The Overwhelming Tragedy List

The Overwhelming Tragedy List

The world has always had difficult times. Thinking about the first half of the 20th century, for instance, we went from WWI to the 1918 flu pandemic to the Great Depression to WWII. That’s a lot.

The 24-hour News Cycle

Although families were obviously affected directly by the tragedies of the past, back then, if you weren’t affected directly, it was possible to compartmentalize them. Limiting your exposure was relatively simple: When you were done reading the newspaper, you were done getting the news. You could listen to the radio in the evening but be free of it the rest of the day. Even when television was ubiquitous starting in the 1960s, the news was for the most part limited to certain hours of the day: you could watch TV all the time, but your exposure to the news was still limited to the news shows. If you didn’t want your kids to be exposed, simply watching the 11PM news, after they went to bed, and not talking about the news in front of them took care of that problem.

Things aren’t so simple today, when we all, through our devices, are bombarded by the news 24/7. We literally can’t get away from it, and that includes our children. Once you give them a device, to a great extent you have given up any control you have over what they see. So they can watch ISIS behead a journalist or a police officer kill a Black man, or do research into how severe global climate change really is. As if that isn’t bad enough, there are all of the talking heads who so often appear on “news” shows and make things sound so much worse. It is easy for kids to get traumatized by these awful things, and there is very little you can do about it, short of taking your child’s phone away.

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Community Forum a Hit

Community Forum a Hit

Last month, Bishop Guertin High School hosted a community forum on mental health that was recorded on their YouTube channel. We were honored to partner with Bishop Guertin and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health on this project. Read more

The Reconnection Project Podcast!

The Reconnection Project Podcast!

Although it is a struggle to come up with many silver linings to COVID, one silver lining for us at Jeff Levin Coaching is it has given us time in the office to catch up on some things we have always wanted to do. One of those things is a podcast—we are happy to announce The Reconnection Project Podcast series. Read more

Pushing the Reset Button

Pushing the Reset Button

In an April 12, 2020, interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Rule, New York Times columnist David Brooks said that the coronavirus was like “an x-ray on our society…we know ourselves better when you are in a valley. So I am hopeful that we’re going to have a great reset.”

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Finding Common Ground: A Program for School Administrators

Finding Common Ground: A Program for School Administrators

Finding Common Ground:

Partnering with Parents, Educators, & Students

to Reduce Anxiety & Stress in the Public Schools

March 4, 5-7pm, Puritan Backroom, Manchester, New Hampshire

Sponsored by The Reconnection Project/Jeff Levin Coaching

School administrators are invited to enjoy complimentary hors d’oeuvres and a relaxing, solution-focused forum with your colleagues on the new challenges caused by the epidemic of increased stress and anxiety. The discussion will include:

  • The increasing number of parents seemingly at cross-purposes with school staff.
  • Breaking down the seeming vastness of the anxiety issue into manageable, conquerable steps.

5-5:30: Registration and Introductions

Remarks by Stephen Sierpina, Windham H.S. principal
Jeff Levin, Reconnection Project Founder

5:30-6: Discussion of the issues: How pervasive is the stress/anxiety in your school community?

6-7: Solutions: How can we work over time with parents, our staffs, and, of course, the students to reconnect the school community and reduce student stress, anxiety, and all of the negative behaviors they engender?

Preregistration would be appreciated, but drop-ins are also welcome: Contact Jeff Levin at (603) 496-0305 or at jeff@jefflevincoaching.com.

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