What Watching Students Grow Up Taught Me – Jennifer Oaten
I have been a Principal for nine years and have seen hundreds of young people grow up.
After years in schools, assemblies, corridors, classrooms, carnivals, concerts and quiet conversations, I have come to realise that watching young people grow up is one of the greatest privileges of my role. It is one of the reasons I do the job I do, and one that brings me great joy.
No two students are ever the same, and yet there are truths that seem to repeat themselves across generations. Here are eight things I have learned from watching many students grow into themselves.
Every Child Wants to Be Seen
Beneath every behaviour, confidence, withdrawal, humour, defiance or perfectionism, is a young person hoping someone notices them for who they truly are. Students thrive when adults genuinely know them, beyond their grades and achievements, including their worries, interests and hopes.
Friendships Shape Everything
Academic success matters, but friendships often determine whether a child feels safe and happy at school. Healthy friendships teach empathy, resilience and belonging. Difficult friendships teach equally important lessons about boundaries, kindness and self-worth. Friendships are key to their happiness, which is then a great determinant of academic success.
Teenagers Still Need Parents More Than They Admit
Even when it feels like children are pulling away, parents remain the single greatest influence in their lives. Your values, reactions, routines and relationships shape them more than you realise. What children need most is not perfect parenting, but presence, love and steadiness, and someone being there when they need you. They still need reassurance, guidance and connection, even when they pretend otherwise.
Growth Comes Through Challenge, Not Avoidance
Some of the students who struggle most at school later become the most resilient adults. Learning how to recover from disappointment, whether that is a poor result, a lost opportunity or a friendship breakdown, is one of the most important skills young people can develop. Resilience is built through difficulty, never around it.
Kindness Stays With You for Life
Years later, students rarely remember individual lessons or assignments, but they remember how people made them feel. A teacher who supported and encouraged them. A friend who included them. A parent who listened. Kindness leaves a lasting imprint, shaping how children felt at the time and how they go on to make others feel.
Comparison Steals Joy
Students today grow up in a world of constant comparison. They compare marks, appearance, friendships and achievements, and social media intensifies all of it. The happiest young people are usually those who stop trying to keep up and grow comfortable in their own skin. Putting social media posts in perspective and living their own lives is difficult, but it matters enormously.
Character Matters Most
The students who flourish long term are not necessarily the most talented, the most academically gifted, or the loudest or most confident in the room. They are often the ones who learn responsibility, gratitude, humility and perseverance. Character carries young people further than talent does. It is what helps them try, and try again, when things get hard.
Confidence Grows Slowly
Parents often worry when children are shy, uncertain or hesitant. Confidence, however, is rarely instant. It grows quietly through small successes, such as answering one question in class, making one new friend, or trying one difficult thing. Growth is usually gradual rather than dramatic. Not every child is born confident, and very few are confident in every situation. Quiet and shy young people have just as much to offer.
How quickly the years pass when a young person is growing up. One moment they are nervously arriving in Year 5, the next they are graduating from Year 12 and stepping into adulthood. The ordinary moments, such as school drop-offs, watching their sport, homework chats and bedtime conversations, are often the moments that matter most.
Watching students grow up has taught me that young people are remarkably hopeful, resilient and capable. They do not need perfect lives or perfect parents. They simply need caring adults who believe in them while they are still learning to believe in themselves.
- building confidence in students, character education, Featured, friendship and wellbeing, parent school partnership, parenting teenagers, resilience in young people, school leadership insights, student growth
Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.
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