Calm helps when you're hurting

I’ve been through some tough times emotionally and physically throughout my life.

One thing I’ve been through and still go through is my heel injury. I found out recently that I have Sever’s disease. When you put pressure on your feet for a long time, your heels start to hurt. As an athlete, I go through this every time I have a practice, a game or even a scrimmage. I figure out ways to calm myself down after I start feeling the pain in my heels, and you can, too.

If anything stressful happens to you, you can try to do the following things to make the situation better:

• If you hear bad news, always go to someone and talk to them about how you feel. If you are feeling really sad or really upset, let them know. They’ll understand how you feel about the situation and will help you with it.
• If you figure out that someone or something was injured that was important to you, take a deep breath. You have to relax and know that it’s going to be OK.
• If you get hurt physically, you have to pay attention to something or someone else around you. That will make you not focus on your injury as much, and it will make you feel a lot better.
• If you get hurt emotionally, tell someone around you and let them know who is involved. They will stop them from saying what they said again.
• If you have experienced fist fights, bullying, kicking, etc., let an adult know and have them talk to the other person. If you were watching it happening, do the same thing and let the person know which kids were involved.

Valentina Gatti and Bonnie Hersch’s sixth-grade class, Wantagh Middle School