Dear Parents,

Myself and EPCA have had a very busy month working on your behalf. We are always so happy to be able to work with parents - and on behalf of parents - to advance the priorities of the anglophone parent community in Quebec. Remember to contact us with your ideas on how EPCA can help you and for suggestions for future newsletter topics. Here are some updates on initiatives we discussed in the previous newsletter.

Road safety around schools is critical to all of us. We worked with a group of dedicated parents to organize demonstrations in schools on March 15th. On Friday, 21 April, we also took part in a nonpartisan press conference. Parents presented a binder containing resolutions passed by more than 50 municipalities in Quebec urging the government to increase funding for road safety and make roads more accessible to pedestrians and cyclists. We will continue to work hard to send a clear message to the government that road safety is a critical priority for today's parents and hope to gain support from as many municipalities as possible to make real changes in our communities.

On the capacity-building front, we have held workshops for parents on a variety of topics, including Evolving from Colour Blindness, Homework 101, and the transition from Elementary to Secondary school. We also partnered with Canadian Parents for French for a Family Movie Night. We had a fantastic turnout and will continue to offer workshops until the end of the school year, including on topics such as A Parent's Role in their Child's Friendships, Social Media and Internet Safety (check out our Facebook Page) and others listed later in this edition of our newsletter.

As we are nearing the end of the school year, we've focused this issue on keeping our kids engaged and on helping parents understand the ministry exams... what they are, when they occur, and how you can help prepare your child to face this challenge head on. We wish you and your students the best of luck in the coming months!

Dear Parents,

Our kids had a well-deserved spring break and I hope you were able to enjoy it with them! Now we are nearing the end of the school year, which can make motivation more difficult. As parents and primary educators for our children, we play a critical role in their success. Let us be role models for them by talking to them positively about school and its importance and encouraging them to pursue their interests, overcome obstacles, and seek assistance when needed.

EPCA held a Bill 96 webinar which had hundreds of participants in attendance. We heard your concerns and are doing everything we can to advocate and make your voices heard.

On March 14th, EPCA - in partnership with Mettons fin à l'insécurité routière sur le trajet scolaire - held a provide-wide protest against road hazards near schools. We have demanded that the government develop a road safety strategy and take action to make the areas around schools safer. We are now writing municipal counsellors and municipalities across the province of Quebec asking them to adopt motions that request the provincial government to quickly and significantly increase the budget allocated to the development of proven and effective safety measures around Quebec schools.

Finally, disruptions in educational services, exacerbated in part by labour shortages, are depriving students of services critical to their success and well-being. It is currently impossible to reconcile the current situation with our demand for a service for every need, for every student. We will continue to work with partners in the education community in an attempt to find a solution to the impasse.

I'd like to conclude on a high note by inviting you to browse and participate in our spring workshops! We have something for everyone, and I hope to see you there.

Thank you for contributing to the educational success of your child and thank you for being there for your community!

Montreal, 7 March 2023 – The English Parents’ Committee Association of Quebec (EPCA) supports the Make School Zone Safe Initiative and encourages all parents to organize protests in front of Quebec's English schools on March 15, 2023.

Deeply moved by Mariia's death in downtown Montreal last December and the tragedy at a Laval daycare, EPCA President Katherine Korakakis is urging the Quebec government to address child safety immediately.

"It is unacceptable that in 2023, parents are afraid to send their children to school on foot or by bike, and that they see road safety violations every day near schools, daycares, and parks. The government must put in place safeguards to prevent incidents like this from occurring.”

Ms. Korakakis supports the plan to rally all parents on March 15 to call for an increase in funding for road safety, the implementation of the 2030 Sustainable Mobility Policy to adopt a "zero accident vision," and adjustments to development standards intended to shift the paradigm from "all to the car" to the advantage of the most vulnerable road users, as outlined in the Highway Safety Code.

"On March 15, let's send a clear message to the government that it's time to do its duty and make a change. Every accident is one too many,” concludes Ms. Korakakis.

Details on how to join the movement on March 15 prior to the start of the first bell:

• Register your School for March 15        
  
• Interactive Map of School Rallies          
  
• Facebook event                                    
  
• Video                                                    
  

About the English Parents’ Committee Association (EPCA)
EPCA is a coalition of parent committees from English-language school boards across Quebec and is the official voice of parents of students in Quebec English-language school boards, representing nearly 100,000 students in the youth sector.

For more information contact:
Katherine Korakakis - President
Contact: president@epcaquebec.org

Dear Parents,

As we progress into the new year, there are so many things going on in the Quebec educational system. Many new laws are being implemented in Quebec that have a significant impact on the educational system and, by extension, our children. EPCA remains vigilant about the effects of the laws on our students and is working with our partners and parents across the province to mitigate any potential negative impacts to the best of our abilities.

