Hardyston schools offer social and emotional support for teachers and parents

Hardyston. The Hardyston superintendent of schools, Mike Ryder, said Jan. 18 is Martin Luther King Day, when school is closed. It’s usually a day for academic professional development for the teachers, but this year, in addition to some math and language arts training, the school is offering a Zoom yoga class for teachers and a program of social-emotional development.

Connie Palmer, a licensed clinical social worker and the owner of Therapeutic Learning Connections, will be doing staff check-ins on a number of topics and areas of self-care. The YMCA of Hardyston will be offering teachers a series of yoga classes. Each teacher is required to sign up for one class as part of the self-care portion of the day.

“What we are trying to do is expose people to different ways of relieving stress and coping,” Ryder said. “I felt it was really important to provide this resource for teachers’ this year.”

The district is also offering a two-part webinar series for parents, also presented by Palmer. The first session , held on Dec. 16, was “Parenting in the Pandemic: Helping your Child Have the Skills they Need to Cope.” The second, presented on Jan. 13, was titled, “What to do When Kids Don’t Come with an Instruction Manual? Parenting With Compassion and Consequences.” Some of the topics include how to challenge the myth of the perfect parent, using consequences more effectively, discerning how and when to use reward or punishment, and responding rather than reacting to your child’s misbehavior.