Ros Hardy - The Sue Series

Volunteer Teacher's Aide: Kindergarten, Year 1, Year 2. Paid Teacher's Aide Special Needs: High School Year 7 - Year 12. Special Needs Tutor: literacy and numeracy. Devoted mother of three boys.

Self taught; life lessons; intuitive!

No, but that's okay!

School Certificate (Year 10); Higher School Certificate (Year 12); My Life Experiences!

Gidday, everyone, I'm Ros Hardy and I live on the beautiful Coffs Coast of NSW (Australia) with my youngest son and Molly our dog. One of my main concerns as a young mum was whether a difficult or dangerous situation could affect my young sons. Could they identify a serious situation and act, if alone? This constantly on my mind, I'd imagine awful scenarios such as: I collapse to the floor and my three-year-old finds me and stays by my side, patting me, holding my hand, crying and waiting for me to wake up... alone, frightened, worrying, waiting, and not knowing that I'm in need of immediate medical attention or that my life is at risk... then, it's too late! So instead of worrying I chose to take responsibility; to be pro-active and prepare my sons to deal with an emergency, confidently and calmly. I knew that I needed to know that my boys knew exactly what to do and why they were doing it. I needed to prepare my soft-natured sons for the real world – teach them response and reaction skills and help them to build their resilience, but I couldn’t find the right teaching tools, so I invented my own. I visualized an emergency – noting exactly what I would need to teach my boys, so they could deal with the situation and get the help. I worked out a simple teaching technique with easy-to-follow steps to help them feel comfortable with the topic and so they understood when, why, and how, to act. I created simple exercises to teach them necessary physical and verbal skills, and basic checklists to check off, so I knew that they could remember and action all the steps, confidently, automatically, (and without the prompting). I then transformed my teaching process into teaching resources to share with other parents, carers and teachers. I kept going with my project and applied this to 'stranger danger' and 'bullying'. The main key to my teaching success as a parent was the combination of regular storytelling; discussions; fun play-acting; and plenty of practice, revision, checking and reinforcement – always focusing on effective time use (and not wasting time on things less important), teaching my young sons everything they needed to know. My boys having learnt the vital steps, (each within a few short months) was a great relief to me because only then did I worry less about my concerns and focus more on the positive things. I was more at ease because I knew that they were capable and that I trusted them – I'd made a positive difference and helped to keep my sons safe and happy, all because I’d taught them to be brave, smart and strong by the time they turned four years old. I invite you to join me in 'Helping Little Kids be BIG - Teaching Children to be Brave, Smart and Strong! Kind regards (and enjoy!) Ros Hardy, author of the Sue Series eBooks