https://www.facebook.com/1141146439076108/

Thriving Together: Migrant Parents Network, Sydney (2026)

20/07/2026

Helping Your Child Thrive at School: Building Strong Learning Support at Home, School and in the Community

Practical ways migrant families can support their children’s learning in Australia

Every parent wants their child to succeed at school. While Australian schools provide high-quality education and extensive learning support, a child’s academic success is shaped by much more than what happens in the classroom.

The encouragement children receive at home, the friendships they build, the study habits they develop, and the support available through schools and the wider community all play an important role in helping children reach their full academic potential.

For many migrant families, adjusting to a new education system can feel overwhelming. Parents may be unfamiliar with homework expectations, school pathways, the Higher School Certificate (HSC), or the many educational opportunities available to children in Australia.

The encouraging news is that parents do not need to navigate this journey alone. Schools, libraries, community organisations, and educational programs across Sydney provide valuable support that can help children build confidence, develop effective study habits, and enjoy learning.

Build a Learning-Friendly Home Environment

A child’s first learning environment is the home.

Children do not need an expensive study room to achieve academic success. What matters most is having a consistent, quiet place where they can concentrate, complete homework, and develop positive study habits.

Parents can support learning by:

* Establishing a regular homework and study routine.
* Creating a quiet study space using a spare room, a dining table, a quiet corner of the home, or by converting an enclosed garage into a simple study room where space allows.
* Reducing distractions by limiting television, gaming, and mobile phone use during study time.
* Providing good lighting, a comfortable chair, and basic learning materials.
* Encouraging daily reading.
* Asking children what they learned at school each day.
* Praising effort, perseverance, and improvement rather than focusing only on grades.
* Helping children organise schoolwork and prepare for upcoming assessments.

A dedicated study space sends a powerful message that education is valued within the family. Even a simple, well-organised area can help children concentrate, establish positive study habits, and take ownership of their learning.

Work Together With Your Child’s School

Schools are one of the greatest sources of support for children’s learning.

Teachers understand your child’s strengths, learning needs, and areas where additional support may be beneficial. Building positive relationships with teachers allows parents and schools to work together towards the same goal—helping children succeed.

Don’t hesitate to ask your child’s teacher or school about:

* Homework clubs.
* Study groups.
* Peer mentoring programs.
* Lunchtime or after-school study sessions.
* HSC workshops and examination preparation.
* Learning support teachers.
* English language support where appropriate.
* Subject selection and HSC pathways.
* Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs.
* TAFE pathways and career education.
* University pathways and admission requirements.
* Opportunity Classes (OC) for academically gifted primary school students.
* Selective high school opportunities and application processes.
* School career advisers and transition planning.
* Scholarships, leadership programs, and educational enrichment opportunities.
* Referrals to free or low-cost community learning programs.

Many parents are unfamiliar with the Australian education system after migration. Asking questions early helps families make informed decisions and ensures children can access the opportunities available to them.

Remember, schools expect parents to ask questions. There is no such thing as a silly question when it comes to supporting your child’s education.

Explore Community Learning Opportunities

Learning continues long after the school day has ended.

Sydney offers many free and low-cost services that support children’s learning through homework assistance, mentoring, tutoring, and study programs.

These include:

* Local public libraries, offering quiet study spaces, homework clubs, internet access, books, educational programs, and HSC resources.
* The Smith Family Learning Clubs.
* Sydney Multicultural Community Services.
* Learning Links.
* Dundas Library.
* The Hills Community Aid.
* Merrylands Youth Centre.
* Crows Nest Centre.
* Project Academy.
* Local council youth and community programs.

Services vary across locations, so contact organisations directly to find out what programs are available in your local area.

Consider Private Tutoring When Appropriate

Some children benefit from additional academic support through one-to-one or small-group tutoring.

Options include:

* Dymocks Tutoring.
* Superprof.
* Local tutoring centres.
* Independent private tutors.

Private tutoring can be helpful, but it is only one part of a child’s educational journey. A supportive home environment, consistent study routines, regular school attendance, reading, encouragement, and strong communication with teachers often have an equally important influence on academic success.

