I grew up in a sports-mad family. We had a table-tennis table set up in our parachute-lined-ceiling shed in Happy Valley, a southern suburb of Adelaide, and I loved to play with my mum Bev, dad Mark and sister Toni. We'd have a hit and then crouch around our little TV to watch sport: usually footy, cricket or basketball.

One time, I remember our family was a little nervous in the lead-up to the semifinals of the women's basketball at the Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Australia was about to play Yugoslavia. A win would see Australia play off for a gold medal for the very first time. The reason for the butterflies was because my aunty, Pat Mickan, was playing in the game. I was only nine at the time but I understood the significance of the match and knew what it meant to my Aunty Pat, as well as all of us.

It was one of the all-time greatest Olympic basketball matches. With only seconds to go on the clock, Australia was up by one point: on the verge of making history and advancing to the gold-medal game. However, Yugoslavia had possession. With seconds to go, a Yugoslavian player threw up a shot from near the baseline. It was like slow motion watching that ball travel through the air. And damn, that ball went through the net. Australia heartbreakingly went down by a solitary point. I recall being totally devasted and in tears for Aunty Pat.

Growing up in this kind of environment, a love of sport eventually transferred over to me. I was obsessed with making it as a professional sports person. Especially given my Uncle Mark (Mum's brother) was also someone I idolised and looked up to (we all know how important those role models are). Mark was the first-ever captain of the Brisbane Bears when they first joined what was then the VFL in 1987. When the Adelaide Crows joined the AFL in 1991, Mark returned to Adelaide and was the inaugural club champion of the Adelaide Crows. He was also a SANFL premiership coach and represented South Australia in state of origin football at its peak.

In my teenage years, I excelled at cricket and Australian Rules football. I played in the As in the South Australian Grade Cricket Competition representing Southern Districts as a 15-year-old (one of the youngest ever), represented South Australia in two national under-17 championships and I had the privilege of captaining the team the second time around. Our team made the final that year and played on the hallowed turf of the MCG, but was narrowly defeated by Queensland.

At the same time, I was tracking well with football. I was in the South Australian under-18 squad which is an important pathway to playing in the AFL, and was playing good football at South Adelaide. But the demands of playing two sports started to overlap, so I felt I needed to decide: football or cricket? I chose football.

What happened next is significant to what I do today, and why.

It came to a time where there's a short window of a couple of years to impress AFL recruiters, as well as make the under-18 state team, which normally represents the top talent pool from each state. I made the South Australian squad as a 15-year-old in 1994, in 1995 and again in 1996. However, something went wrong. I never made the final team and was named as reserve in the final two years.

I managed to convince myself at the age of 17 that my AFL dream was over.

I'd mope around the house and at school with the hope that family and friends would give me the attention I was seeking. This behaviour caused self-inflicted depression. It wasn't medically diagnosed, but looking back on it, I believe I had symptoms of depression over that period. Not making it in the final year of eligibility made me believe it was over, when in reality that wasn't necessarily true.

So, what happened?

If you'd asked me back then, I would have blamed coaches, circumstances and anything else I could think of. Ask me today and it's a totally different answer.

On reflection, I realised I had the kicking, handballing and marking skills, along with the fitness (physical skills), but what was lacking was the mental fitness (the ability to handle the mental challenges of sport and life). I realise now, I wasn't equipped with the skills needed to be a resilient person.

Don't you wish you'd been taught the skills to manage these ups and downs, setbacks and failures back then, so you could weather any kind of storm now?

I'm sure as an adult, you can recall a similar story from your past.

How did you handle it then? How would you handle it now?

Don't you wish you'd been taught the skills to manage these ups and downs, setbacks and failures back then, so you could weather any kind of storm now?

How would your life be different if you were taught skills from as young as four or five years that helped deal with all kinds of challenges?

A different kind of value

From a young age, we learn that society values physical performance and academic success. However, I feel my story, and no doubt one of yours, is why we need to focus more on the softer skills — such as resilience.

