Notes from the School Psychologist

Every Child is my Baby.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:41:00 +0000

To say motherhood changes you is a huge cliché, but it’s also true. I think of my life before Baby B as “B.C.—Before Children.” It’s a whole different world now. B.C., I promised myself I would never tell boring stories about my daughter. And yet the other day, I was telling my BFF that I was glad it was getting chilly outside because Baby B got to wear her new beret. I can’t help it; everything about my baby is interesting to me (and she looked smashing in her beret, by the way). Clearly, there are major physical changes in motherhood as well (my kingdom to fit back into pre-preggers jeans!). But there is another change that I didn't really anticipate, and that is my mindset about parenting.

To be honest, B.C., I always felt a little like a fraud dolling out parenting advice as a school psychologist, without being a parent myself. I was a fairly knowledgeable “fraud,” to be fair. I held parent nights where I’d give sound tips for parenting. I’d freely advise parents in meetings what to do. I even did an interview for Parents Magazine. I reasoned that my advice was actually superior to advice of a school psychologist with a child, because mine was completely objective. I never made my advice for kids about what worked for me or for my own child. I gave just the facts and research. So in this way, maybe not having kids was an asset in my job (not to mention the fact that B.C., I had waaaaay more energy and time to give to my job).*

Now that I’m a parent, I am very aware that there is a danger that I will project my personal parenting experience onto other parents. At one of my schools, there was a support staff member who had a child with ADHD and eeeeeeevery child she saw she thought had ADHD. She saw ADHD lurking under every rock, so to speak. She always recommended the same things that she did for her child to every family. I could have predicted what was coming out of her mouth before she said it at every meeting, because it was always really about her child. Worse yet, she was always recommending unproven, unresearched treatments. She meant well, but she didn’t understand the importance of keeping the focus on the child we were all talking about. Sure, you might have some personal experience in parenting that could be useful, but you gotta keep it in check.

Even in my pregnancy, I knew that being a mother would change my outlook on my job. When I was taking developmental histories, I had a renewed excitement for learning about the pregnancy and early years of the children I was working with. I found myself wanting to know more and more (“Um, tell me again about how you got your child to be a good sleeper?”). I was filing away experiences parents had with possible future scenarios I might encounter. And I thought I could detect that parents were a bit more open about sharing. Maybe my giant belly gave me some street cred?

Now that I have Baby B, I definitely see the world differently, as a psychologist. When I see a child with autism wring his hands, they become my daughter’s hands, and I wonder what its like for the parent to see their child this way. When a parent tells me their child is being teased, I flash to what it would be like to have Baby B to come home and cry because she was teased. Every child is now my baby, on some level. And I know I have more empathy and understanding with parents because we have shared the experience of looking down at a little darling all your own and wanting the absolute best for him or her.

I realize this may come off as me saying that psychologists without kids can’t fully understand the business of parenting. If someone had said that to me before I had kids, I would have been annoyed at him or her. It’s like someone smirking and patting you on the head and saying, “you’ll understand when you’re older.” That’s not what I’m saying; I think I was a fab psychologist before I had kids, I just think I may become a better psychologist now that I’m a mother.**

And since I am loving my new role as a mom and psychologist with parenting street cred, I am on a kick to get all my 30-something educator friends to have babies too. A few weeks ago, I brought Baby B to my Elementary School and told a teacher colleague she should get a baby because they’re so awesome (showing Exhibit B, wearing baby leg warmers and beret). My colleague mused that she was worried she wouldn’t have enough love and energy for both her students and children. Au contraire!*** Having a kid makes your love for students deeper. In my mind, every child is now someone’s baby. Sure, that “baby” may be getting in trouble or making bad decisions, but it makes you more empathetic toward the parents, who are often doing their best with the tools they have.

As a psychologist, I always intellectually understood a parent’s love for a child, but now I can feel it too. It’s an amazing, indescribable feeling. And I truly believe that the experience of motherhood will continue to make me a better psychologist. Now if we can just do something about fitting back into those pre-pregnancy jeans...

*Why do people say, “not to mention…” and then go ahead and mention it? Discuss amongst yourselves.
**Toot! Toot! What’s that? My own horn.
***That is what Baby B said in her head, while wearing beret.

