High school is an important time in every person’s life. So much can happen in just a short four years, and those events have a strong part in shaping each child’s future.
Unfortunately, too many young girls spend high school believing that they’re ugly, unattractive, fat, worthless and all-around not “good enough.”
The years of believing these degrading lies are completely detrimental to a woman’s future, her relationships and her self-image.
A high school student in California is doing something to change that vicious cycle.
Sabrina Astle is a student at Laguna Beach High School. She told ABC News that she “wanted to find a way to make a difference through our Kindness Club on campus.”
The school had a spirit week titled “What if…Week,” which is designed to bring students across campus together. Each day of the week has a different message, and Thursday’s was “What if we showed more love?”
The 17-year-old had the idea of replacing mirrors in the bathrooms with positive signs of affirmation. So she got to work just in time for the specific “What if…” day.
Chelsea Maxwell
“I felt that this would be a good time to hang the signs. I put the signs in the bathroom the night before so students would see them throughout the next day,” she said.
When they arrived to school on Thursday morning, girls who used the bathroom no longer had mirrors to critique themselves in, but rather signs that read, “You are enough,” and “You are smart.”
The school’s activity director, Chelsea Maxwell, said that Sabrina has made it her goal to spread positive messages around campus this semester. She says that even though the signs were part of “What if…Week,” the response has been encouraging, and administration has no immediate plans to take them down.
“I didn’t think I was doing anything that would impact anyone,” Sabrina said. “I thought it may brighten their day or lift their confidence before their next class, but I didn’t think it would make this large of an impact.”
The teen says students told her that the signs “made their day.” She says she’s happy with the way they’ve made her other girls around the school feel.
Chelsea Maxwell
While Sabrina may have intended for the signs to impact her peers, they reached people she could have never imagined.
Shannen McKinney Lob is a 39-year-old mother of two and Girl Scout leader from Laguna Niguel, California. She discovered the bathroom signs during a Girl Scout event at Laguna High.
“It really just took my breath away,” Shannen says. “I was having some feelings of self-doubt at the event, [and] wondering if I was doing a good job as a leader.”
She took a bathroom break with her elementary-aged Girl Scouts and says the signs were just the encouragement that her and the girls desperately needed to be reminded of.
“It was exactly what I needed in that moment. I walked out feeling so much better than when I walked in, feeling that I am capable and I am doing a good job.”
Shannen says it also gave her hope for the confidence that shapes those girls’ futures.
Self-love is more likely to come from a boost in confidence than a reflection in a mirror. The high school senior has spread positivity and changed the way girls in her school look at themselves.
“The signs have helped people remember that everyone is beautiful, everyone is important, everyone is good enough and everyone should be treated equally. I did this because I am passionate about the fact that everyone is important and everyone needs to be cared for.”
As stated by Sabrina’s proud grandmother, Shanna Stirland Simmons, their beautiful granddaughter is making headlines across the country with her “heartfelt love and concern [for] fellow students”:
We love you for it and all the other positive things you are doing at home, at school, at play! Jesus’ teenage ‘sunbeam’ at work!
