Twice each year our community activity focuses heavily on transitions. It’s graduation week. This is when when the reality hits us that the work we do at our therapeutic boarding school has many results, for indeed, The Family Foundation School is also a college prep boarding school.
The tradition at our school is that every student makes a speech at graduation. Due to the numbers this takes three separate ceremonies: a graduation picnic, the baccalaureate and then graduation itself. Throughout these three days we are reminded of the challenges all our students have faced. In their speeches they share what they were like, what has happened, and what they are like now. They transmit their experience, strength and hope to those students in the audience who are still working toward this goal.
It’s clear that this transition brings with it a load of anxiety for our graduates and their families. Will the lessons learned stick? When things get difficult, will one of the many tools our students have learned be instinctively reached for? Will relapse be avoided?
While we can all identify with this, we trust that living life one day at a time and turning these troubles over to a higher power of your understanding will bring all needed answers to these concerning questions. Turning it over has a way of dissolving the anxiety.