Second report cards are coming out now - if your student hasn't yet received theirs, they should be getting it soon and you can check the Mozaïk portal. It can be a stressful time for both children and parents, but EPCA has provided someone tips and tricks in this newsletter (and in past editions and on our Facebook page and our website) for having conversations around progress with children and teachers in Parent Teacher interviews.

Stay tuned for a survey on educational projects in response to the Minister's priority to increase access across Quebec to educational projects, including things like Sport Etude and Arts. EPCA wants to hear your thoughts on this initiative.

On a personal note, I want to acknowledge that the last month has been filled with tragedy and, as parents ourselves, everyone at EPCA feels the pain as well.

I'd like to wish everyone all the best for the next month. I hope to see you at one of the many events and workshops EPCA is putting on over the next little bit with our partners, including a series of workshops with OMETZ and movie nights with Canadian Parents for French!

Written by Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. Founder of Curious Neuron or @curious_neuron, Host of the Curious Neuron Podcast and Co-Founder of Wondergrade

With several pediatric organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declaring that we are in a children’s mental health crisis, we need to find ways to educate kids about healthy ways to cope with emotions. The main takeaway from this 3 part series on mental health is that there are many skills we can teach our kids that contribute to their mental health. In Part 1, we learned about the importance of our own mental health as parents as well as assessing behavior changes since this can be linked to their emotional well-being or mental health. Part 2 of this series highlighted the importance of practicing gratitude, self-compassion and connectedness (which have all been tied to protecting our mental health!). In the final part of this series, let’s break down 3 important strategies you can teach your child to help them move past uncomfortable emotions.

A little reminder that emotion regulation is an important skill that needs to be developed over time. Emotions help us to respond to a perceived or real environmental stimulus. Even though we don’t have a perfect definition of what an emotion is, we can define them as a biological state that results from feelings, behaviors, and thoughts.

We feel a variety of emotions (as we talked about in this Instagram post) and knowing them is one of the first steps toward good emotion regulation. Dr. Marc Brackett’s work at Yale and his book called Permission to Feel are great starting points to help us identify 64 emotions we can experience at various levels of intensity.

Emotion regulation (ER) is when a person understands their different emotions and can influence when and how they experience and express them. An individual that is not capable of managing their emotional response to everyday events is more susceptible to psychopathology.

To help with emotion regulation, different strategies have been used. Over the years they have been divided as:

Adaptive and/or protective (when they successfully reduce negative state and restore emotional balance);

Maladaptive and/or risk factors (if they only provide short-term relief and fail to reduce negative affect).

Adaptative ER strategies lead to good psychological well-being whereas maladaptive ER strategies have a strong association with a wide range of psychopathology (depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorder symptoms).

A review in 2009 found that three emotion regulation strategies have been associated with protection against psychopathology (adaptive):

Reappraisal (when you try to look at the positive side of a stressful situation. Self-compassion and gratitude play a large role here as well);

Problem-solving (conscious attempts to change a stressful situation or contain its consequences – you don’t modify the emotion, but modify or eliminate the stressor);

Acceptance (component of mindfulness, the ability to be present and accept thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they are to promote good outcomes).

Three strategies have been associated with risk factors for psychopathology (maladaptive):

Suppression (suppression of emotional expression – could work in short term, but over time is less effective in regulating emotions);

Avoidance (the opposite of acceptance);

Rumination the habit of obsessing over negative events that happened in the past (source: Verywell Mind)

Now that we have the science, here are 3 takeaways that will support your child’s mental health:

1. It starts with your child’s environment. How are you and anyone in your child’s home modeling healthy emotion regulation?
2. Create habits that support their emotional well-being such as mindfulness, gratitude, a community and self-compassion.
3. Teach them adaptive coping strategies. We often don’t have control over our environment and what causes us distress, however, we have control over how we respond to distress. The more we can learn to control our response, the happier we feel.

All 3 of these points lead to an emotional well child and adult with a lower risk of mental illness. It isn’t easy work but we can all create small goals to support our child’s mental health. I hope this series was helpful! Feel free to reach out through www.curiousneuron.com if you have any questions!

Meet Dr. Cindy Hovington

Cindy Hovington is a mom of 3 and has a doctorate degree in Neuroscience from McGill University. She is the Founder of Curious Neuron, an online science-based resource focused on emotional learning and mental health in kids of all ages. Curious Neuron has a community of over 129,000 parents on Instagram (@curious_neuron) and recently launched their YouTube channel. She is the host of the Curious Neuron Podcast, a top parenting podcast in Canada, the US and the UK. She is also the co-founder of Wondergrade, an app that helps children ages 3-8 develop healthy emotional coping skills. You can try the app free for 2 weeks here or visit wondergrade.com. Dr. Hovington is a regular parenting expert on CJAD800 and has been highlighted in Montreal Times, Today’s Parent, and the Bump. She has worked with companies such as Pampers, Airbnb and Pok Pok.