Best of 2011!

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 04:40:00 +0000

It's time for the Year in Review post!

Needless to say, 2011 was a big year for me (and I mean that literally and metaphorically--I was a huge pregnant person for most of the year.) Towards the end of my pregnancy, I was getting that look from people. I know they were thinking: "Should she be out in public? Shouldn't she be in a hospital right now?!?" I know they were thinking that. But in the end, I got a perfect little baby girl, so it was all worth it. I have my very own developmental psychology project (n=1). Really, having a baby is easier than being a school psychologist. Caseload of 1, anyone? In my job, I was pulled in 8 hojillion directions to work with hundreds of students. Now I can focus on just one. It's a dream come true. Oh, and in case anyone is tracking her development, she is not only reaching for desired objects, but trying to move to get them (in 2 out of 5 trials as measured by mama charted records). Just kidding not really.

Once again, my love of writing about Baby B has distracted me from the real point of the post. I love writing the year in review post because I get to reflect on the year in the life of a school psychologist. Only this year, I also got to reflect on how I was too tired to write a lot of posts because I was busy making a person. I always thought about great posts and then I thought a post-work nap would be a better choice for a tired pregnant lady. I reasoned that I would not get many chances to nap at will once the baby was born. I was correct.

So without further ado, here are the best posts of the year (as measured by a weak measure of number of comments). New Year's Ressie for 2012 is to figure out how to read my analytics on feedburner to find the most read posts. That is if I'm not too tired from raising a small person...

January: My musings on the shooting in Tuscon. Not exactly an inspirational post, but isn't it interesting that the media has totally abandoned coverage of mental health issues since then? Now it's just cut cut cut mental health services from schools like nothing happened. Boo.

February: Default winner since I only wrote one post is the one in which I get spit on and then blamed for it by the police. My extreme reaction actually may make more sense now that you know I was pregnant during this episode and was a bit emotional...

March: A classic one in which I dance with a tiger mom.

April: A post about how kids should be like DIY projects.

May: The most commented on post of the year, probably because it was the most controversial. A post about who is best equipped to assess for ADHD

June: Yeah, June was weak. I only wrote one post because I was hot and fat (pregnant). A post on not posting.

July: Here was a post on my dogs, but not really. A post on Banning the L word from kids' vocabularies.

August: It was a tie between a post on my battle with mindfulness and my love of working with students with oppositional behavior.

September: My Labor Day Confession about why I didn't go back to work in the fall. Hint: 9 lbs, 1 oz. Seriously. I told you I was huge. My family is full of small women who make huge babies. It was genes, not ice cream! Sort of.

October: Here was a post on how Halloween messes up assessments.

November/December: Actually, the most commented on post was a contest that required one to make a comment, so I'm gonna go with my favorite instead on Baby Leg Warmers.

There you have it! Here's hoping that 2012 is full of informative, provocative, and useful blog posts. In related news: here's hoping that in 2012 Baby B becomes a longer napper...

SPAW! SPAW!

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:18:00 +0000

I hope you all read the title "SPAW! SPAW!" to the sound effect of a large predatory bird cawing. No? Well I did in my head. SPAW stands for School Psychology Awareness Week, in case anyone was wondering. So, how was your SPAW? I spent mine on maternity leave, making informal Individual Education Plan goals for my baby daughter in my head, as in: "Baby B will reach for a desired object on 4 out of 5 trials as measured by mommy charted records."

Since I was not at work this year for SPAW, I thought I'd do a little recycling for those who haven't been with the blog since 2007, but are too daunted by the hojillion posts to go searching for what the days of a school psychologist are like. Here's a hint: never the same. You never know what will present itself when you walk in your school doors, and chances are, your plans for the day go out the window within the first hour or so. It's what I like about our profession--never a dull moment. So here are some oldies, but goodies, about the day in the life of...moi.

A typical day, full of children trying to run away from me and foreign objects being thrown.

Another day, another quest for a pen and additional time to do my job.

Three days smooshed into one, full of cold pricklies (guns and whatnot) and warm fuzzies (kids making real changes).

Top 10 things I do as a school psychologist

Fuzzy math: why we never have time to do our job

Somebody, hug me. I hate when advocates get unnecessarily saucy in meetings.

