A reflection from a local community member
This week, a school community close to home is making national headlines. Expulsions. Exposure. Understandable fear and blame.
I can’t help but ask: What happens when we only react?
As a survivor and self-leadership coach, I see how quickly we move into damage control: blame, secrecy, shame, silence. We forget to ask the deeper question: What outcome are we really seeking?
Right now, educators, families, and individuals may feel broken open, overwhelmed, and unsure of what the right thing is to say or do. I don’t want to speak for them. But I do want to open a space for calm, outcome-focused inquiry.
When we react from fear, we often miss the chance to pause and ask: What matters most here? What do we really want, not just for damage control, but for healing? Not just in schools, but in families and whole communities.
We need the wisdom of child safety experts, educators, psychologists, and cultural leaders. We need education in conscious leadership for parents, children, and those shaping culture. Each of us was born to create, to lead a self-empowered life, no matter our age or role in the community. This begins with conversations that invite, not divide.
This headline-grabbing story isn’t just about technology misuse or inappropriate adolescent behaviour.
It’s about how we lead through disruption with clarity, compassion, and care.
I read that several students were expelled from a single school this week. This incident followed another similar situation I had heard about recently. While pouring my coffee at the kitchen bench, I found myself wondering: Are we really going to expel entire grades of adolescents for behaviour related to technology misuse or pornography?
And if so, what are we modelling for families? How are the families going to find a healthy path forward?
Will some parents now warn their children: “If you are doing this, don’t you dare tell anyone,” their concern for family reputation a priority, unknowingly reinforcing secrecy, shame, and silence?
This isn’t only about behaviour. It’s about the systems those behaviours emerge from: family systems, school systems, and the digital ecosystems our children are growing up in. Most of these young people are not developmentally or emotionally prepared for the online worlds they’re navigating. So, what responsibility are we, as adults, willing to take?
What might we reflect on here, together?
- What support is readily available for young people to discuss their experiences and pressures?
- How can we ensure that restorative practices are implemented alongside disciplinary actions?
- Have we normalised silence around sex, bodies, consent, and digital safety in our homes?
- Are we equipping educators to hold non-judgmental conversations about digital literacy and peer pressure?
- Are we willing to look at the root causes: porn culture, accessibility, trauma and not just the symptoms?
Students become adults. And what happens now will ripple forward.
The question is: Can we help lay the foundation for a less traumatised transition into adulthood, for everyone affected by what has occurred?
If you’re working in this space, or simply wondering as I did: What could possibly go wrong with that? When reading such a news story, I invite you to reflect and share:
What would conscious leadership look like here? How would self-empowerment, taught early in childhood, make a difference?
This post is written from a place of deep care. I’m not positioning myself as the expert in social work or criminal matters, but as someone who has experienced being silenced, family secrecy, societal shame, and the betrayals of denial and inaction as a child. I’ve lived the long shadow of trauma and understand how it quietly shapes lives.
Today, I’m a leadership coach and trainer, working daily with individuals and teams navigating reactivity, shame, fear and more. I show them there is a healthier way to operate in life and at work. I believe in the possibility of brave, wise responses—starting with asking better questions.
Let’s not default to drama. Let’s lead.
#consciousleadership #childsafety #communitycare #selfleadership #outcomefocused #schoolleadership #traumaaware #blueborage #noosacommunity #3vqinpractice #leaddon’treact #thekidsarewatching #safeschools #braveconversations