Get GRIT Program

📚 **Rethinking Technology in Schools: Protecting How Children Learn** 🧠

A growing conversation in education is highlighting the importance of protecting the foundations of learning — reading, writing, creativity, critical thinking, and human connection.

Key priorities include:
✏️ Ensuring primary students have strong foundations in literacy, and learning through books, pencils, and paper.
📖 Encouraging deeper learning through focused attention rather than constant digital distraction.
🤝 Prioritising relationships, discussion, collaboration, and real-world learning experiences.
🔒 Ensuring any technology used in schools is safe, purposeful, and genuinely supports learning.
🧠 Helping students develop their own ideas, voice, and problem-solving skills before relying on tools like generative AI.

Technology can be a valuable tool, but it is important that it enhances learning rather than replaces the skills children need to develop themselves.

At Get GRIT, we believe in empowering children to build the skills they need for life — including confidence, resilience, self-awareness, communication, and the ability to think for themselves. 🌱

Heads Up Alliance Parents, this is the petition you have been waiting for!

Link to the petition in comments below.

Now let's make it go viral!

This term, students begin our Identifying Emotions Unit — learning that all feelings are normal, valuable, and provide important information about ourselves and others.

Through engaging lessons and activities, students develop the skills to recognise, understand, and manage their emotions, building greater self-awareness, resilience, and confidence. 🌈

Understanding emotions is a skill for life — and we’re excited to help students grow these important foundations

Building Emotional Intelligence, One Feeling at a Time This important unit sits at the heart of developing emotionally intelligent, self-aware learners. It teaches students that all feelings are normal and okay — helping them notice, name, and understand their emotions rather than push them away or feel overwhelmed by them.

💛 This term in Get GRIT, students are learning the "I" in GRIT – Identifying Emotions! 😊🧠

Emotional awareness is one of the most important life skills a child can develop.

This term, students will learn:
🌈 All emotions are normal and okay.
🧠 How their thinking brain and feeling brain work together.
💛 How to recognise, understand, and manage big emotions like anger, frustration, and worry.
🌱 The difference between helpful worries (a time to be safe) and unhelpful worries (a time to be brave).
✨ Practical strategies to regulate emotions, build resilience, and make thoughtful choices.

When children understand their emotions, they are better able to cope with challenges, build positive relationships, and thrive both inside and outside the classroom.

A recent news article has sparked important conversations about the potential long-term impact of excessive screen use on children's developing brains. While the research is nuanced and still evolving, experts are raising concerns about the effects of screen overuse on attention, memory, learning, social skills, and overall cognitive development.

As parents and educators, it is a timely reminder of the importance of creating opportunities for children to engage in face-to-face interactions, physical activity, creative play, reading, and real-world experiences. The habits children develop today can have a significant impact on their wellbeing and development in the years ahead.

What are your thoughts on children's screen use in today's world?

This is a truly shocking piece in Australian News Corp newspapers last week, with important input by my co-author Dr Danielle Einstein. It deserved the front page. It suggests that the children of this generation might be more at risk of early onset dementia than their parents, because of children's screen overuse. This is not to mention the other issues emerging from this over-reliance on screens, such as a lack of focus, memory and social skills. (Read the article, which is a bit more nuanced than the headline.)
We know the extent of the problem. I rarely see a child of under 10, or even 5, years old who does not stare at a screen as they eat in a restaurant with their parents. How many toddlers in prams are transfixed by their parents' phone rather than the sights around them?
How will these children interact in the play ground, sit in class and listen, or take joy in the world, if we have cut out so much of the world, so they can watch Peppa Pig?
How are children going to learn self-regulation, if the moment they behave badly, parents reward them by handing them a phone or tablet?
This problem is not going to be ameliorated by the social media delay, and we cannot rely on that important start as the one measure that will save this generation.

So what to do?
PARENTS:
There are excellent ideas in "Raising Anxiety" (coauthored with Danielle) that give active ways parents can manage screen use. (One idea - no personal device use by children under 7 years old - we explain why in the book).
We also discuss explicit ways parents can introduce each type of screen for their child, to ensure that it is well managed and not impacting on their wellbeing or family harmony, and strategies for parents whose child's screen use is out of control. (Also, ways to help children face daily challenges).
"Raising Anxiety" is available in print at all online book sites. Also on Kindle.