And to spice it up with something new, here is a sample of how your friends at the NFtSP Blog Facey Face page spent their SPAW:

Teaching social skills, counseling, and behavior plans.
Sat on teams for inclusion, Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBIS), and "yellow zone" behavior interventions.
Provided parents with the information that they need to ensure that their child receives accommodations when writing SAT and other necessary exams, and when attending post-secondary school.
Giving a questionnaire to fifth graders to assess for the prevalence of bullying at their school.
In my current job I rarely ever test anymore. This week I was schooled on the most effective way to steal cars. (I work in a juvenile jail)
Implementing check-in/check-out program for the district! Oh, and in Response to Intervention (RtI) meetings out the wazoo.
Started a group for 5th grade girls targeting current relational aggression issues
I spent 5 hours of my day today in a student crisis situation...
Created a "Manners Jeopardy" game for our middle school counseling groups... in light of thanksgiving coming up. Doesn't hurt to remind 7th and 8th graders about table manners, conversation manners, etc!
I had a rather humorous counseling session, followed up with the student showing me his sticker chart for good behavior later in the day.
Helped a life skills student conquer his bus phobia with a get on the bus, get off the bus, ride laps around the parking lot with a very patient bus driver yesterday. The kiddo took a mass transit bus to a field trip today and the school bus back.
I attended a full day of training on the iPad. We just got them to use to administer AIMSweb probes to our elementary students (and to have a little fun with!)
Helped a first grade classroom teacher plan a re-entry plan for a student with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) returning to school from a partial hospitalization program
Prepared for and led a middle school team meeting to prepare for the admission of a student with autism and is non-verbal moving to our district from a foreign country at the end of the month. I had requested translated reports and video of the student in his current educational setting from his parents and shared all this with the group today. I told them they were going to do amazing things with this student, who to this point, has not received much in the way of meaningful instruction. And I meant it! They are pumped!
RtI meetings, threat assessment, behavior plans
Wrote 2 behavior plans, manned a school-wide community service project, and managed data and made decisions about students on our Check-in, Check-out Tier II PBIS program.
I have the Michael Franti "Be a Learner" song from third grade Second Step stuck in my head after doing the same lesson in three classrooms. It's catchy!
Provided Grief/Crisis Counseling Support and drove a parent to visit a program for their child.

See, we are more than just testing and IEP machines! Spread the news!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Baby B is at 80% mastery on her IEP goal, as she reached for her Whoozit toy four times today. Genius child.

You Are All Winners. But Only One Gets A Prize.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:35:00 +0000

Last week, I ran a contest to win this fabulous classroom observation app for the iPad. Using a random number generator, the winner is... "JFValerie"! So if you are JFValerie, send me your email at rebecca(at)studentsgrow(dotcom).

Thanks to everyone who participated...I loved reading about your best classroom observation moments! Hope you all are having a fabulous SPAW (School Psychology Awareness Week)!

Little.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:14:00 +0000

I warned you guys that since I’m on maternity leave, posts were going to be a bit baby-o-centric. Today’s post is about baby laundry. But not really.

They say to nap when the baby naps. But I see her naps as my only opportunity to get the laundry done and eat with TWO hands. I am getting rather babydexterous in that department, but it’s just more fun to eat without holding a baby. Today, I was folding the baby laundry when it was done, and I just love how little everything is. Little baby socks! Little baby leg warmers!** Little t-shirt! I die. I love all things little. People are always telling me to enjoy my baby because they grow up so fast. No problem! Do you see that little face? I'm soaking it up all the time. It is true that they grow so fast though. I was initially bummed out when she grew out of her bassinet, but then I got to put her in her crib and voila! she looked super little again. Yes!

My friends know about my love of little. When I moved to Cali with one of my best friends, she was in charge of stopping me from buying little things for the apartment, like mini-spatulas and itty bitty useless cookware. Whenever I showed her such things in the store, she would make me answer the question, “Are you buying that because you need it or because it is little?” Most times, it was because it was little. And little is cute. I would say, "Gah! Fooled by the little again!" and put it back.