Make the Most of Online Learning

Technology can be a valuable learning tool when used purposefully.

Parents can encourage children to use trusted educational resources such as:

* NSW Department of Education learning resources.
* ABC Education and Behind the News (BTN).
* Khan Academy.
* Reading Eggs and Mathletics (where available through schools).
* Educational YouTube channels that explain school concepts and revision strategies.

These resources can reinforce classroom learning, assist with revision, and help children strengthen areas where they need additional practice.

Build Positive Learning Relationships

Children are more likely to enjoy learning when they are surrounded by people who value education.

Parents can encourage this by:

* Helping children develop friendships with classmates who enjoy learning.
* Encouraging participation in study groups.
* Asking older siblings, cousins, or trusted family friends to assist younger children with homework or reading.
* Visiting libraries together.
* Celebrating effort, curiosity, and persistence.

Learning becomes even more meaningful when families and communities work together.

Parent Reflection

Take a moment to reflect:

* Does my child have a quiet place to study?
* Do we have a regular homework and reading routine?
* Have I spoken with my child’s teacher this term?
* Do I understand the educational pathways available to my child, including HSC, VET, TAFE, university, Opportunity Classes, and selective schools?
* Have we explored homework clubs, libraries, or community learning programs?
* Does my child have positive friendships that encourage learning?
* Do I know where to seek help if my child begins to struggle academically?

Every Child Can Thrive

Academic success is not determined by intelligence alone. It grows when children are supported by caring adults, positive friendships, consistent routines, and communities that value education.

Every homework conversation, every visit to the library, every encouraging word, every quiet place to study, and every opportunity to learn helps build confidence and creates new possibilities for the future.

Education is a partnership. Schools provide learning opportunities, families provide encouragement and guidance, and communities provide additional support. Together, we can help every child reach their greatest potential.

This week, take one simple step. Contact your child’s school to ask about available learning supports and future educational pathways, or visit your local library together to explore homework and study resources. Small actions today can make a lifelong difference to your child’s future.

Thriving Together: Migrant Family Hub

Supporting migrant families to build strong, connected, and successful futures for their children.

By Brenda Mwanza

12/07/2026

Strengthening Parent–Child Attachment in Migrant Families

Have you ever wondered why some teenagers stop talking to their parents or prefer to handle life’s challenges on their own?

For many families, this doesn’t happen overnight. Relationships are built—or gradually weakened—through everyday interactions over many years.

For migrant families, maintaining a close parent–child relationship can be particularly challenging. While migration offers new opportunities, it also brings financial pressures, long working hours, unfamiliar systems, and the reality of raising children without the support of extended family.

Many parents work one or two jobs to establish a stable home. Others reduce their working hours or accept lower-paid employment so they can care for young children. These sacrifices are acts of love, but they can also leave parents physically and emotionally exhausted.

Why Parent–Child Attachment Matters

Developmental research consistently shows that secure parent–child attachment is one of the strongest protective factors for children’s emotional wellbeing.

Children who experience warm, responsive, and consistent relationships with their parents are more likely to:

• develop confidence and resilience

• regulate their emotions more effectively

• build healthy friendships

• engage positively at school

• seek support from their parents during difficult times

Secure attachment is not about being a perfect parent.

It is about helping children feel safe, valued, understood, and loved.

Importantly, attachment is built through the quality of everyday interactions—not simply the amount of time parents spend with their children.

The Challenges Many Migrant Families Face

Migration changes family life in many ways.

Parents often juggle:

• long working hours or shift work

• financial pressures

• adjusting to a new culture

• parenting without grandparents or extended family

• helping children settle into a new education system

• balancing work with children’s changing developmental needs

At the same time, modern lifestyles have changed the way families spend time together.

Children and teenagers often spend more time in their bedrooms, on mobile phones, gaming consoles, or social media. Parents are frequently busy managing work, household responsibilities, and the demands of everyday life.

Without intentional effort, these factors can gradually reduce opportunities for meaningful conversations and emotional connection.

What Has Changed Since Migration?

