Coffee & Conversation

Our last Coffee & Conversation for the year will be on Wednesday 2nd December 2015 at 9:00am.
Hope to see you there!

Jo Betti
HCC Social Worker

Christmas in Ellenbrook!

Aveley Christmas - Carols by Candlelight (plus a visit from Santa!)      
Saturday 5th December, opens at 5pm, carols from 6pm - 8:30pm.
Aveley Playing Fields
Limited parking available nearby at Aveley Primary School, Swan Valley Anglican Community School and Vale Shopping Centre
Smoke, alcohol and pet free event

Ellenbrook Christmas Festival (Markets, Pageant & Carols)
Saturday 12th December 2015
Mega Christmas Markets- 10am to 4pm, Christmas Pageant 5pm - 6pm
Take a leisurely stroll on Main Street through the market, mingle with the locals and entertain the children.  Followed by a pageant from the Library to the Town Square.  The parade is sure to dazzle with the talent of local dance, performance and community groups.
Enjoy carols and entertainment under the stars at Charlie Gregorini Memorial Park from 8 - 9:30pm.
For further details visit: ellenbrook.com.au or www.facebook.com/christmasinellenbrook

Twilight Family Festival
City of Swan are supporting the Swan Valley Community Centre to host their very first Christmas Concert event – the Twilight Family Festival on 13th December at Baskerville Oval.
   
A Big Bug Christmas- Children’s Christmas Party
Ellenbrook Community Library- Wednesday 9th December, 10:30-11:30am.
A fully interactive storytelling session adventure for children aged 2-8 years. This is a FREE event and places are limited. Bookings essential on 9207 8787.

Self talk

An excerpt from ParentingIdeas:

"Self-talk is the foundation strategy to teach kids to shift their thinking about a negative event." A negative event happens such as a child’s sibling won’t share a much-loved toy. The child immediately feels anger. He thinks, “Not again! I hate her! She never shares and it’s not fair.” This thinking feeds his anger, which starts to spiral. In a heartbeat he’s lashed out at his sister for inflicting such an injustice on him. Here’s what happens…… Our thoughts, often reflected through self-talk, change when we experience an emotion. We tend to focus on the event that caused the emotion. Anger shifts our attention outward to the thing, person or event that caused it. Sadness shifts our attention inwards toward the loss. Our emotions change how we see the world. We are usually more optimistic when we are happy and more pessimistic when we’re sad. The key is to change your self-talk. By changing the chatter in your brain from something negative, catastrophic or unhelpful to something more realistic, positive and helpful can help get you through a challenging situation. Positive self-talk examples include: “Stuff happens. I can cope.” “It’s no big deal.” “I’ve put up with worse than this.” “I may want it but I don’t need it.” Help children develop age-appropriate self-talk scripts for a variety of common situations they meet so they can avoid an escalation of their emotions. Then encourage them to change the monkey-brain tape in their heads when they catch themselves saying negative, catastrophic or down-right regretful things.