It's not the dam, it's the storms

​I had a meeting yesterday with a team that's been doing some work with 5th graders in their community. They told me that of the 60 students they are working with, half of them reported thinking about or actually attempting suicide recently.

Those numbers no longer shock me. I hear similar numbers everywhere I go. Additionally, youth mental health crisis numbers, to include the number of youths who complete suicide, are rapidly escalating nationally.

The most frightening part about this is how deeply I understand how hard it is for a fifth grader to overcome their childhood wounds. The story this group of fifth graders tells about the present is alarming. The story it predicts for our future gets harder for me to accept every day.

It's heartbreaking.

Frederick Douglass is credited with once saying, "It's easier to build a strong child than to repair a broken man." No one can really verify he said that; experts believe it probably came from the quote I've shared with this post.

Either way, his words are accurate. They have proved prophetic.

A child's brain is so formable in those early years. What is formed in the child is often what goes with it into adulthood. It's not that the adult brain can't change in later years, it's just significantly harder.

The more destructive the patterns the harder they are to heal.

I have shared the story recently that when I came back from Honduras last year, I sat down committed to learn to speak Spanish. After about one day of that I decided that an interpreter will do.

My old brain just couldn't find that bandwidth to learn a new language. Not while it was trying to learn so many other healthy new patterns.

But a fifth-grade brain. That fifth grader. Let them hang out with someone who speaks Spanish and they'll be singing with the Hondurans in mere months.

Too often, when we look around at the brokenness in the world, we don't see its roots in broken children. When the dam is crumbling and the world is flooding, we wonder what the heck happened to the dam.

It wasn't the dam. It was the storm upstream. Maybe many, many miles upstream.

In a fifth-grade classroom.

Many people ask, what do we do? That answer is complex, ranging from implementing mental health curriculum in early education and fostering connections between youth and caring adults and providing adequate family supports and so much more.

But my giant fear is those answers are putting the cart before the horse.

My fear is we are still so worried about fixing that damn dam that we don't even know where to ask the questions.

You can't wonder why the storm upstream was so violent when we're busy putting together a plan to build a stronger dam. And often, when we spend the kind of money we spend on new dams, there are mere pennies left to address the storm.

There is coming a day when we won't be able to build the kind of dam that will withhold the fallout from the kinds of storms that are happening upstream.

I leave some meetings wondering if I'm living in that day. And I drive away in tears.

We have to do better by our kids. There are a bunch of broken adults running around in this world who fully understand just how hard it is to repair the damage if we don't.

Hand raised here. 🙋‍♂️

It starts with all of us coming to a common understanding. A common agreement. Maybe the greatest common understanding and agreement of our lifetime.

We need to abandon the project to rebuild the dam. We need to abandon it and lock arms and walk all the way upstream, as far as we need to go, and wrap our arms around every child.

Every single one.

And remind them that they are loved. Remind them and assure them that we are no longer pouring our efforts into building dams, we are here to pour our love into calming the storms.

If we don't, who is he that can repair the damage?