This week is Red Ribbon Week. Dianna Keane, LCC Big Sandy Public Schools K-12 School Counselor, sent me the following information. Everyone should consider what they are learning at school. It’s important for our physical and mental health to embrace the information given here.
The Chouteau County Health Department donated most of the school’s giveaways this year. We should thank them when we get a chance.
Similar training will occur at both the High School and the FE Miley.
At the high school, each morning during the first period, the Counseling Leadership Group will make announcements and give away prizes to the classes. At the FE Miley Elementary, Diana had the 6th graders help me with the teaching and handouts when they went into the lower classes during the week.
On Monday, large coloring sheets will be put up for a community coloring project to help promote healthy relaxation. Hopefully, students can find time throughout the day to utilize this. We will leave them up all week. Monday’s theme is relax; find healthy ways to deal with stress, use art, music, relaxation exercises, and self-care to deal with stress.
Tuesday’s theme will be to take care of ourselves in healthy ways. Drugs, alcohol, and tobacco are not healthy for our bodies, our emotional life, or our relationships. Today, let’s find healthy ways to take care of ourselves. Drink water, have a healthy snack, exercise, do
deep breathing, find a hobby you enjoy, find a purpose, tell someone how you feel, and get help if you need it) to help with that, students will be encouraged to grab a water bottle that the health department so generously donated and fill it up with some flavored water. On Tuesday, they will have a flavored water station for students/staff to use.
On Wednesday, the theme will be connection. The opposite of addiction is connection. Addiction to drugs, alcohol, or tobacco is a lonely place. It disconnects us, isolates us, and makes us focus on the substances instead of the people around us. It makes us less genuine and makes us a slave to those chemicals. So, instead of addiction, let’s work on connection. Reach out, be real, put your phone down, be with people, encourage others, be patient, be kind. They will play a Rock/ Paper/ Scissors School-Wide Competition at the high school to teach the connection we have today. The rules sound fun! Once you get your necklaces, you can challenge anybody to rock, paper, scissors. When you lose, give a necklace to the other person- no arguing- smile and be a good sport! You’ll collect as many necklaces as possible by playing with other students throughout the day. Once you get five necklaces, you can play a teacher. At the end of the day, we will see who has the most necklaces. Don’t lose your necklaces- we will turn in all the necklaces at the end of the day so we can play again.
On Thursday, they will learn drugs, alcohol, and tobacco isolate us and make us self-focused. The more self-focused we are, the more unhappy we can become. We need to join things bigger than ourselves and spread positive gossip, reach out and serve others, volunteer, have spiritual goals, find a way to make the world better, tell on others- in a positive way, share good things about our friends, classmates, school, and community with others. To help us with that, We will have a Sticky note table: Write words of affirmation to others (students or staff or good things about our school) and stick them ALL around the school. Let’s graffiti the school (with sticky notes) with uplifting words, messages, and positive things about ourselves, our classmates, our school, and our community.
The Big lessons for RED RIBBON Week are Drugs/ Alcohol,/ Tobacco are all ways to derail life- we use them to self-medicate (they make us feel better, deal with stress, feel better about ourselves, give us confidence, relax- but ultimately mess our lives up)
Diana will be visiting with the student to learn NOW how to deal with life without drugs, alcohol, or tobacco (let’s deal with stress in healthy ways, feel better about ourselves, have more confidence, take care of ourselves, connect with others, reach out and do things bigger than ourselves, and relax with things that won’t derail our goals and dreams).
This next week, let’s find ways to serve others and do things that are bigger than ourselves. Find a way to serve someone else, volunteer, help your parents, help a neighbor, or reach out to a classmate. And watch for others, serving and doing kind things for others.
