Promoting Balance at School and Home
by Ryan Woods
Potomac promotes balance for its students in a variety of ways. During the upcoming grade level Parent Forums, our counselors – who are members of Potomac’s Health and Wellness team – will discuss some methodologies and practices pulled from their own range of experience and from peers who have visited our school to shed light on student well-being.
Potomac recognizes that health and wellness are multidimensional concepts encompassing a person's life's physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, environmental, and social aspects. To foster the well-being of each member of our school community, we strive to ensure that every individual feels a sense of belonging and support, has opportunities to develop meaningful relationships, finds joy in learning, and is encouraged to live a healthy and balanced life.
Our Counseling Team Works to Promote Key Skills
Potomac seeks to empower its students and all members of its community with the following skills, which are fundamental to promoting individual and collective health and wellness.
- Decision Making
- Self Care
- Reducing Risk
- Community Care
Promoting Balance at School
According to Jennifer Breheny Wallace, an award-winning journalist, and author of the instant New York Times bestselling book Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic – and What We Can Do About It, today’s students face unprecedented pressure to succeed. This pressure often leads to overscheduled lives, sacrificing personal relationships and mental health. Breheny Wallace emphasizes the need to balance high expectations with well-being, asking us how we, as adults, can foster excellence without causing harm.
At Potomac, we promote balance at school by:
- Offering a range of curricular offerings including visual arts, physical education, performing arts, core subjects, clubs, etc.
- Including time for play and relaxation in the daily schedule
- Having a six-day rotation that reduces nightly homework
- Providing SEL/Advisory lessons that focus on character development
- Offering wellness lessons focused on sleep, management of time, healthy tech use, etc.
- Scheduling homework-free nights and weekends
- Organizing student life events that promote socialization
Promoting Balance at Home
During the 2023-24 academic year, we welcomed Dr. Catherine McCarthy, Dr. Heather Tedesco, and Jennifer Weaver for our Health and Wellness Speaker Series. The authors of Raising a Kid Who Can: Simple Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Adaptability and Emotional Strength shared that, “As parents, one of our most important jobs is to help our kids build a strong foundation for psychological health so they can function well both in crisis and calm. The roots for good mental health (at any age) are rest, recreation, and routine.”
Breheny Wallace also shares insights from Lisa Damour, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling author and clinical psychologist, who visited Potomac in April 2023. She offers, “At home, I’ve turned my focus to what I call ‘wise striving,’ or as Damour explains it, teaching my kids how to be energy efficient. In our house, we are in constant conversation about what it means to be a ‘good student.’ It’s not giving everything 100%. That’s what can lead to burnout and feed perfectionistic tendencies. Instead, it’s learning to be strategic about where you spend your energy. As Damour once told me, quoting a colleague: “The difference between getting a 91% and a 99% is a life.”
As suggested by the above mentioned leaders in their field, parents can promote balance at home by:
- Helping their kids build a strong foundation for psychological health
- Focusing on character traits, such as being respectful, helpful, and kind
- Teaching kids how to be energy-efficient
- Encouraging kids to find strategic ways to spend their energy
- Not pressuring kids to get straight A's
- Making sure kids get enough sleep
More information will be shared during the upcoming Parent Forums. These events are opportunities for parents and caregivers to gather informally to discuss grade-specific, non-academic topics and challenges most relevant to their children's developmental stage.
If you are concerned about a Potomac student, our school counselors are a helpful resource. The counselors prioritize ensuring each student receives the support they need and deserve. While appropriately addressing the information shared, the counseling team will make every effort to keep reporters’ names confidential.
Ryan Woods is Potomac’s Head of Intermediate School and leads the school’s Health and Wellness Committee.