Aswad Aarif, Restorative Practices Manager, shares student breakthroughs
Helping middle schoolers shine.
In our RESTORES group at St. Elizabeth School in Oakland, we recently completed a unit focused on Healthy Boundaries. As part of this, we had a group discussion centered around healthy ways to manage stress and anxiety. This group is often light-hearted and playful but on this particular day the conversation opened the door for middle school students to talk more openly about their personal experiences.
One student, a girl, who has typically been very quiet and hesitant to share in past sessions seemed to talk a bit more. When the topic of anxiety came up, she openly expressed that she experiences a lot of it. This marked a shift in her engagement with the group.
As the discussion continued, each participant was invited to share their own coping tools. She shared a strategy I had never heard before — using magnets. While I initially wasn’t clear how magnets might help with anxiety, she explained that holding two magnets close together and observing how they pull toward each other is soothing for her.
She asked if this was a good way to manage her worries, and I assured her that it if it worked for her then it seemed like a good strategy to me. It was as if she had been waiting for a safe space to share this part of herself. In that moment, she seemed relieved and validated to learn that everyone in the group experiences anxiety at least some of the time.
Other students began to share their tools including lifting weights, making music, spending time with pets, playing sports, drawing and more. Everyone had something to share about how they coped.
This kind of peer validation is crucial, especially given the growing prevalence of depression and anxiety among middle schoolers in today’s world. Increasing academic pressures, social media influence, and political uncertainty have all contributed to a rise in mental health challenges for youth. It’s more important than ever to create spaces where kids can feel seen, heard, and supported.
In our following session, this same student brought her magnets to show me. She appeared proud — not only of her creative coping mechanism but also of her ability to contribute meaningfully to the group. Her openness, coupled with the group’s supportive response, reflected the very heart of what RESTORES is about: healing, connection, and empowerment through shared experience.