A challenge for you: Tonight, before you go to bed, take a moment to think of all your beautiful victories. What challenges did you overcome? What hard things did you manage to get through? What successes did you have today? What about in the last week, or month, or throughout your life? How’d you manage to do it?! You’re amazing, resilient, wonderful and strong people. You’ve got this.
How about our young people? This life stuff is hard; some may be struggling more than others. They may be struggling with school, friends or family, identity development, health, tech, self-esteem, world events, and planning for the future (or a whole lot more). These things are hard!! But one of the incredible things we get to do for kids is help remind them what amazing, resilient, wonderful and strong people they are!
To find out how young people are doing, we can ask them questions such as: what is the best thing you noticed about today? What was the hardest? What’s the best thing you noticed about yourself today (or if they have trouble answering- what would the important people in your life say is most awesome about you?)? If you could design a nice day at home, tell me, what would that look like? (we might be able to make some of those things happen!) These questions may be easier for young people to answer than “How are you feeling?” and give us clues about how our young people are doing.
It is all about connection. Talk together. Drive together. Cook together. Play together.
