Tag: perseverance

I Got This!

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m thinking about resilience, and these words resonate.

What makes the difference between looking ahead toward a new beginning and looking back and just seeing the end? What gives us that bounce-back strength? How do we find and grab ahold of that bounce-forward gumption?

Let’s take a page from nature. Look at this little maple tree:

We lost it when hurricane Beryl’s 60-plus mph winds bent it over. Or so we thought. Bent but not broken; look at the foliage that’s sprouting, growing even, as if to boast that it is down, but not done. How can I take that lesson and apply it when life tries to blow me over?

Enter my friends, child psychologist and resilience researcher Dr. Michele Borba and former school counselor, author Julia Cook and their new book I Got This!

Prepare for Charlie’s adorableness to reel children in as they realize that he has some hard work ahead and even some hurdles to overcome if he’s going to accomplish the goal he set for himself, to become a rescue dog. Which one of the six bounce-back strategies will be most helpful to him on his quest?

Which one might help you?

And even though Amazon lists it for ages 7-12, this book’s adorable illustrations are bound to capture the attention of even our youngest learners. As we know, it’s never too early to help our future leaders to learn how to bounce back (and forward!) into their new normals when problems arise.

I love that two of the characters, Charlie and Hazel, are named after Dr. Borba’s grandchildren (such a charming personal touch!) and I think that Julia’s dedication to a loved one named “Skunk” is precious. I’m also drawn toward the feathers in the Eagle’s talon, complete with a resilience strategy to help all of us fly. Consider using a feather template for a writing extension activity about a time that your student bounced back from an adversity and soared to new heights. Or download this freebie coloring sheet or bookmark I created.

Wanna add some music? I think that this grit gem would pair well with the song Going On A Lion Hunt for our youngest kiddos. What happens when you’re a little scared? What can you do to muddle through? Who can help you?

Check out I Got This! I Have Bounce Back Superpowers; it’s a newcomer that I think belongs on every classroom shelf.

Take The Shot

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m grateful for the opportunity to sign all of these books for the school family that my intern from 2014 is joining.

That’s right, dear reader; she earned her degree in school counseling a decade ago, when my first book came out, and she has persisted for ten years through one rejection after another, continuing to touch lives as a classroom teacher with passion and verve until the right counseling position opened up for her.

P is for Perseverance, one of the chapters in What’s Under Your Cape?, so as a gift, to celebrate my intern and friend, I signed a copy for each one of her new faculty and staff.

To add an element of engagement and fun, I signed them in groups of five with matching inscriptions, so that she can give them out in a faculty meeting and challenge them to form a five-some by finding the people with the same inscription OR she can randomly put them in the staff boxes with the challenge to find their group among their peers (without using email) for a mini-poster prize.

I even found one first-printing copy in my stash and told her that I’d do an author visit for the staff member who figures out that they have that book. It gave me so much joy to meet her at Starbucks yesterday and show her how proud I am of her! Talk about stick-to-it-tiveness! Michael Jordan once said that he missed 100% of the shots that he didn’t take; Krystle took a lot of shots and missed, but chatting with her yesterday was like oxygen because she knows that this school was worth all of the blocked shots along the way as well as the wait to find her family.

Congrats, Krystle; I’m so very proud of you.

I’m also thinking about a shot as in a photograph today as I think back through the years to all of the times that I’ve played paparazzi. I’ve been intrigued by cameras and photography since I got my first camera back in the 6th grade from collecting Bazooka bubble gum comics. No joke. Before I got my Bazooka treasure, my mom used one of those boxy cameras to capture precious moments like this one from winter of 1971, with this calf named Betsy.

Some fifty-plus years later, I still love these little babies.

As a young teacher, I used a film camera to take pictures of my students; when my mom came to visit in 1989, she took the camera and snapped this shot of my classroom and me.

During my days as a school counselor, I carried a digital camera and then ultimately my iPhone, to capture Character Cam moments.

I’m so grateful for every single shot I took and had taken, because I’m so aware that you never know when it’ll be your last chance at that particular shot. Here’s a cherished moment from our siblings reunion weekend, just weeks before Mipps died. Am I ever glad we took that shot!

When I was a teenager, we got this cool shot, on the family farm in front of a silo that’s no longer there. It was the summer of 1978 and I’d been away in Chicago serving as a nanny, so my little brothers were happy to have their sister back home. You know what’s kind of weird, though? Mipps is wearing the number 53, which is exactly how many years we’d have him in our family before God called him home. Again, I’m so grateful for this photo memory.

In fact, rarely have I ever said, “Gosh, why did I take that shot?”

So today I challenge you to stay in the moment and be where your feet are, even as you freeze frame that moment in time, which so quickly becomes the shot that helps you keep those memories alive even after that season has come and gone.

And if ever it feels like you’ll never get your shot, be like Krystle and keep on shooting!