The Hill Academy Newsletter- December 6th, 2020

December 6th, 2020 HILL Message (from Academic Director Rick Kunc): I was having a conversation with Coach Brodie Merrill this week and we were talking about our children (his are much, much younger than mine). And he was saying how hard it is to know when to step in, when you see your child struggling. How do we know when to help them deal with adversity and when to step back and allow them to navigate it on their own? There is a balance there and there is probably no right answer. It is why parenting is so hard. We want the best for our kids; we want them to grow up with the skills that will make them successful, and we know that resiliency is important. However, we also want to protect and nurture them. This is also a difficult balance at school and in sport. Young student athletes need to be resilient to be successful. They will face adversity and how they respond will dictate their success going forward. If they fold the tents after a bad test or a bad play that will become habit forming and dictate how they face adversity in the future. Being resilient is a more difficult path than quitting, but it is a more rewarding one. Our teachers and coaches have modelled resiliency for our students this year. On almost a weekly basis they have been thrown curve ball after curve ball as we aspire to deliver a first-class experience to our students while facing so much adversity. Have our students done the same? For sure they have. And I think this is part of what has driven our faculty and coaches. They are motivated by our students and they are great role models each and every day as they model resiliency and how to “make lemonade when life gives you lemons”. From Psychology Today here are 10 Habits of Highly Resilient People: 1. Grow a thick skin and expect rejection and setbacks. 2. Ditch the desire for comfort and step into growing pains. 3. Be willing to postpone immediate gratification in the short term for the fulfillment of your goals in the long term. 4. Cultivate spring-back sustainability. Think of yourself as an elastic band that bends and stretches to a certain point before you spring back higher than you fall. 5. Refer to previous experience. Reflect on past obstacles you’ve overcome in your climb. 6. Identify self-doubts that have cramped your work style or crippled you from growing fully. Harness them—instead of running from them—and channel them into useful skills so they don’t paralyze you. 7. Stay off the roller coaster. Manage the ups-and-downs of your life by treating highs and lows equally. 8. Eschew the what-the-hell effect. This attitude only adds insult to inju