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WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2020
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
Nurturing Resilience
in Students Before
School Starts
their mental health:
Relationships
Angela Smith
Guest Columnist
The COVID crisis has created unprec-
edented challenges for many families.
Parents and students altered how and
where learning occurred. Although
changes to school, work, and other life
experiences can be stressful for the
whole family, it is especially challenging
for children. Childhood development ex-
perts are elevating the issue of resilience
and sharing suggestions with parents
and caregivers to help kids become more
resilient, which will help give them the
skills they need to help them through
tough times.
Mollie Marti, the founder of the Na-
tional Resilience Institute says, “Even
before the pandemic, the statistics about
anxiety and depression among teens
were cause for great concern. More than
ever, it’s important for parents and
schools to actively foster the growth of
children who can problem-solve and
adapt when facing challenging situa-
tions.”
The National Resilience Institute
teamed up with Connections Academy
on a special series to help parents and
caregivers support their children thrive
during difficult times.
A recent report by Connections Acad-
emy and Pearson called Parent Pulse,
found many children are dealing with
mental health concerns due to the pan-
demic. The report indicated 89% of par-
ents said the disruption of school during
the COVID crisis added to the overall
feeling of stress among young people,
and 56% noticed their own child was
anxious or depressed. Unfortunately,
mental health challenges for youth aren’t
new. A recent Oregon Healthy Teens
Survey noted, in the past year more than
32% of 8th graders and 36% of 11th grad-
ers exhibited depressive symptoms.4
Building resilience is more than a
short-term fix. The National Resilience
Institute defines resilience as, “the ca-
pacity to prepare for, adapt to, and grow
through trauma, disruption or loss.” Re-
silient children come away from stress-
ful circumstances with positive feelings
about themselves, a sense of control over
their future, and a way to solve problems.
When outside events happen that are
scary and overwhelming, which can lead
to problems making learning difficult
and their grades might suffer. Growing
resilience has positive impacts on edu-
cational outcomes and other aspects of a
child’s life.
Parents need to practice resiliency for
themselves to be effective for their chil-
dren. Self-care, emotional regulation,
and coping skills are important tools for
parents when helping children develop
resilience. Parents can't shield children
from every stressful part of life. Howev-
er, we can help them prepare and teach
them skills to get through trying situa-
tions.
Here are suggestions for parents to
build resilience for students and improve
Resilience is tied to relationships.
Kids need to feel safe, accepted by oth-
ers, and have control over their actions.
Once those needs are met, children are
more likely to actively seek out meaning-
ful relationships and to ask adults for
help.
Regulating Emotions
Children have a harder time regulat-
ing their emotions, especially when they
are scared. Have them practice breathing
exercises when they feel stressed or an-
gry. Stretching and meditation can also
reduce anxiety.
Self-care
Make time for self-care for your chil-
dren. This means leaving time in their
day to relax or socialize. It is equally im-
portant to teach them the value of proper
nutrition, exercise, and getting enough
sleep. Explain that by taking care of
themselves, they will be better equipped
to handle challenging circumstances.
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Self-Awareness and Self-Advocacy
When parents and caregivers help
children understand why they're scared
or angry when they encounter adversity
it helps build self-awareness. Once they
comprehend those feelings it reduces
conflict and kids can better communi-
cate their needs. Self-advocacy is also an
important concept for children. Encour-
age them to use “I” statements when
they’re in a toxic situation such as “I
don’t like that, please stop.”
Coping Skills
Parents can use small challenges in
life to teach children coping skills that
will make them more resilient to larger
struggles. These mechanisms include
problem-solving, journaling, and posi-
tive self-talk (“I can do this”).
Circle of Control
Helping students identify what is
within their control and what is outside
of their control can help them feel safe
and better equipped to deal with the
anxiety of the unknown. I worked re-
cently with a student who had social
anxiety and refused to speak to people
outside her family. I coached her on tak-
ing small steps by virtually typing/text-
ing between us. That led to her opening
up and communicating verbally.
I hope this information is helpful for
families looking to boost resilience for
their children as the new school year ap-
proaches.
