Former teacher building positive mindset for kids

Posted: May 28, 2024 / 06:00 AM CDT

Updated: May 28, 2024 / 08:34 AM CDT

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) – May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and a former local teacher is hard at work pumping positivity into the minds of young children.

Leland Clelland was born and raised in Chesapeake. He graduated from Hickory High School, got his teaching degree from Old Dominion University and was a health and physical education teacher at Oscar Smith Middle School for eight years.

After Clelland started his family, he decided to get out of teaching. His last day is a day he will never forget.

“I remember sitting in the parking lot. It was always my passion because growing up I had such amazing teachers. So I was in real turmoil pulling out of the parking lot that day. I literally had tears coming down my face, and I was like, ‘Are you making the right choice?’ And I said if I ever get to a point where I do well enough in sales, and I have some extra cash on the side, I will make sure to give that back.”

That’s exactly what Clelland is doing now. He wrote a book titled, “I Am…Building a Positive Mindset for Kids.“

“I came up with the idea of ‘I am’ from Eric Thomas, who’s the number one motivational speaker in the world, and he had this great ‘I am’ speech that really hooked me my first year in sales,” said Clelland. “The two words after ‘I am’ your mind believes whether it’s a joke or not. So, if you’re consistently pumping that positivity into your brain, then good things are going to come out on the back end.”

Clelland’s book follows a chameleon named Kylo as he meets different animals.

“Each animal has a different ‘I Am’ affirmation, and of course, the chameleon can change and match and take on these affirmations for himself. So, throughout the story, he is on this journey, gaining these positive mindset affirmations from the other characters.”

Clelland says he did not write his book to make money. He wrote it to make a positive impact.

“My whole mindset is if we could just flip one kid’s mentality, make one kid’s day, get one kid to truly believe in themselves, if they had a bad day and their parents are reading this as their bedtime story, and they flip the script and say, ‘Man, you know what? I am strong. I am kind. I am unique. I am special.’ These are all key characteristics to building a strong foundation for them as young youth, to be good people are giving back to the community later in life.”

To write a good children’s book, you need a great illustrator. So, in a special twist, Clelland teamed up with Brooke Archbell, an art teacher at Chesapeake Public Schools. Brooke was also born and raised in Chesapeake.

“When we were there teaching together, we talked about bucket list items, and this was one of those,” said Clelland.

He says he only had to give Archbell a couple of sentences from his book before she made magic happen.

“She made my dream come to life. She’s absolutely spectacular, and I really give her the credit for making this book really come to fruition.”

Now, Clelland has teamed up with Historic Greenbrier Farms in Chesapeake to create an “I AM” day on June 1 from 1-4 p.m. at the farm. Most of the event is free for families.

Events include: