Ugh, yet another school shooting. Our hearts are all breaking once again. When will it ever end? What are the solutions? How can we help? We could debate this subject for days, but staying out of politics, I would like to offer a tool that is at least part of the solution. The Imagine Project is a simple 7-step writing process that can be incorporated into any classroom, group, or done individually with kids K-12. It’s supports social emotional balance and mental health. If also changes the climate and culture of a classroom, school, and even society—by bringing kindness, compassion, healing, and hope to the kids. Which in turn, may keep kids from making the horrendous choice of shooting someone else to ease their own pain.
The day of the latest school shooting, my videographer, Christie Taylor and I were just finishing up hours of interviewing teachers and kids about the impact The Imagine Project had on their school. Walnut Hills Elementary had just finished doing the project with their entire school a few weeks earlier. Every interviewee—teachers and students alike—had endless affirming statements and stories about how the Imagine Project had positively impacted their lives and their classrooms. Kids from 2nd through 5thgrade spoke about how they loved being able to talk about something that was difficult for them—an issue they might not have mentioned otherwise, but what negatively affecting them. Some talked about friend issues, divorce, moving, pet—or even worse, parent losses. These experiences or issues often caused emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, even confusion and anxiety. Over and over they expressed how good it was to write and speak about their feelings. And when their classmates heard their Imagine stories (they often read them out loud), they felt heard, found new friends, learned compassion, and they stopped feeling much of the intense emotions related to the issues—they could move on and create a new Imagine story in their lives.
Teachers couldn’t stop talking about how powerful it was for their kids to have a tool that helps students express emotion, share experiences, see their resilience, and just plain feel better about life! When kids shared their stories, they made new friends, smiled more, felt lighter about heavy issues, and best of all saw possibility in their lives. When asked if The Imagine Project might lessen bullying—without hesitation the teachers answered yes. Why? Because The Imagine Project creates connections between students, understanding of another student’s story, and compassion for another student they may have not even known anything about prior to hearing their Imagine story.
Research shows kids are more stressed than ever. Trauma is also very prevalent among our youth. When kids are stressed and traumatized—and don’t have the proper help—they can find unhealthy ways to cope: Addictions, self-harm, dropping out of school–and even harming someone else.
We must give kids tools to cope with, mitigate, and heal from their stress and trauma. Give them positive, healthy tools and strategies so they don’t make horrific choices like seriously hurting someone else. The Imagine Project is the perfect tool for this. Our research shows it increases a child’s ability to manage stress, makes them open to outside support, and they take more academic risks so they do better in school! Please check out the free journals and download them today. Bring them home to your kids, ask your teachers about them, share it with other teachers, counselors, and admin. The kids will love it and you will love it!
For more information you can refer to my book, The Imagine Project: Empowering Kids to Rise Above Drama, Trauma, and Stress. It’s not necessary to do the project, but it may be helpful.
Thank you and take care,
Dianne
The Imagine Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps kids, teens, and adults overcome challenging life circumstances through expressive writing. Dianne is a thought leader in the area of stress and trauma in children. Her simple, yet profound 7-step writing tool, now used by schools across the US, gives kids and teens the opportunity to rewrite a challenging personal story and Imagine new possibilities in its place.
Laughter, running, jumping, being silly, twirling, smiling, creating—all are part of play and having fun! Instinctively, as parents and teachers, we know the importance of play for our kids (and ourselves)—it gives them/us a welcome break from stress and promotes mental health. Yet, we often put play last after homework, sports, jobs, and the constant daily routines of life. The American Academy of Pediatrics promotes play as essential to a child’s development because research shows that it improves learning, cognitive awareness, physical, social, and emotional wellbeing. Fortunately, play is making a comeback because we are remembering how critical it is to healthy brain and body development. Play gives kids tremendous learning opportunities, including how to work with others, manage feelings, think, plan, make decisions, and read other people’s emotions. Play also promotes physical fitness, creativity, self-expression, self-regulation, and healthy boundaries—basically physical and emotional wellness and mental health!
Unfortunately, we live in a world where trauma happens. It might be a school shooting, a natural disaster, or a significant loss of a student, teacher, or admin, but it happens more often that we’d like. I recently sat in with a classroom of 4thgraders who lost a fellow schoolmate to a fatal disease—a significant school trauma. Their journey in understanding what happened is complicated, but I was grateful to be there to help them through it using The Imagine Project.