Many migrant parents remember growing up in environments where family connection happened naturally.

Families often shared living spaces.

Meals were commonly eaten together.

Children spent more time around parents, grandparents, siblings, neighbours, and relatives.

Daily life created regular opportunities to talk, laugh, learn from one another, and provide emotional support.

Life in many host countries can look very different.

Parents may work different shifts.

Children often have their own bedrooms and spend much of their free time alone.

Busy schedules can mean family members rarely sit together without distractions.

Although families live under the same roof, they may have fewer meaningful interactions than ever before.

The Long-Term Impact

Children are remarkably adaptable.

When parents are frequently unavailable because of work or other responsibilities, many children learn to become independent.

Independence is an important life skill.

However, children also need to know that their parents are emotionally available.

When opportunities for connection are limited over many years, some teenagers gradually stop turning to their parents for advice, comfort, or reassurance.

Instead, they may rely primarily on friends, social media, or attempt to manage life’s challenges on their own.

Parents are often surprised by this change.

In reality, it is rarely because children no longer love their parents.

More often, it reflects patterns of communication that have developed gradually over time.

The encouraging news is that attachment continues to develop throughout childhood and adolescence.

It is never too late to strengthen your relationship with your child.

Practical Ways to Strengthen Attachment

Building strong relationships does not require expensive holidays or hours of free time.

Small, consistent moments matter most.

You can strengthen your relationship by:

• sharing meals together whenever possible

• spending just 10–15 minutes each day giving your child your full attention

• asking open-ended questions about their day

• listening without immediately correcting or solving every problem

• reading, cooking, walking, or playing together

• creating technology-free family time

• attending school, church, sporting, or community events together

• expressing affection through encouragement, hugs, smiles, and kind words

• creating simple family traditions that children can look forward to every week

These small moments accumulate over time and become the foundation of trust, security, and lifelong connection.

Supporting Parents Matters Too

Strong attachment also depends on parents’ wellbeing.

Parents who receive practical and emotional support are often better able to respond calmly and consistently to their children’s needs.

Building friendships, connecting with community groups, attending parenting programs, asking for help when needed, and sharing responsibilities with trusted family members or friends all strengthen families.

Supporting parents is an important way of supporting children.

A Message of Hope

Migration requires extraordinary courage and sacrifice.

Every day, parents make difficult decisions because they want to provide better opportunities for their children.

Financial security is important.

Education is important.

Providing a safe home is important.

But children also need something equally valuable—our emotional presence.

They may not remember every toy, every holiday, or every gift.

But they will often remember whether they felt listened to, encouraged, understood, and loved.

Strong families are not built simply by having more time.

They are built by making the time we have truly count.

What is one simple routine your family uses to stay connected despite busy schedules? Share your ideas below—they may encourage another family.

By Brenda Mwanza

17/06/2026

Creating a Village: Supporting Children, Grandparents, and Community Connections

For many migrant families, grandparents play a valuable role in raising children. They provide love, cultural connection, family traditions, wisdom, and a strong sense of belonging.

At the same time, children also benefit from opportunities to interact with peers through playgroups, childcare centres, community activities, libraries, and local parks.

These experiences can help children develop social skills, language and communication, confidence, independence, emotional resilience, motor skills, and school readiness.

For some children, including those with additional needs, community-based activities can provide valuable opportunities to practise social, communication, and developmental skills in supportive environments.

We should also consider the wellbeing of grandparents. Language barriers, social isolation, and the demands of caring for young children can sometimes be challenging. Community activities can help grandparents build connections, confidence, and a sense of belonging.

The goal is not to replace grandparents, but to complement the important role they already play. Children and grandparents enrich each other’s lives through shared stories, traditions, knowledge, and experiences.

Every family is different. The goal is not perfection, but creating opportunities for children, parents, and grandparents to connect, learn, and thrive together.

Most parents are doing the best they can with the resources available to them. Small steps toward building social connections can make a meaningful difference over time.

Migration may change the village that helps raise our children, but together we can build a new one—one connection, one friendship, and one supportive community at a time.

