The disruptions in lives around the country and the world are substantial and seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity. It appears that with our constant, 24-hour news cycles we are forever bombarded with new information on the latest disaster, even before we can process and react to the last one. From icebergs the size of a small state breaking off in Antarctica to hurricanes in the Caribbean, from droughts and wildfires in the West to flooding in the Mid-Atlantic States, and from terrorist attacks in Europe to mass shootings in Las Vegas, it seems as if the world is coming apart at the seams.
These events, and the detailed news coverage of them, are certainly adding to the anxieties of people across all age spectrums, all social-economic levels, and across all regions of the world. While we can all debate the causes, and potential solutions, we can probably agree that they impact our day-to-day lives with issues that we need to, and are, dealing with on a consistent basis.
It’s hard to measure the impact of these events because each person handles anxiety and stress differently, but we can all see it in student, staff, and parent reactions to local events that would normally not cause such a significant disruption in our daily lives. This cause/effect has been studied fairly extensively in some circles (for example, with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in soldiers returning from the battlefield) but studied less extensively in others (such as how an experience of a deadly mass shooting across the country can impact those of us who live far from the event). But questions remain about reactions of minorities interacting with police, in decisions people make about traveling, in the often serious behavioral reactions of students to minor changes in their environments, and in how much more stress each of us can take based upon our perceptions of how the world may be getting worse (for example, the stated belief by many that our children will not have the same opportunities that we did).
Since we can’t at this point definitely link the effect these disasters have on specific stress reactions of a particular person, we work diligently to support people who appear to have high levels of anxiety, seemed overly stressed, or just have problems dealing with the problems of everyday living. Even education has changed over the past decade from ‘guidance counselors’ to ‘adjustment counselors’ and from dealing primarily with academics to working to support students (and staff) on a social and emotional basis. This includes work across the country on integrating social and emotional learning into the curriculum. Unfortunately we haven’t yet figured out a way to increase the number of hours in a day, so the day becomes even more overloaded with activities and ‘must do’ items that only seem to exacerbate the problems of anxiety and stress.
While I wish I could say that small and rural communities like ours don’t experience this pressure, the reality is that we face the same increase in stress and anxiety as large urban population centers do. Although our issues are not identical, the end result of increased pressure and stress is quite similar as evidenced by discussions across the state and country. While I would much rather deal with “rural” issues than those I’m less familiar with from the urban centers, the fact is that we will all be faced with stressors no matter where we are, who we are, or what we believe. Thankfully, we have a great staff and a small school where it’s much harder for individual students to fall through the cracks and get lost. As we move forward, I’m hopeful that continued research into these issues will result in more opportunities for us to help each other through these difficult times.