For more information on how to build
resilience in children, visit connection-
sacademy.com/support/resources/arti-
cle/resilience-series-1
Angela Smith is manager of counsel-
ing for Willamette Connections Acad-
emy
The Chicken Shack,
a regional chain, is
coming to Keizer
Emily Teel
Salem Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Hand-breaded wings, chicken fin-
gers, fries and 30 sauce options; The
Chicken Shack is on its way to the Sa-
lem-Keizer area.
Founded in Las Vegas in 2005, The
Chicken Shack is a Nevada-based
franchise with 15 locations across Col-
orado, California, Nevada and Wash-
ington. The first location in Oregon is
located in Klamath Falls. Keizer will be
the second.
Markey Toomes and Monica
Toomes are opening the restaurant.
The couple moved to Oregon from Cali-
fornia in August 2019 and have been
planning to open a restaurant for three
years.
When a location of The Chicken
Shack opened in their hometown, said
Markey Toomes, "It quickly became
our favorite restaurant. I have South-
ern roots and it reminded me of our
grandmother's cooking."
Chicken Shack Keizer will be located
at 3844 River Road North in that space
that was, until March, El Patron Mex-
ican Grill.
A casual restaurant concept, The
Chicken Shack offers combination
Founded in Las Vegas in 2005, The
Chicken Shack offers combination
meals of wings, chicken fingers, fries,
salads and sides. COURTESY OF THE
CHICKEN SHACK
meals and a limited menu of shakes,
fried chicken sandwiches and burgers
in addition to signature wings, chicken
fingers and loaded fries.
The Toomes are currently working
on renovations to the space. They hope
to be ready to open in late August.
Emily Teel is the Food & Drink Editor
at the Statesman Journal. Contact her
at eteel@statesmanjournal.com, Face-
book, or Twitter. See what she's cooking
and where she's eating this week on In-
stagram: @emily_teel
Testing
Continued from Page 1A
zation to do these tests from the FDA.
Emergency-use authorizations allow for
more availability and use of “medical
countermeasures” — currently unap-
proved methods or products — for use
when there’s an emergency or no alter-
native.
As of Wednesday morning, the FDA
had approved 143 emergency authoriza-
tions since February 2020.
“In order to (be authorized), you have
to have samples collected using the
same procedures that you’re going to
use in real life, and you have to do it in a
way that you have known positives and
known negatives,” said Cass Moseley,
UO’s interim vice president for research
and innovation. “Then your system has
some sort of proof that you get the right
answer. So that’s where we are right
now is we’re needing to collect those
samples.”
The first phase of the project was
completed June 15. UO collected about
80 samples from UO students, with a
voluntary response rate of 14%. Stu-
dents gave an oral swab, nose swab and
saliva swab. Leve said this showed that
not many people are likely to volunteer,
even when a test is available, so they
will have to do more outreach for test-
ing.
UO needs at least 30 positive results
and 30 negative results to be validated.
This has proved to be a challenge, Mose-
ley said, because Lane County hasn’t
seen as many positive COVID-19 cases
as other areas of the state. That’s a good
thing, but it makes it difficult to gather
the necessary results to expand saliva
Nurses seal up a saliva sample to forward to the lab for testing in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
GARY COSBY JR./TUSCALOOSA NEWS VIA USA TODAY NETWORK
testing.
To validate the saliva testing method,
UO has partnered with Marion County
as one area identified as a major hot
spot for cases.
From Aug. 15 to Sept. 30, the program
plans to ramp up with “drive-through,
door-to-door, pick-up/drop-off, and/or
mail collection methods,” according to
the presentation.
Community testing — and scaling the
testing capacity up in preparation for
fall — is coming, officials said.
“We’re still early into this pandemic,
and as tired as many of us are, we really
have to continue to work together and
look at community health in all of its
guises and all of its opportunity and
work together to achieve that,” Dr. Pat-
rick Luedtke, Lane County’s senior pub-
lic health officer, said during the infor-
mation session.
Contact reporter Jordyn Brown at
jbrown@registerguard.com or 541-338-
2203, and follow her on Twitter @thejor-
dynbrown and Instagram @register-
guard. Want more stories like this? Sub-
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port local journalism.