April 2023 |

Sparky and Shady Basics for Healthy Wellbeing

Saturday 22nd April

Serendipity House, 15A North St, Coffs Harbour

Choose your session

9.30 – 11 am Parents and children aged 5 – 8 (yrs K – 2)

11.30 – 1 pm Parents and children aged 9 – 12 (yrs 3 – 6)

2 pm – 3.30 Parents and young people aged 12 – 15 (yrs 7 – 9)

Cost:

$30 for adults (you can attend alone)

$20 for children and young people (an adult must accompany them).

Content:

• Human beings have needs – to have healthy wellbeing we need to look after our physical self (body), emotional self (feelings), mental self (thoughts), social self (personality) and spiritual self (Sparky). We will talk about all our needs.

• We can meet our needs in loving or fearful ways – when we listen to Sparky, we might choose loving ways to meet our needs. When we listen to Shady we might choose to say or do something that is not good for us, other people or nature. Sometimes Shady helps us, but other times Shady is unhelpful. We will meet Sparky and Shady in our imaginations.

• Sometimes it is hard to manage our fear – we will learn some strategies to manage Shady (including asking Sparky for help). When we learn to manage Shady we learn to manage our thoughts, feelings and behaviours too. We will also learn how to feel love from Sparky.

Please bring something to write on if you are a notetaker. The workshop will be directed at children and young people first, and then while children draw their Sparky and Shady or write some messages from Sparky, more details will be provided for parents. Questions welcome.

To book, email kathy@sparkyandshady.com

Important to know:

Traditionally, evidenced-based social-emotional learning programs do not include a spiritual component. Sparky and Shady, in comparison, is a holistic wellbeing program based on physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual wellness. It is designed to prevent mental ill health in children and young people by helping them understand their whole self, which includes their fearful self (Shady – their psychological fear) and loving self (Sparky – their spiritual force of love).

Depending on a family’s religious and/or spiritual beliefs, Sparky could be described as a spiritual force of love, courage and wisdom that humans can access in their imagination or inner world. For those parents, children and young people with more secular beliefs, Sparky could simply be the personification of the most loving qualities of humans.

If your family’s religious and/or spiritual beliefs include the belief in a spiritual force of evil, then the persistence of fearful thoughts, beliefs, feelings and actions could make someone susceptible to a spiritual force of evil; however, this force is not Shady.

For healthy wellbeing, children and young people need to learn to love themselves unconditionally, this includes loving their Shady. Having a loving relationship with themselves helps them manage their fearful thoughts, feelings and behaviours. In turn, self-love also helps them have healthy relationships with other people.