01
Know Myself
Name emotions, read body signals, tell needs from wants, and separate “what happened to me” from “who I am” — no child ever asked to disclose trauma.
A Nevada pilot for ages 6–12
Life Success After Adversity
We teach children how to build a thriving life after adversity — so they don’t let circumstances define them. Our program contributes to a part of early suicide prevention: we give kids ages 6–12 the life skills, confidence, and resilience to author a future built by themselves.
6–12
A pivotal age to build lifelong inner tools.
Our mission
Resilient kids become resilient adults.
Nevada Loves Foundation, Inc. exists to teach resilience in the face of adversity — so the people with the perfect villain origin story don't end up living one. Over time we'll grow into Nevada Loves Babies, Teens, Elders, and more, each teaching the same core principles.
We're starting with Nevada Loves Kids — focused on ages 6–12, the window where early adversity can either harden into identity or be rewritten.
We teach children how to build a thriving life after adversity. We teach transformation — not letting circumstances define them, but empowering each child to author a future built by themselves, through life skills, confidence, resilience, and purpose.
The pilot program
Life doesn’t come with a handbook. We can give kids a toolkit.
Many adults were never taught how to manage stress, understand emotions, set healthy boundaries, or turn a goal into a plan. That gap can pass from one generation to the next.
Our small-group pilot interrupts that cycle early—with compassionate, trauma-aware lessons that are active, relatable, and designed for children growing up through adversity.
The urgency is real. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among children ages 10–14 in the United States, and rates in this age group have more than doubled over the last decade (CDC, 2023). Teaching kids to name their feelings, regulate their nervous systems, and ask for help is prevention — early, and upstream.
A focused, measurable first step
A small cohort, consistent sessions, family resources, and simple before-and-after measures help us learn what works before expanding.
Six capabilities, in developmental order
Big life skills, made understandable.
Not six random subjects — a progression. Understand what’s inside me, steady it, question the story in my head, relate to others, choose my actions, then build my future. All of it inside a culture of connection, so every child leaves knowing they belong somewhere.
02
Regulate Myself
Feelings are information, not commands. Breathing, grounding, pausing, movement — practiced in real scenarios until they’re available under stress.
03
Change the Story in My Head
Event → thought → feeling → action → result. Kids become “thought detectives” and learn to ask, “what else could be true?”
04
Relate to Other People
Me → you → us. Perspective taking, listening, apologizing, repair, boundaries, and asking for help — acted out, not lectured.
05
Choose My Actions
STOP → THINK → OPTIONS → CONSEQUENCES → CHOOSE. Real dilemmas, real consequences, and the habit of making repairs after mistakes.
06
Build My Future
Goals, habits, money basics, purpose. Not “you can do anything” — “you can’t always choose what happens, but you can learn to choose what you do next.”
Every session runs CONNECT → LEARN → PRACTICE → REFLECT → APPLY. See the full curriculum, or read the topic areas in the Capacities Framework.
Nevada Loves Kids is an educational, trauma-aware program — not therapy and not trauma treatment. Children are never asked to disclose trauma, and any child who needs clinical care is referred to a qualified provider.
A note from our founder
Adversity influences us. It does not have to define us.
I founded Nevada Loves because adversity has been a recurring part of my life from a very young age. Health challenges, family hardship, cultural transitions, bullying, and other difficult experiences shaped how I viewed myself, other people, and the world around me.
Reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning helped me understand that suffering does not have to define us — we can still choose meaning and purpose. But it also showed me how much easier that would have been if I had learned it early, while my mind was still forming.
Ages 6–12 are like the operating-system years: the beliefs, habits, and self-talk installed then tend to run for life. If I had known even a fraction of these skills back then — how to regulate my nervous system, reframe my thoughts, set a goal, or find purpose — my path would have been very different. Instead I had to teach myself later, and I’m still unlearning and rebuilding through trial and error.
That’s why Nevada Loves Kids begins early — giving children practical inner tools before the patterns harden, so they don’t have to spend adulthood trying to install them on their own through trial and error.
Life Success After Adversity.
Help us give Nevada kids a stronger start.
We’re looking for community partners, educators, youth advocates, volunteers, and early supporters to help bring this pilot to life.