Dear GFS Students, Faculty, Family & Friends,

I’m excited to share the second edition of our Boyce Bulletin and update you on the happenings in the Boyce Center for Learning & Thriving! September was a very busy month for us as we set to work meeting and supporting students. It also brought many exciting events, including a breakfast for community partners including psychologists, area educators and therapists. It was wonderful to connect with so many talented specialists in the Baltimore community and share the great work that is happening at GFS! September also marked the first Boyce Speaker visit, with alumna Dr. Reid Boyce Nichols ‘89 visiting and sharing her journey to becoming a successful pediatric orthopedic surgeon with students in Grades 8-12.

Reid’s message to our students was clear–dream big, press on in the face of challenges and don’t take no as a final answer! Her talk was captivating, engaging and, most of all, relatable, as Reid shared the fears she faced throughout her journey and the power of perseverance for both her and the young patients she serves. I was struck by Reid’s tenacity and grit and was left asking myself, “But what would I try if I wasn’t afraid to fail?” Our students seemed to feel the same way and shared how inspiring they found her message, with many asking for Reid’s contact information to connect with her personally. I am excited to continue the conversation around the role of “failure” in growth, and challenge all of us, especially in our role as parents and educators, to push ourselves to let our children experience productive failure and equip them to persevere.

You may have seen the recent article in the Atlantic by Russell Shaw on lighthouse parenting entitled Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids. Shaw suggests that lighthouse parenting is a balanced approach for our children that teaches and prepares them to ride the ocean waves but prevents them from crashing into the rocky shore. Amongst all of the parenting advice being thrown our way, this one resonates with me as both a parent and an educator, conjuring memories of a panel of Upper School students who met with Middle School parents several years ago. Their advice? When faced with a problem, help your child process their feelings and come up with a plan of action. Consciously stepping back and letting your daughter take the reins helps them learn to embrace their own agency and believe in their own capacity to solve problems. As Shaw points out, "One of the most important shifts that parents can make is learning to substitute our impulse to fix problems with the patience to listen." I try to maintain this same approach when students visit the Boyce Center by listening, asking questions and helping them to problem solve. While figuring out when to step in is challenging and there are no clear “right” answers, science (and experience!) does help guide us and there is indisputable power in learning and growing together as a community. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn alongside you with Rachel Simmons last week and am looking forward to continuing these important conversations.

Best,

Shannon

On Wednesday, October 2nd, the Garrison Forest school community joined together for wellness and community building activities for the Boyce Center's second Wellness Wednesday! This month we celebrated neurodiversity in honor of ADHD Awareness Month. Students in all divisions were encouraged to wear orange bracelets and conversations took place around neurodiversity and the importance of supporting and celebrating all types of learners. To acknowledge and celebrate the importance of movement for students with ADHD (and all students!), Baltimore Hoop Love joined us on campus during lunch and boarding students participated in bonding games and activities in lieu of Study Hall, run by former Physical Education Department Chair, Kim Marlor. Please see below for some photos and check out the full album here. Wellness Wednesdays take place schoolwide on the first Wednesday of every month with the goal of encouraging our community to focus on our mental, physical and emotional well-being, while also creating a sense of belonging and building connections.

The Boyce Center for Learning & Thriving, together with our Counseling Department, is excited to bring a special Parent Education program on navigating childhood anxiety to campus on Wednesday, November 20 at 7pm. SPACE stands for Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions and is a parent-based treatment program developed by researchers at Yale University to help children and adolescents with anxiety, OCD, and related problems. Pam Dorman, our Middle School Counselor, has received extensive SPACE Training, and the strategies she will share are helpful for parents and teachers working with children from preschool all the way up through high school. Please RSVP here for this special program, which is open to Garrison Forest families and friends in the community.

Last week, we welcomed our Boyce Center for Learning and Thriving Advisory Board member and Expert in Residence, Rachel Simmons. Rachel is an internationally known expert in raising and supporting girls and women in school and business and author of Odd Girl Out, The Curse of the Good Girl, and Enough As She Is. During her three days on campus, she met with students in Grades 4-12 in small groups, in addition to meeting with our faculty and staff, Wellness Team, Leadership Team and parents. Throughout her time on campus, Rachel reinforced the value of building discomfort tolerance in our children and underscored the importance of empowering our girls with the agency to solve problems as they arise. From comparing possible solutions when faced with friendship challenges in Grades 4-8, exploring their motivation and purpose in Grades 9-10, and setting and reinforcing boundaries in Grades 11-12, our girls practiced these skills in workshops with Rachel over the past few days. You can check out Rachel's slides for parents here and use this framework for examining friendship challenges.

At this point, I bet most of you have seen Inside Out 2, this summer's hit animated movie about adolescent emotions. It is now streaming on Disney Plus and is a great pick for your next family movie night and can be a great conversation starter with your children. I recommend checking out The Making of Inside Out 2 episode of the Ask Lisa podcast, featuring Dr. Lisa Damour, who consulted on the film and is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: Untangled, Under Pressure and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. In this episode, she talks with Dr. Dacher Keltner about the science behind the movie. I personally loved learning about the origination of my favorite adolescent emotion from the movie, Ennui, and hearing more about how to use the movie to initiate conversations with your children around friendship, growing up and the pressure our children face.