This is why it is surprising that for most of my career as a school psychologist, I have worked with middle and high school students. They are decidedly not little, and let’s be honest, not so cute. One would think I’d be a preschool assessor with my preference for little. But there is something awesome about working with the adolescents, even if they can be rude or standoffish.*

I wrote a series on middle school students when I first started my blog. As a sidebar, I think my writing has evolved from then. I used to be super researchy and informative. Now I’m trying desperately to connect baby leg warmers** to school psychology. Anyhoo, my point (I have one, I’m just sleep deprived and it takes me a while now) is that I think people are much less forgiving of adolescents’ developmental mistakes than younger students’ mistakes, because younger students are still cute and little. It is kind of cute when a Kindergartener uses faulty logic to explain their actions, and not so cute when a 13 year old does it.

I find that as a school psychologist, while teens are not little and cute on the outside, when I am working with them one-on-one, I find the cute on the inside. So many times, adolescents have presented as hardened and aloof, and then when I get to know them, they surprise me with saying funny things or sharing a the softer side of Sears (e.g. A 10th grader dressed like a thug sharing he loves poetry, or an 8th grade girl who initially acted snotty to me admitting she wants to be a vet because she loves fuzzy animals). You have to look for the cute in teens, it’s not in your face.

Please remind me of this when Baby B is an adolescent and makes mistakes that are not cute. I have a feeling though that even when she is 16, I will still secretly think of her as my cute little girl, even though she will have long grown out the baby leg warmers.**

*One of my friends teaches 7th grade, and she told me once, “I can’t help it. I love teaching the little bastards. I don't know why.” I wouldn’t have put it in those terms, but I agree that I too love adolescents’ sauciness.

**Baby leg warmers. I die.

Go On, Win Yerself Something Purdy.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:49:00 +0000

I love getting emails from readers, especially when they offer something pretty for my readers. I tend to not pimp out things to buy on my blog, unless it is shamelessly something I wrote, of course. But in this case, you get something freeeeeeeeee and who doesn't like free? You guys don't have to pay $29.99, I give it to you for FREE99.

Enough hooplah. Enter my contest and win an app for tracking behavior during classroom observations! Some momtrepreneurs/school psychs in my home state of Colorado developed this app and wanted to share it with all y'all:
The Behavior Lens app. The app has four observation types: Interval Recording, Duration, Frequency, and ABC. The look and design is very sleek and sophisticated, yet extremely intuitive and easy to use. The best part is that it automatically generates graphs from your data which can be easily shared with parents and teachers through email or attaching them to documents.

Now, of course you have to be fancy and have an iPad to use it. I am still sans iPad, and I do think people kind of rub it in my face when their emails end with "Sent from my iPad," but who am I not to share the iPad app love?

So how do you enter the contest? You can enter in one of three ways (or all three!)

1) Write a comment at the end of the post telling a story about the craziest or most inspiring thing you have ever observed in a classroom (don't use names or identifying info, please!)

2) Pick your favorite post on NFtSP about behavior and share it on Facey Face or Twitter. Use the button at the end of the post. Be sure to tag @Notes from the School Psychologist Blog (Facebook) or @studentsgrow (Twitter) so I will be able to see who re-posted it.

3) If you aren't already a fan of the blog on Facey Face or Twitter, sign up and then return here and post a comment that you are signed up.

I will then put your names in a numbered list and use a random number generator to pick the winner. I will announce the winner of the app on the blog. The app is valued at $29.99 so go forth and enter! Or...is it actually priceless because you get to show a fancy graph on your iPad at IEP meetings? So jealous.

My Favorite Halloween Game.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:25:00 +0000

I have this game I play whenever I’m testing students around Halloween. It’s called “Halloween or Emotional Disturbance?”* Around this time of year, when I ask students to draw for me, I often get some pretty disturbing stuff—zombies eating people, ghosts, headless horsemen—and it begs the question, “Is the child emotionally disturbed or just thinking about Halloween?” I was reminded of this problem in assessment when a friend of mine posted this picture on her Facebook and asked, “Should I be concerned?!?”

She of course was not concerned because she knew her little treasure was going to be a vampire for Halloween. Yes, yes, that makes a difference in context. Now if her kiddo made that drawing on a random Tuesday in March, it would be a different story, no?

