PICKERINGTON, Ohio — It’s OK.
Let’s start there. It’s OK to feel. It’s OK knowing you’re not perfect. It’s OK to be yourself.
Jackson Turnbull is in the seventh grade at Lakeview Junior High School in Pickerington. Some days he says he needs help to focus and take a breath.
His classmate, McKenna Burchett, occasionally feels anxious and nervous.
But in one of the school’s rooms, there’s a moment to take a break.
“Everything that happens in the world impacts our kids and they bring that into school with them every day,” Sarah Geiger said.
Geiger is the school counselor. She says the Stress Management and Resilience Training, or SMART lab, began as a partnership six years ago with Pickerington Schools and the Ohio State University’s Counselors Education Program that helps teens deal with emotional and social pressures and stress.
“Our kids are coping,” Geiger said. “They’re finding ways to deal with what they’re experiencing.”
Students spend an average of 23 minutes in the lab. They can talk, color, listen to music and play games all to help them reduce stress, anger, frustration and sadness and be more productive in class.
“It is working,” Geiger said.
In six years, Geiger says Lakeview has helped, on average, 383 students a year out of its almost 1,000 student body population. It’s expanded with now more than a dozen SMART labs district-wide.
“There’s always a chance or a space for you to go to and there is always someone who is willing to talk,” Burchett said.
It’s OK to not be OK.
It’s OK to ask for help.
“If you’re scared to go in a SMART lab, or scared to talk to someone about how you feel, just do it,” Turnbull said.