Shared that a wk ago, we visited Wilbraham & Monson Academy up in Mass, for the first of our NFLPA school visits. A little abt the demo there: Middle school & HS, avg annual tuition between 30-60k, kids from over 20 states & 33 diff countries as students, mostly all living on campus. They were incredibly gracious hosts.
Juxtapose that to these past couple of days: St. Stephen’s School in Wyoming, a K-12, on an Indian Reservation, some kids w families barely able to make ends meet. Big Joe Fauria was the first pro athlete many of them had ever seen in person, let alone interacted with.
Two very diff demos – but one common theme – Same Here, they all face(d) challenges that impact their MH.
And while some challenges are/were unique to students at each school: eg., discrimination of students at St. Stephen’s when their fam’s went off the Reservation, high rates of substance abuse at home….then high pressure from parents to get into top colleges at Wilbraham, & a pressure to keep up w the academic & sports/club achievements of others…so many challenges were the same:
At both schools, we had students raise their hands or come up after, talking abt: divorce of parents, job loss of parents, verbal abuse, bullying, not living up to expectations, isolation, feeling down abt social media statuses, feeling unwanted.
It was eye-opening to go to two so very diff campuses, & hear & see so many of the same challenges faced.
And at St Stephen’s, we spent a LOT of time w the little kiddos. Even K-3. We discussed MH culture change, exercising the brain, suicide prevention, social topics in the news. And when it was all said & done, this was the pic from the last session, on Day 2, w the younger students.
When we got in this space, the naysayers told us: this is too heavy a set of topics to talk abt w young kids. MH? Suicide? Science of how our bodies are impacted? Well…sadly when we have young kids we’re losing in record numbers to suicide, we don’t have a choice – we HAVE to address these topics.
If you can do it in a way that’s engaging & fun, you can get the kids excited to learn…we had fun too!