves – often using art. Fiona states they are “designed with positive psychology principles and facilitate people to identify their strengths, think healthier and achieve success”
One workshop in a particular caught me eye – ‘Taming the Beat in our Girls hands’ – description below. It is worth checking out www.artofresilience.com.au
Whether we like it or not, the “tween” and “teen” market is a thing and experts agree our girls are firmly in business’s sights. There has been a marked rise of consumerism and sexualisation in advertising with slogans like “eye candy” or “shopping makes me happy” on girls’ clothes as young as three years old. Keeping girls out of the shops is not the answer because internet marketing is a beast that gets into every girl’s hands with a study in 2016 study finding that our teens are spending on average 3.3 hours per day watching screens (1).
The impact is what every parent worries about. The Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation reports that “four times as many young people are now presenting to Emergency Departments with repeated self-harm and attempted suicide compared to five years ago. An estimated 50% of children and adolescents are not accessing mental health resources until a serious crisis unfolds.” (2)
As the adage says: “Prevention is better than a cure”. The Teen Wellness Workshop on the 19th of May is the first of many teen workshops & retreats designed to support girls aged 13- 15 years who are navigating the stress of high school & the pressure of adolescent life.
This retreat is the brain child of two local mums, Fiona Perrella (Art of Resilience), Danielle Steward (Peak Body Health and Fitness) and a Perth Yoga gal (Chloe Potter Yoga) who see the need to provide support and arm our girls with skills that will last a lifetime for the mind, body & soul. This is not a lecture style workshop but guided facilitation using several fun and creative sessions that include art journaling, meditation, yoga, raw cooking demonstration and exercise to explore and reinforce the key messages of the course. We hope to provide skills which will take girls from teens to young adults, providing them with the tools to practice respect, self-love & care for themselves and others around them.