I have seen and experienced a lot in my years of school counseling and then recently, in my interactions with my own children and others in our community. And what I know for certain is that kiddos are struggling now more than ever. Epidemics of anxiety, suicidal ideation, and mental health struggles are one on the rise and our school counselors, teachers and mental health professionals are working OVERTIME to help the overwhelming number of kiddos dealing with these issues.
I have been asked multiple times “why” this might be….many people like to place blame on broken families, divorce, unstable jobs, drugs, and alcohol but I have some different theories that I thought maybe I would try to put into words here on my blog. My theory is not placing blame but instead highlights something that we are not developing in our kiddos from a very young age (and sometimes for very good reasons) – and that THING is that we are not encouraging and developing our kiddos’ ability to THINK.
To think is to pay attention to the ongoing narrative inside of our brains. To think is to sit and ponder something WITHOUT automatically getting the answer from someone (or google/Alexa/Apple Watch, etc.). To think is to problem solve. To think is to calm ourselves down. Thinking is not just for academic subjects but should be happening each waking moment. But if you were to ask today’s nation of kids “when do you think” – they will most likely say…..in class/school. To which I try to educate them in that they are THINKING all of the time. Those are not VOICES inside of your head that magical fairies put there…..that is your brain and it the most powerful tool you have to stay safe, thrive, and have healthy relationships. But in order to use it as a tool, you have to KNOW it is there and pay attention!!! And in order to know it is there and pay attention, you have to STOP and listen.
Our society as a whole, including this huge generation of kiddos are pretty terrible at one thing – stopping. And when we don’t stop, we don’t listen. We don’t pay attention. We don’t brainstorm alternative solutions. We don’t always choose empathy and compassion. We don’t proceed with caution…..instead we proceed with blazing, dangerous full speed ahead, no matter what is in our path.
So how do we fix this? What do we do within our families and our schools to help our children develop these SKILLS (yes skills, not natural God-given IQ, brain power)? What can parents do? School systems? I will go into this on part 2 of this blog post later this week…..if you have any thoughts or wonderings about this topic, please feel free to leave comments or questions. I would love to see them!!!
We are bonded through battle….becoming a united front and navigating this parenting kids from hard places gig has stretched our relationship in ways we could have never done on our own. I am grateful to him everyday that he said yes and continues to say yes to the chaos showered over us daily.
I am the luckiest coach to show up everyday and teach/guide these young women to be the best versions of themselves and team they can be. They are ridiculously funny, loving and hard working and it’s resulted in an undefeated season so far and a few more celebrations are sure to be on the horizon for this squad.
This new “systems” level work in my district has been a whole new world for me as I’ve been so used to working directly with students day in and day out. I am starting to appreciate the process as much as the outcome (this is challenging for me to wait for as many of you know). It has been just what my mom heart needed to not have my compassion and patience stretched so thin at school that I couldn’t be the best mother I needed to be at home. I am very proud of the work 
Soooo….just to be real transparent, August 1st kind of gives me a panic attack. School starts back again, tons of meetings, and volleyball tryouts are right around the corner!! Every year, I have to try and settle my self-talk down about the 2-3 weeks I have RIGHT NOW to relax, enjoy time with my family, camp and relax a bit….but the looming 2-3 weeks after that kinda freak me out.
I already shared this graphic on my social media, but I really do love it. In all areas of my life whether it’s my chosen profession or a few of my little fun side hustles, I hope to have a purpose when showing up to all of them, including parenting my littles. Sometimes, the purpose feels big and world-shaking, other times it feels super intimate and inside family walls only….but I like that divergent part of our world and our tribe…keeps things from getting too boring around here.
And just to end this post but start August on a CUTE note, look at Rexie Roo cuddled up on my legs. Not quite a lap cat YET…..but baby steps (right after this flash went off, he realized he was being somewhat cuddly and nice and quickly abandoned ship…..grrrrr).
Although it sounds so counter-intuitive, when tragedy strikes (a person, a family or a nation), sometimes it is a cry out for change or an awareness rises out of the tragedy that can advocate for a person or people in a new way. Right now with the school violence as a hot topic, we are talking about what needs to change for increased safety in school. This is obviously important to me in my work…..I still hold steady to a belief that more school counselors having chances to dig deeper with all students AND teach proactive coping skills/mental health prevention to all students really is the answer. So the gift for me of he recent tragedy is that others are speaking up and advocating for a smilier belief to mine which hasn’t always been the case (especially when sometimes the counselor is pitted against smaller class sizes which is a hard case to make for administration).
My new favorite quote EVER….like in the history of ever!!!
I get anxiety because what I know is that people/kids that do this are STRUGGLING. Whether it’s mental health, childhood abuse or family/attachment dysfunction – the hurt is so bad that they feel it has to come out in this most brutal way. And my entire life’s work is working closely with these people and these children and working tirelessly to make sure it doesn’t happen here.
But my work stops at 3:30 in the afternoon. And it stops when a family can’t access mental health resources due to language barriers or insurance barriers or an incredibly long waiting list barrier. And unfortunately it stops when people blame guns (although I think gun control is a needed topic to discuss) or politicians (although I think there are obvious problems here) or parenting styles (although shifts in society are concerning to me in this realm too). 
So what can we do? We can love. And we can report suspicious activity and suspicious people. We can pray. We can teach our children that reporting is a life-saving behavior, not “narking”. We can monitor our childrens’ social media and teach them about the harmful effects of comments like “KYS” (kill yourself) and other such anonymous feeling disses. We can attack bullying head on with clear policies and an increase in social/emotional lessons teaching empathy and how to manage stress. But most of all, we can love. On kids that our ours and the ones that are not. Love on the kids that have no one and on the ones that seem to have everything but when they go home and lock themselves in their room to hurt others online, show that they are truly alone.
