By Guest Author, 6/22/21, positiveexperience.org/blog
This June, the HOPE team had the honor of meeting with Scarlett Lewis, Founder and CEO of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement. Through a mission to live by her son Jesse’s message “Nurturing, Healing, Love,” the Choose Love Movement produced a comprehensive program on social and emotional learning for all ages! This program is now being implemented in schools and community organizations nationwide.
Check out chooselovemovement.org for more information on their social and emotional learning and character education programs for parents, teachers, and communities!
Tell our readers about the Choose Love Movement, and how it came to be.
I started the Choose Love Movement following the murder of my 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, in his first grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Jesse left us a message before he died. He wrote three words on our kitchen chalkboard – nurturing, healing, love. I realized that if the shooter had been able to give and receive [those concepts], the tragedy wouldn’t have happened.
As I started researching how something like Sandy Hook could happen, I [saw] there was a way that we could prevent it. We’d been focusing on the problems themselves, [like bullying, substance abuse, and mental illness], but there are things that we can do to fortify individuals to reduce and prevent that suffering, including violence. By implementing social and emotional learning, character education, mindfulness, etc. – [these essential life skills] could reduce a lot of the suffering that we’re seeing, even school violence. They’re easy to teach and learn, and you can do it at any age!
I decided that was my purpose; I needed to get that message out that we can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we thoughtfully respond. By responding with love, we take our personal power back and make the world a better place!
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