The Influencers: Scott Thelning

Being the best they can.

Poise, passion, precision. Lisa Carrington has paddled her way to becoming New Zealand’s most prolific Olympic medalist.

After winning her third gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics, her parents provided some sage advice to us all.

As parents our children are the most precious things in our lives and we strive to provide them with the most nurturing environment we can. We all have different approaches to this, extending from the school of hard knocks approach all the way through to a more wrap around, risk averse, ‘bubble wrap’ approach. We, as parents, all fit on that continuum somewhere, and may well dip our toes into different aspects of this as different situations arise with our children.

A key question for me is whether we allow our children and students to take risks to enable them to flourish and thrive?

Lisa’s Olympic tally is now five gold and one bronze medal. Lisa’s proud parents were interviewed after she won her third gold medal in Tokyo. Her mother’s top tip was to encourage our children and students to ‘take the leap’ and be supportive so they are safe in taking risks which allow them to go on new adventures.

Our pillar of focus this term is Fearlessly Aim High.

I think it is important that as parents and educators, we also ‘take the leap’ and encourage and support our children and students to aim high, be risk takers and be the best they can be.