Supporting children, valuing grandparents, and strengthening communities—together.

By Brenda Mwanza
Thriving Together: Migrant Parent Hub

11/06/2026

Building Strong Family Connections: The Gift of Connection

One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is not only provision, but connection.

As migrant parents, many of us work incredibly hard to create opportunities for our children. We often sacrifice time, energy, income, and comfort in the hope of giving them a better future.

Yet while children need food, shelter, and education, they also need something equally important—connection with caring adults.

Some children regularly spend time alone after school. While many develop independence and responsibility, the hours after school are often when children need support the most—sharing their successes, discussing challenges, completing homework, and making sense of their day.

Migration often means leaving behind grandparents, relatives, neighbours, and friends who once helped raise children. As migrants, we may need to intentionally rebuild that village.

In our family, I moved from shift work to a 9-to-5 job, despite earning less, because being available after school was important to us. We also used before- and after-school care, spent weekends together, attended church, participated in community activities, and created opportunities to connect as a family.

Today, our children are adults living away from home, yet our family bonds remain strong. Looking back, I believe those moments of connection mattered just as much as the things we provided.

Connection does not always require more time. Often it begins with being intentional with the time we already have.

Children may not remember every sacrifice we made, but they often remember how we made them feel.

A home is not defined by its walls, but by the love, guidance, and connection within it.

Please share your personal tips,
What helped your family stay connected while raising children?

Thriving Together: Migrant Parent Hub
By Brenda Mwanza

03/06/2026

Building Our Village Together

As migrant families, many of us have left behind the villages that once supported us—grandparents, relatives, neighbours, and lifelong friends. For families raising children with special needs, rebuilding those connections can sometimes feel challenging and lonely.

Driven by lived experience and a passion to support other families, I have created a social group for migrant families raising children with special needs. My hope is to create a welcoming community where families can connect, share experiences, support one another, and build lasting friendships.

I warmly invite you to join us for a day of connection, friendship, and fun.

Building a village starts with simple steps:

-Invite another family for a cup of tea.
-Meet at a local park.
-Share a meal together.
-Reach out to another parent.
-Create opportunities for children to play and connect.

Many families are looking for connection. Sometimes all it takes is one person willing to make the first move.

When we come together, our children gain friendships, confidence, social skills, and a sense of belonging. As parents and caregivers, we gain encouragement, understanding, and the comfort of knowing we are not alone.

Our children deserve opportunities to build friendships, and as parents, we deserve a community that understands and supports us.

A strong village benefits everyone. Children thrive when they are surrounded by caring adults, supportive peers, and families who look out for one another. Communities grow stronger when families share their strengths, experiences, and kindness.

Many migrant families arrive with dreams for their children but without the support networks they once had. Together, we can rebuild those connections—one family, one friendship, and one gathering at a time.

Together, we can build the village our children need and the community our families deserve.

If you know a family who may benefit from connection and support, please invite them along. The more we grow our village, the stronger it becomes for our children.

What is one small step you have taken to build your village in Australia? We would love to hear your story.

“A village is not a place—it is people choosing to walk alongside one another.”

With warmth and hope,

Brenda Mwanza
Founder, Thriving Together: Migrant Parent Hub

Connecting families. Strengthening communities. Helping children thrive

29/05/2026

Children Need Both Roots and Wings
Balancing Protection and Connection

Many migrant and immigrant parents carry understandable fears while raising children in a new country.

For many families, these fears come from love, sacrifice, past experiences, uncertainty, and a deep desire to protect children from harm, discrimination, unsafe environments, or losing cultural values.

But sometimes, when fear becomes too strong, children may have limited opportunities to socialise, build friendships, and develop confidence outside the home.

Some children may begin to feel:
• Isolated or lonely
• Unsure where they belong
• Anxious in social settings
• Disconnected from peers and opportunities

At the same time, there is hope.

Children thrive when they are supported with both protection and connection.

Safe friendships, community activities, sports, playgroups, youth groups, music, church groups, and positive peer relationships can help children:

• Build confidence and communication skills
• Feel accepted and included
• Strengthen resilience and identity
• Develop social and emotional skills
• Discover their strengths and potential

Children need opportunities to feel they belong — both within their culture and within the wider community.

