Letter to Parent Association

Building a Healthy Emotional Foundation for our children

I am a parent of three boys who thrived at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora. Some of the boys from our cohort struggled with self-medication or other unhealthy coping behaviours after they graduated. These young men were often unaware that their struggles were rooted in unresolved feelings related to past difficulties and were not equipped with the tools to process these feelings in a healthier way. While some have now been able to address these unresolved emotions and move past their need for substances to suppress their feelings, others continue to struggle, unaware of how their past experiences are influencing their current lives.

This inability to work through feelings to self-awareness keeps them stuck and can have tragic consequences. There is so much more we can do to prepare our children to understand and manage their emotional well-being. If you’ve personally worked through a difficult life event and experienced growth from it, this program will resonate with you. Learning how to process life’s challenges is a crucial skill for emotional growth and resilience—one that can make a lasting difference in the lives of our children.

Current School Emotional Education

The majority of school program and therapeutic programs are now focused on managing the symptoms of emotional distress.  Breathing techniques, gratitude journals, reframing problems, prescribed medications are all methods to manage symptoms of distress.  These are easy to teach, or medicate, but they don’t get to the underlying issue; Why am I anxious or Why am I depressed or simply What is going on.  This trend of symptom management strategies is starting to hurt our children because it’s not balanced with knowledge on how to process their feelings to get to the why; so kids can stay stuck managing and coping with symptoms instead of processing their feelings and building resilience.

Paragraph about How are you Feeling

The students have told us that How are you Feeling? program came at the right time and was incredibly valuable. As 14-year-old, Simone, put it,

“UnderstandiWng our feelings is arguably the most important topic school can teach.”

Parents have echoed similar sentiments, sharing how much the program has positively impacted their children.

Why the Parent Association

We are reaching out to Parent Associations because you can help make this program a reality for your children and your school. We know schools can be reluctant to add additional curriculum hours for emotional health, but this type of program will help them build good relationships and avoid serious mental health problems that can develop as young adults.

To support the program’s implementation, we are offering a $50,000 endowment to the Parent association and school for running a pilot of the HAYF program. I recognize your time is important so the first $10,000 will be allocated no-strings attached to running a focus group with interested parents to assess the program. You can then decide if you believe the program would be valuable to your children and the student body.

If you would like to learn more WHAT you to read through the attached Appendices to understand more about the program and some suggestions on how to proceed with an evaluation. This letter can be passed on digitall by sending this link to other parents for their consideration.

Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you. Please let me know if this is not an interest at this time and I will pass this opportunity to another school.

Appendix - Further Reading