Sandy Hook Mom Pitches Emotional, Social Learning

6-Year-Old Jesse Lewis Died In The School Shooting

LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, addresses Prairie Grove teachers Thursday about a social and emotional learning program called Choose Love Enrichment Program.
LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse, was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, addresses Prairie Grove teachers Thursday about a social and emotional learning program called Choose Love Enrichment Program.

PRAIRIE GROVE -- One day Scarlett Lewis was a mom with two boys, the youngest a 6-year-old still in a car seat.

"And the next thing I know there is no 6-year-old. He's been murdered."

Lewis' son, Jesse Lewis, was one of 20 children killed in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Coming home after the tragic shooting, Lewis saw where Jesse had written three words on their chalkboard in the kitchen: "nurturing healing love." These words were a comfort to the family and also inspired her to look forward.

"I knew then I'd be spending the rest of my life spreading this message," she said.

Lewis on Thursday spoke to Prairie Grove teachers briefly about the shooting but was at the school to promote the Choose Love Enrichment Program, a movement dedicated to Jesse with the goal to implement social and emotional learning in schools to help children deal with social and emotional issues.

Reba Holmes, Prairie Grove's interim superintendent, said the school administration will go back and discuss how to implement the program in the Prairie Grove School District. She said the program probably will look a little bit different in each school.

Lewis said her program is not anything new because the research is already out there on the many benefits of social and emotional learning.

She noted that the Sandy Hook tragedy started long ago because shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, had an angry thought.

"People like to think it's a snap because that takes us off the hook. 'How can you prevent a snap?' He didn't snap," Lewis said. "It's never, ever a snap. It's always a long time, a slow steady burn of pain, neglect, abuse, anxiety and a lack of ability to manage emotion."

She believes children are "born perfect" and are cultivated into what they become. "There is no mass murder gene."

Every action starts with a thought. Learning this, Lewis said, makes "you want to be mindful of what you put in your head."

The amazing thing, Lewis said, is that any angry thought can be changed. She challenged the teachers to turn one angry thought into a loving thought everyday.

The next step is how someone responds to an angry thought.

"You choose how you respond and when you respond with kindness you take your personal freedom back," Lewis said.

Looking at the research and studies available, Lewis said she made a decision to be a part of the solution for the issues kids face today.

She outlined multiple issues students face today that are different from years past.

One study says that trauma in schools has increased from one in five students 20 years ago to 50 percent of the students today. Trauma can be anything from yelling and screaming in the home to abuse.

Bullying has increased 21 percent since organizations began tracking bullying complaints in 2003.

"And that's in spite of all the state-mandated bullying laws," Lewis said.

Since the Sandy Hook shooting, there has been more than 239 school related shootings. That's one per week, Lewis said.

"Nobody wants this to continue. They want it to stop. Yet it continues. Why?" she said.

Lewis said she was especially affected by the fatal school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14, 2018. Seventeen students and adults died.

"We were having the exact same conversations after Parkland that we had after Sandy Hook," Lewis said. "It was so frustrating. No one was talking about a solution. No one was addressing a cause."

The country must address the cause of the issues for a solution, not just the effects.

"And that's us, not they with a capital T," Lewis said. "We are responsible and we have to fix it."

The solution is social and emotional learning, teaching children the skills to deal with issues that come their way.

She said school resource officers, door locks and other security measures at schools are important but they do not address the cause of why a student would come into a building to shoot and kill children.

Society needs kids who can get along with one another and who can manage their emotions and have 21st century skills, Lewis said.

Children, and even adults, with social and emotional skills, are able to self-manage. It's a proactive approach to prevent suffering before it starts.

The Choose Love Enrichment Program is open to pre-K through 12th grades and focuses on four values: courage, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion in action.

Courage in education may mean being present, being available, being kind, being compassionate.

A person can only have one thought at a time. Gratitude comes one thought at a time.

Forgiveness is healing.

Compassion in action is having empathy for others and taking action to help ease someone's pain.

The one thing everyone can control is how they react and that's a very empowering thing to teach a child, Lewis said.

"We can always choose how we respond and we can respond in love," Lewis said. "It's important to teach it early in life but we can learn it at any age."

The goal is to help children learn and apply character skills so they can understand and manager their emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, have positive relationships and make responsible decisions.

Another key part of the program is helping kids realize they can grow from challenges in their lives. These are opportunities for growth, Lewis said.

"We want kids to understand they are shaped and molded by challenges in life and we want to cultivate a generation that is courageous and looks at obstacles for growth."

The Choose Love program is written by teachers for teachers and includes the best curriculum from what is available today, Lewis said. The formula is taught in the order of courage, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion in love. Each value builds upon the next. Materials include weekly lessons and activities on grade level, along with posters that can be used in the classrooms.

General News on 08/15/2018