As parents, we do not have to choose between culture and connection.
Children can stay grounded in family values while also learning to confidently engage with the world around them.

Small safe steps can make a big difference:
• Encourage supervised social activities
• Get to know your child’s friends and families
• Keep open and non-judgemental conversations at home
• Balance protection with gradual independence
• Celebrate both cultural identity and belonging

Raising children away from home is not easy.
Many parents are doing the best they can with love, courage, and hope for their children’s future.

But children often grow strongest not only through protection — but also through connection, confidence, and community.

With support, guidance, and connection, migrant children can grow into confident young people who feel proud of both where they come from and where they are going.

Thriving Together: Migrant Parent Hub
By Brenda Mwanza

25/05/2026

This week we are focusing on:
Protecting Children While Helping Them Belong

As migrant parents, many families carry the heavy responsibility of protecting their children while adjusting to a new country themselves.

In many countries of origin, children often grew up surrounded by grandparents, cousins, neighbours, and trusted community support. After migration, many families lose that familiar sense of village and connection.

A child who once played freely with relatives and neighbourhood friends may suddenly experience loneliness, isolation, or fewer opportunities for social connection.

Many parents quietly carry worries about:

• children’s safety and wellbeing
• bullying or racism
• unhealthy influences
• cultural differences
• children losing important family values
• financial barriers to activities and programs

These fears are real and understandable. Many families experience these concerns quietly, even when they do not speak about them openly.

At the same time, children also need friendship, connection, confidence, and a sense of belonging to thrive emotionally and socially.

Children can be protected while still having safe opportunities to build healthy friendships, confidence, and social skills.

Parents do not need to remove all fear at once. Small, safe, and supervised steps can make a meaningful difference:

• short playdates
• community playgroups
• sports or youth groups
• library or cultural activities
• getting to know other parents first
• staying involved in children’s social lives

Children do not always need expensive activities. Often, what they need most is connection, encouragement, safe relationships, and a sense of belonging.

Together, families and communities can help rebuild the sense of village many migrant families lost after migration.

Small safe connections today can help children feel confident, supported, protected, and more at home tomorrow.

Thriving Together: Migrant Parent Hub
Supporting migrant families through connection, understanding, and shared experiences.

By Brenda M

Please share post and join our page: We are in this together

23/05/2026

Hi Fellow migrant parents, this post is about, building
The Village Children Once Had

“In many cultures, children grew up playing together every day — with cousins, neighbours, grandparents, and friends.
After migration, children can become more isolated. Creating group play opportunities helps rebuild connection, belonging, confidence, and wellbeing.”

Benefits of Play

-Builds friendships and belonging
-Supports emotional wellbeing
-Improves language and social skills
-Encourages confidence and resilience
-Helps children feel connected to community

Parent Encouragement

“Sometimes creating a village starts with one playgroup, one sports team, one community gathering, or one friendship.”

Thriving Together: Migrant Parent Hub:
By Brenda Mwanza

19/05/2026

This post is about supporting children's growth and development through participation in group activities:

Group activities are essential for building confidence, fostering friendships, enhancing social skills, promoting emotional wellbeing, and cultivating a sense of belonging among children and teenagers.

Free or low-cost activities include backyard play, card games at home, bike riding groups, homework groups, reading groups, community groups, religious youth groups, youth choir or singing groups, supervised swimming, and cultural groups and family gatherings.

Organised activities comprise soccer, basketball, netball, volleyball, karate or martial arts, dance groups, music groups or bands, gymnastics, tennis, athletics, and running clubs.

These activities promote children's physical activity, social connection, inclusion, and support.

Even limited opportunities for play and social interaction can significantly enhance a child's development and wellbeing.

By Brenda M
Share post and follow us on page

Thriving Together: Migrant Parents Network

20/07/2026

12/07/2026

17/06/2026

11/06/2026

03/06/2026

29/05/2026

25/05/2026

23/05/2026

19/05/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Listing takedown request