Sometimes You Do Get Through

I had a breakthrough today with one of the kids I counsel each week. One of his goals is to acknowledge his strengths and weaknesses and accept that he has a learning disability. After having some unsuccessful sessions with him, I finally sat down with him and talked about what he as good at in school. It was weird because, for some reason, he was more receptive to what I was saying in session. We were able to talk and discuss what he needed to work on in school, and he was able to tell me some ideas on how he could change. For this kid, it was a huge step towards meeting his psychological goals. This really made my day. I'm learning to appreciate those good days.

BBC

Suicide Risk?

Today I get called to a third grade classroom because a kid said something disturbing that attracted his teacher's attention. The kid was playing a game with other students and blurted out "Raise your hand if you wish you could die," and he raised his own hand. So I get buzzed to visit the classroom.

The child talked to me and I tried to figure out his state of mind. I asked him how he was feeling, and he kept telling me that he was okay. Although, I could clearly see that something was bothering him, especially when I took into consideration the anguished look on his face. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. He told me that he was feeling sad, but he wasn't sure why. I asked him if he said that he wished he could die and he said yes. "How often? " "Sometimes."

Now at this point, I'm taking this very seriously. I'm looking at an 8 or 9 year old child with possible suicide ideation. What do I do now?

In the back of my mind, I was screaming at myself, "Find out if he has a plan! Find out if he has a plan!!!!" I asked him why he sometimes feels like dying and he said, "I have a boring life." I dug a little deeper and asked him what could change that would make his life not boring. He replied, "I could play baseball." After explaining to him that baseball would be possible in the spring and trying to gain more information, I couldn't get a good read on his intentions. He kept telling me that nothing else was making him feel sad. And I was starting to get pressed for time (I hate it when that happens, but I had to be at a meeting later.) So I knew there had to be more but I didn't feel that I had enough time to get what I needed from him. Our conversation left me with a feeling of uneasiness, so I told my supervisor and sat in on their conversation.

She was able to ask him about a plan, which he had none. Overall, her approach was great. She was able to get more information out of him and learn enough to assess the situation. The child seems depressed, so I may check in with him to see how he's feeling over the next couple of weeks.

I know that these things come with time, but I really felt like I didn't know what to do. Correction - I knew what to do, I just didn't know how to do it. Watching my supervisor talk with the child was a great learning experience for me. I hope that I can gain those counseling skills before I'm out there on my own.

BBC

Puzzles vs. Mysteries

If you haven't discovered the genius of Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink" and "The Tipping Point", and contributor to The New Yorker, you really need to read his work. Everything I've read by him has made me think about how I think about things. His latest article discusses the Enron scandal, and examines it through national security expert Gregory Treverton's interesting concept of puzzles vs. mysteries. To summarize, Gladwell argues that the US Federal Prosecutors treated Enron as if it was a puzzle. There were many pieces to gather and once they gathered each piece, they would know what Enron was up to. His argument is that Enron was actually a mystery. All of the pieces were there for everyone to see, it just took the right person to look at the information, know what he or she was looking at and interpret it.

That got me to thinking. Sometimes in school psychology, we tend to look at assessment as a puzzle. We look at a child and try to gather pieces of the puzzle, and when the puzzle doesn't make sense, we keep trying to find more pieces, i.e. we conduct more tests. But what if we looked at the assessment process as a mystery instead? What if it's a matter of interpretation? I think we tend to steer away from looking at the process as a mystery because we want everything to be concrete, make clear sense. But we all know that, sometimes, things are bit murky. We, as school psychologists, are given the task of looking at the murky information, make sense of it and interpret it for others to see. I think that one byproduct of this change in philosophy will be a reduction in the number of tests given to a child. A kid can be tested to death if the results don't support a clear answer to why he or she isn't functioning well in the classroom. Somehow this needs to be addressed. Maybe a change in philosophy could be the change we need.

BBC

Back to School

Ughhh! I didn't want the break to end. I was in serious denial on New Year's Day. When my alarm went off this morning I had to resist the urge to hit the snooze.

The first day back after the Christmas break is interesting in a school. All the kids are sporting new clothes, new sneakers, and new hairdos. Teachers look rested, and everyone talks about starting a diet and complains about how much they overate during the break.

One of the kids I counsel got a grill for Christmas. Gold plate and cubic zirconia, gotta love it. The thing actually looked uncomfortable. He insisted on wearing it during our counseling session. I should have threatened him with reporting his new mushmouth to the speech and language pathologist, but I was getting too much of a kick out of watching him try to talk. If this kid ever knew what braces felt like, he probably wouldn't bother putting that thing in his mouth. But he's young, what else could I expect?

BBC