In reality, our greatest learnings come from taking risks, moving forward from challenges, being adaptable thinkers and learning from the experiences that let us down.

Back then, I didn't have the skills to move forward from poor performance or reframe situations when things didn't go my way. I lacked self-awareness and rarely took ownership. I also took for granted a number of things, such as having the opportunity to play, the equipment and facilities, the coaches and volunteers. I put so much pressure on myself that I forgot why I originally started to play sport when I was five and that was to have fun playing with my mates!

Thankfully, in low times I never popped pills to manage; instead I popped gratitude, physical activity, empathy, kindness, positive reflection, service and self-awareness. It is these skills that I believe get me through life as an adult and formed the basis for my company, Growing with Gratitude.

Without a doubt, we've come a long way in our education system since I was at school and we've recognised the need for skills that work on our mental health.

Think about what kinds of things you currently do at school (and, I bet, never did back then!). Maybe you've had some form of staff training, the school has recommended or is using wellbeing resources or perhaps has invested in a wellbeing program for its teachers to use, such as Growing with Gratitude or another program to help build your students’ emotional capacity. And, if you're lucky, a wellbeing lesson has been added into the timetable.

Yet unfortunately, while many of us have made a great start on these skills, we still report a lot of it feels hit and miss. How do we know this? Mental health is still on the rise, and bullying is at an all-time high.

So, what's going wrong?

Three key challenges

It's likely that right now some of you ensure wellbeing is included in your daily and weekly timetable, others do a wellbeing lesson every so often and then there's a small percentage of you who don't (yet) do any wellbeing at all. Why?

A lot of our wellbeing initiatives are seen as add-ons to everything else we're doing. As a consequence, we're not implementing them or driving them in the right way. I have come across too many schools to count where they start their wellbeing programs out strong and then after a term or two they fizzle out. Many schools have this haphazard approach and it's hard to get things going or make them stick.

From my observations over the past decade, a pattern of challenges has formed:

1. We're treating problems, not preventing them. What if we taught young people how to build relationships and how to be great friends from an early age? Would bullying be the major issue that it is today?

   A 2018 study by the Make Bullying History Foundation reported 80 per cent of students believe bullying is a serious problem at their school and what is even more alarming is that 59 per cent of students said they've experienced bullying. Cyber bullying and online bullying have played a major role in causing such high rates.

   Teaching positive friendships alongside empathy could possibly be the prevention strategy we're looking for to reduce bullying. Research from Salavera and colleagues concludes that:

   … teachers and other members of the school community should work on empathy with young people from an early age, in order to help students and reduce bullying in the classroom.

   My friend and colleague Dana Kerford is founder of URSTRONG, an organisation built around empowering others with friendship skills. Dana shares that ‘relationships are at the heart of wellbeing. Learning how to create healthy friendships and manage conflict in a respectful way is the key to creating cultures of kindness in schools’.

2. We only have one person ‘in charge’ of wellbeing. And this is often handballed to them! Maybe it's the wellbeing leader, whose role it is to oversee the wellbeing program. That means they are often pulled every which way, including spending time on those behaviour-management issues.
3. We're time poor. Let's face it: we're just too busy with — you know — teaching! So, when we do finally ‘make time’ we are using ineffective strategies, so it feels much harder than it is, and our kids are not getting any real benefit.

It's important to know that none of this is your fault. We don't need to play the blame game here.

Yes, we may be time poor, but there are ways to prioritise wellbeing and to fit it in, in ways you may not have thought of. Granted, there will be issues that come up, that require reactive action; therefore a solid pastoral care structure is important. However, a wellbeing program is a long-term approach to preventing problems by teaching young people skills to help deal with challenges, and to build friendships and a sense of belonging. So, it's unfair and unrealistic to think wellbeing is one person's responsibility when in fact it's everyone's.

There's no doubt teachers and the school play a key role in setting up a strong wellbeing environment; however, it's important to note they are not solely responsible for the wellbeing of students. The home plays a key role too. A lot of wellbeing initiatives can be transferred between school and home, and (as you're about to see) the things we practise in the classroom can be practised around the dinner table, in the car or other times you are with your kids.

It's also important to note that, unfortunately, some students may not receive the nurturing they need in their home life; therefore, school could be the only place where they will receive wellbeing practice — that's why a good start is needed. (And some individual students may need professional help outside of what a school can provide.)

We can grow our schools and homes with gratitude and other skills that will set our kids up for life.

We can grow our schools and homes with gratitude and other skills that will set our kids up for life.

A shift in mindset is vital in integrating a strong, robust and effective positive education program in the classroom and across the whole school, to avoid the ‘half-arsed’ approach currently being used.

An invitation to come together

The schools already doing amazing work in this space are few and far between. We need to get every school up to scratch!

The information in this book will help close that gap.

I will share with you how to grow with gratitude in your classrooms, across your whole school, at home and in your personal life, too (because you simply can't look after others unless you're looking after yourself first).

Don't just take my word for it.

One of the people I most respect is recently retired Principal Robert Hoff who has 50 years’ experience in education. He was an early adopter when it came to wellbeing practices and a whole-school approach. In a recent interview with me, he said:

If the COVID pandemic has taught us anything, it is that all of us are in this together! Our own and other people's wellbeing is clearly in each individual's hands. It is the civic responsibility of each person to care for themselves, their own family, school acquaintances and community members. Never in our lifetime has it been so clear that our own action or inaction has a critical path to play in our and others’ wellbeing.

We probably knew this before with the spread of the influenza virus (and its impact on school health) but it may have been moved to the back of our minds. In recent decades, research has clearly demonstrated that the wellbeing of students depends so much on the spirit of the school. Who is responsible for creating a flourishing school environment? Simple answer: staff, students, parents and school council members are the leaders. There are others, such as grandparents and coaches, but, essentially, it's up to those listed above.

Staff, particularly those who have daily contact with students, have the key role. It is essential that staff have the latest research about what creates a positive school environment where students can flourish.

Significant and continuing growth by staff is absolutely essential. Everyone needs to understand why wellbeing is the priority for every school. One of the first areas to explore is the factors that lead to teachers’ own personal wellbeing. Once this is achieved, then ‘buy in to “wellbeing for all”’ has a significant chance of success.

Educators need to understand their own personal wellbeing and the factors that create a stable, fulfilled and flourishing life. Few are flourishing in top gear all of the time. We are not running on all pistons emotionally, physically and spiritually all of the time. But we all do strive to be resilient, reliable, effective and confident most of the time.

Dealing with the daily action of school life can be testing indeed. Why do some thrive and others just survive? I am certain that if educators embed key aspects of wellbeing into their own living, and, indeed, continue to grow in the understanding of what contributes to their own wellbeing, then they will more easily share these essential skills with young people under their care.

When staff discovered the science of positive psychology through a carefully managed process of activities that focus on what makes a life most worthwhile, developing positive individual characteristics, they began to realise their strengths and that passing on their values matter.

They find it stimulating learning about the fundamental tools of developing a flourishing life for themselves and how their contribution to the life of students and the school really matters. This wouldn't have happened if the leadership team had left this to chance.

On that note, it's important to highlight that I am not a mental health professional, psychologist or qualified counsellor, nor have I ever claimed to be. What I am, though, is a passionate educator with over 20 years’ experience who is obsessed with figuring out the best approaches to wellbeing in classrooms, schools and at home.

What you're about to read — the journey we are about to embark on — is based on my personal and professional experience over that time. I've sought out the best case studies, interviews, stories and examples, so that you don't just learn from me, but also from each other!

It’s now up to us to take the next step, together.

To put things into practice, I'll ask you to try, do or action something from each chapter after you've read it. And of course, you can download the accompanying resource pack to help you.

It’s now up to us to take the next step, together.