SCHOOLS:
Educate your parents on strategies to managing screen use (and any other behavioural challenges which screen use is being used to contain). I recently did a school session on this topic for parents of younger primary-age children and any parent who had a child enrolled in the school I was speaking at (so parents of 1, 2, 3 and 4 year olds as well as younger primary). This is one way of making sure parents are on the right track to provide a childhood that is truly developing confidence and capability in their child (particularly as I delivered some other critical preventative messages). It's a great way for schools to educate parents of younger years, even at the pre-entry stage.
Happy to do more of these (And could be on webinar too). Schools can contact me for details [email protected].

If we don't fight back against this scourge, then I truly don't know what will happen to the potential of this current, and future, generations. We need to take deliberate steps now to contain it.

It was such a pleasure meeting the wonderful staff at St Luke’s Anglican School in Bundaberg yesterday.

I was very excited to introduce the Get GRIT Program to their team and support their continued commitment to student wellbeing, resilience, emotional intelligence, and positive relationships.

Thank you for your warmth, engagement, and passion for helping young people thrive. I look forward to continuing to work with you to support and strengthen student wellbeing.

I also look forward to returning to Turtle Sands with my family next season to hopefully witness the incredible turtle hatchlings making their way to the ocean 🐢

At the heart of wellbeing is connection ❤️

Research consistently shows that positive relationships are one of the strongest protective factors for mental health, resilience, happiness, and life satisfaction. Relationships help children feel safe, seen, valued, and supported as they learn to navigate the world around them.

At Get GRIT, we believe social and emotional learning provides children with the skills to build healthy, meaningful relationships throughout life.

Because in the end, relationships are not just part of life… they are the most important part of life 💛

Read more here - https://www.getgritprogram.com/blog/relationships

Why Relationships Matter More Than Anything Else At the end of the day, it is not achievements, possessions, marks, trophies, or status that shape the quality of our lives most deeply — it is our relationships.

Helping Kids Navigate Friendship Ups and Downs

In our latest blog, we explore what is really happening beneath friendship “fallouts” and how parents can best support children through these moments with confidence and resilience.

Friendship challenges are a normal part of childhood, but they can often feel significant in the moment. Rather than stepping in to fix every situation, parents have an opportunity to guide children as they learn how to work through these experiences themselves.

These moments are important opportunities for building key social and emotional skills, including emotional awareness, perspective-taking, communication, and relationship repair.

Read the full blog here

Helping Kids Navigate Friendship Ups and Downs Friendship challenges are a normal part of childhood, but they can often feel bigger than they really are. What looks like a “fallout” is usually children trying to navigate strong feelings and work through a situation as best they can, while their social and emotional skills are still developin...

🌟 Get GRIT Program – Co-Curricular Sessions with Kylie from Kind Kids Therapy 🌟

Kylie from Kind Kids Therapy has opened bookings for the Get GRIT Program for Term 2 as a co-curricular wellbeing opportunity for students. 💛🧠

Through engaging, evidence-informed sessions, students develop resilience, emotional intelligence, and positive thinking strategies that help them thrive both in and out of the classroom.

These small group sessions provide a safe space for children to grow in confidence, manage challenges, and strengthen their wellbeing skills.

✨ Limited places available – contact Kylie to find out more or secure a spot for Term 2.

Get GRIT Program - Brisbane North 📍 Venue: 23 Bowman Street, Hendra (OLHC School) 🗓 Dates: Sunday 17th May, 24th May, 31st May, 7th June 9 AM -11 AM (4 sessions) 💰 Cost: $625

🌱 This term, schools working with the Get GRIT Program are teaching the Resilient Thinking Unit, where students are developing the skills to manage setbacks, reframe unhelpful thinking, and strengthen their emotional resilience in practical, meaningful ways.

In the Get GRIT Program, the “R” stands for Resilient Thinking—a core skill that helps students recognise their internal dialogue, identify unhelpful “stop thoughts”, and intentionally shift towards more helpful “go thoughts”. This awareness supports stronger self-regulation, persistence, and positive decision-making when challenges arise. 🧠💪

It has been powerful to see students growing in confidence, learning to pause, reflect, and bounce back with greater resilience in both their learning and everyday experiences.

To learn more about what students are exploring this term, read the blog -

How the Get GRIT Program Helps Students Build Emotional Resilience The Resilient Thinking Unit within the Get GRIT Program develops students’ capacity to persevere through setbacks, manage frustration, and respond to challenges with greater optimism, flexibility, and emotional strength.