New Book and What it Means to Grow Up Strong
In the spring of 2023, a school shooting took place at Covenant School in Nashville—just two miles from my office. Having my own two kids in schools nearby and counseling children who were either at the school during the shooting or knew kids who attended the school, I found there weren’t enough emotional muscles to prepared for such an event.
Following the shooting, I met with kids who devised plans to avoid being shot, such as climbing in the ceiling tiles or not allowing themselves to drink water during the school day to avoid going to the bathroom. One child said, “Since I play sports after school, I’ll allow myself to start drinking water at 1:30 so I won’t have to use the bathroom at school.
Another child shared, “Going to the bathroom is when you’ll get shot.”
Another student, just weeks after the shooting had a panic attack during a fire drill. “I thought, ‘This is it,’” she said, recalling the event.
What’s even more alarming are the kids I spoke to who were relatively unfazed by the incident. One teen said, “I’ve grown up in the Newtown era.” She went on, “If twenty six-year-olds can be killed in five minutes at a school, it’s always a possibility for me.”
Another child said, “Every time I hear a loud noise, I jump. Another student’s water bottle fell off the top of their desk and I nearly jumped out of my seat. The thing is, other kids jumped too. Even the teacher. We’re all afraid. So now we have a new rule that no metal water bottles are allowed in class.” I shared how sad I was to hear this, and she replied, “That’s just our reality.”
When I think back to my own childhood and the anxiety I felt, I can’t imagine adding school violence to my plate. I can’t imagine sitting in a classroom terrified of a fire drill or the sound of a water bottle falling off a desk, but this is what today’s kids feel they have to do. One art teacher I met shared that her colleagues had quietly devised a plan to go behind a hidden door in the school if a school shooter came in. During a school shooter drill, her colleagues thought it was real and took off to the hidden door. It took an hour to find them. “I guess they were just going to leave me,” the art teacher said. “Guess I know where I stand with them.”
I finished this book in Portugal, where I spent six weeks with my family. After the school shooting, I needed a professional sabbatical to step away from my practice and take a breath. The grief I have
felt for children and the violence placed on them is palpable. My kids were in a summer program and on a bulletin board, were words written in bold:
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
I have the right to have a house.
I have the right to be protected.
I have the right to play.
I have the right to be taken care of.
I have the right to have someone listen to me.
I have the right to feel loved.
Wishing all of you love as you parent, educate, and counsel the future of this world. In this book, I hope you learn not only how to build emotional muscles in children, but also to value them, respect them, and know they are the lights, leading us on to better things.
As you journey, help the kids, and help yourself. We can never outgrow emotional regulation. My hope is that readers of this book will join me in changing the paradigms of how we address mental health in children. We will help children identify feelings beneath behaviors and learn how to manage them. We will watch children build emotional muscles and begin facing challenges on their own. And finally, we will gain relief in knowing we have prepared kids well for the road ahead.
You can order your copy of Growing Up Strong here. For every copy, you will receive 50% off a set of feeling cards with code STRONG50.
Let’s Grow Strong Kids Together,
Allison
