I am sitting during a break in the VCE Parent-Teacher Interviews being conducted this week. It is an important time for VCE students and, in particular, those girls studying a Unit 3 and 4 subject with end of year exams just around the corner. All students and their teachers are very busy completing the core study of each course and, at the same time, commencing the revision and exam preparation process. The pressure is building.

The Parent-Teacher Interviews are a vital means of communication between teachers, students and their parents. Effective communication is important in ensuring our students are as prepared as they can be and achieving their best. Effective communication is also important in maintaining strong and healthy relationships. It is no surprise at this time of year, and more so as this term progresses, that emotions can become heightened even exaggerated, affecting our relationships. Parents and their daughters can struggle at this time of year as can girls’ relationships with their friends, and even teachers can struggle with the stresses that VCE brings.

It takes effort and perseverance to deal with stress and a similar amount of effort to maintain relationships when we are working hard to deal with our individual issues. Jo Cutler and Robin Banerjee, writing in the online platform ‘The Conversation’, discuss the importance of being kind to one another. Being kind, they say, makes you feel good and they back it up with research findings.

We know that everyone appreciates a random act of kindness and when we make someone else smile, there is no doubt we also feel warm inside. Cutler and Banerjee describe how deciding to be generous or cooperating with others activates an area of the brain called the striatum. They write that “this area responds to things we find rewarding, such as nice food and even addictive drugs. The feel-good emotion from helping has been termed ‘warm glow’ and the activity we see in the striatum is the likely biological basis of that feeling.”

We are all familiar with the saying that ‘laughter is the best medicine’. Cutler and Banerjee’s article provide five suggestions for how to be kind to others:

1. Contagious Smiling

• Being kind is likely to make someone smile and if you see that smile for yourself, it might be catchy. A theory about how we understand other people in neuroscience suggests that seeing someone else show an emotion automatically activates the same areas of the brain as if we experienced that emotion for ourselves.

2. Righting a Wrong

• Doing a kind act to make someone who is sad feel better can also make us feel good – partly because we feel the same relief they do and partly because we are putting something right.

3. Making Connections

• Kind acts such as a buying someone a thoughtful present or even just a coffee strengthens friendships, and that in itself is linked to improved mood.

4. A Kind Identity

• Most people would like to think of themselves as a kind person, so acts of kindness help us to demonstrate that positive identity and make us feel proud of ourselves. In one recent study, even children in their first year of secondary school recognised how being kind can make you feel “better as a person…more complete”, leading to feelings of happiness.

5. Kindness Comes Back Around

• Work on the psychology of kindness shows that one out of several possible motivations is reciprocity, the returning of a favour. Someone might remember that you helped them out last time and therefore be more likely to help you in the future.

Kindness at home is a great place to build relationships, and laughter around the house is such a necessary part of a happy family. When was the last time you told a joke at the dinner table, especially a bad ‘dad’ joke. The cornier the better will always elicit a smile. Maybe playing an old fashioned game of cards such as ‘Snap’ or a board game like ‘Snakes and Ladders’. These types of activities have been popular over the years for a reason. They are fun and enable people to enjoy each other’s company.

As I scan the Upper Library and look at the interviews being conducted, one thing is common at almost every table, smiling faces. There is a mutual understanding between teachers, students and their parents that we are all in this together and we can enjoy the journey. Yes, there are some challenges along the way and even more so in the couple of months ahead, but we can face it all with a big smile and being kind to each other.