The role of parents in supporting their child's school motivation
Catherine F. Ratelle, Ph.D.

Université Laval

During the Hooked on School Days, important individuals in students’ lives are mobilized to offer them support in the last stretch of the school year marathon. Among them, we find parents, whose contribution to student development and well-being is the most global and stable. As their child's motivation can wane during the third and final term of the school year, parents wonder how they can best support their motivation.

Support their autonomy

Youths who are poorly motivated in school need to feel personal ownership and self-endorsement of their learning and to perceive its usefulness—namely, to feel autonomous as students. Parents support their autonomy when they try to see things from their perspective, by listening to their feelings and opinions, even when they are different from their own or even negative. By being empathetic and validating their perspective, parents allow their child to take responsibility for their actions and be self-determined.

“I understand you find this assignment boring.”

“It's okay to be discouraged at times.”

Parents who are autonomy supportive also take the time to explain to their child the importance of the school tasks that are assigned, which helps them internalize the value their schoolwork.

“When you learn grammar rules, it allows you to communicate with others so that they understand you.”

Finally, parents support their child’s autonomy when they allow them to hold age- and developmentally appropriate responsibilities and to make meaningful choices.

“When you receive your work plan, you can decide which day you want to do each task your teacher has given you.”

Show your involvement

Another way parents support their child's school motivation is to be involved in their lives. Involved parents create an environment where their child feels accepted, understood, and worthy of attention by showing them that they are important and by offering them supporting when needed. This support can be manifested by providing tangible resources to the child (e.g., subscribing to a science journal if they have a passion for the subject) but, most importantly, it is demonstrated via emotional resources. Specifically, emotionally involved parents use unconditional positive regard toward their child, show genuine interest for what is happening in their school life, devote time to them, encourage them, and show them their affection.

Provide structure

Parents can support their child’s school motivation by offering structure. Structuring parents make their child’s environment predictable so that they feel capable of achieving their goals. This involves clearly communicating family rules and expectations, specifying the natural consequences of following and breaking rules, by being consistent in enforcing rules and expectations as well as their consequences, and by maintaining supervision, when necessary. Structure also requires providing specific feedback to help children, when needed, and providing time and opportunities for them to follow rules and meet expectations.

Importantly, avoid harming

Parents can protect their child's school motivation by avoiding behaviors shown to be harmful:

• being controlling (e.g., threatening, imposing one's way of doing/thinking, punishing or rewarding behavior, blaming)
• being rejecting (e.g., ignoring, belittling, using abusive or insulting language, yelling or using a harsh tone, using sarcasm)
• fostering chaos (e.g., changing rules and expectations without notice, being lax and using laissez-faire, using discipline in an arbitrary or inconsistent manner)

Being a parent is not always easy. You may recognize yourself in some of the practices you should avoid. Rather than judging yourself, we encourage you to be self-compassionate and reflect on what causes you to engage in these behaviors (e.g., fatigue, stress, your child's neurocognitive characteristics). Every day, you can improve as a parent by putting these good practices into action.

Suggested reading:

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (Faber & Mazlish)

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/1451663889

How to Talk So Teens Will Listen & Listen So Teens Will Talk (Faber & Mazlish)

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Talk-Teens-Will-Listen/dp/0060741260

Parenting according to self-determination theory

https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/topics/application-parenting/ 

Canada Research Chair on parenting and academic and vocational trajectories

http://www.parents-education.chaire.ulaval.ca/en/  

Montreal, February 13, 2023 – The English Parents Committee Association (EPCA) is pleased to underline the importance of Hooked On School Days taking place February 13– 17, 2023.

The Hooked On School Days campaign is intended to remind our dedicated students, parents, and educational community stakeholders that they are all indispensable in insuring student success as we work together to surpass the outstanding graduation rate in English School Boards.

“On the heels of what we have been through the last 2.5 years with the pandemic, it is evident more than ever that we must work together to ensure educational success.

This week highlights the importance of teamwork as we focus on supporting our children,” said EPCA President Katherine Korakakis. “Of course, educational success is not measured in one-week. It is our important daily commitment to our children that sets the stage," concluded the President.

Please consult your local School Board websites or social media for details on all the activities being held this week across Québec.

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About the English Parents’ Committee Association (EPCA)
EPCA is a coalition of parent committees from English-language school boards across Quebec and is the official voice of parents of students in Quebec English-language school boards, representing nearly 100,000 students in the youth sector.