I have a memorable assessment from last Halloween time to illustrate the point…I was walking this kiddo to the testing room, when I spotted a huge spider web and a spider was chilling in the middle. I am not a huge spider fan, but I do anthropomorphize every spider into being that nice spider from Charlotte’s Web, so I said, “Oh look! That spider made us a web for Halloween!” The child turned to look at the spider’s web and then started spitting on the spider, yelling “Die! Die! Die you mother*#(%#@!” Whoa. I did not see that coming. Later, when I asked him to draw a picture of a person, he drew a vampire with a machine gun, blasting all the spiders in the world. Soooooo, you’re not a fan of spiders, eh?

Kids’ drawings are awesome. They are one of my favorite parts of the assessment process. Aside from the comorbidity of creepy drawings and Halloween, drawings can reveal a lot about our students. I especially love the Kinetic School Drawing, which is basically a way to see how the kid feels about school. You just ask them to draw a picture of themselves at school at any time of day and see what they come up with. I wish I had kept this drawing of this 10th grade student I was assessing for ADHD (who later cornered me on the streets of SF with his pack of friends yelling, “Hey, that’s the lady that put me in special ed! Thanks lady, special ed is way easier!”). His drawing was a cartoon-style sequence of him getting in trouble (“Here’s where my pencil accidently flies out the window, then here is me getting kicked out, and here’s me going down the stairs to the dean’s office, and here’s the dean saying to get a pass, and here’s me going back up the stairs, and here’s the teacher saying I can’t go back to class without a pass, and here’s me going back to the dean’s office…”).

Another kiddo who I was assessing for Asperger’s syndrome drew the most literal interpretation of the drawing I’ve ever seen. He started drawing every facet of the school building, including the irrigation system out front. When I asked him to draw a picture of himself in the drawing, as if I had a camera and took a picture of him at school, he drew a picture of me jumping out of a locker with a camera, taking his picture. HA! I love it.

My absolute favorite drawing was actually of me (not a Me-Monster story, I promise). The kid was 6 years old and in a school for students with emotional disturbance. The kid hated testing so much, it was torture to get anything done. After daaaaaays of trying to get something out of the guy, I finally asked him to draw a picture and tell me a story. He drew this monsterously fat and ugly person and said, “This is Dr. Fat, no I mean, Dr. B. She was a horrible fat person who made kids do stuff. She has a timer and her pencils and a monster ate her.” Soooooo, how do you feel about testing, little buddy?

So, as you go forth and test students on Monday on Halloween, look out for ghosts, goblins, spiders, and creepy drawings! You might also want to look out for REDRUM as the answer on a spelling test. Now that's a scary reversal...

*My friends and I also played a related game around Halloween when we were in grad school at Berkeley called “Normal dress or Halloween costume?” So, when a cloaked man entered the “Games of Berkeley” store, was he normally dressed for his fantasy board game club, or was it a Halloween costume? Is that a hippie costume or an actual hippie?

Bullied.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:48:00 +0000

I just received a threatening email from Amazon Kindle. They (the royal “they”) said they noticed I hadn’t posted in over 30 days and they threatened to cancel my Kindle account where people can subscribe to my blog. Apparently customers want to read posts. Humph! Don’t they know that I am trying to raise a tiny person? I’m kind of busy. But I do suppose it is time to get back on the blogging wagon, and it is Bullying Prevention Month, so ironically, I’ve been bullied back on the blogging scene.* And yes, I realize there are only 4 days left of Bullying Prevention Month. For anyone who thinks “I can always work from home when the baby sleeps!” I laugh in your naïve face. I said that before I had a baby and I laugh at my own naïve pre-baby face. But I digress...

I am glad that bullying is becoming an issue that educators are taking on. I endorse prevention programs and intervening early when bullying behavior is discovered. I especially like how school psychologists can take on a preventive role in the creation of a positive school climate. A recent poll of the fabulous folks on my Facey Face page showed that school psychologists are active and involved in the prevention of bullying. A few resources they shared for you to check out:

• National Bullying Prevention Center
• Cruel’s Not Cool
• Teaching Tolerance Website
• Second Step Social Emotional Skills Program

I find that my role in the schools when it comes to bullying prevention actually sadly tends not to be in the prevention area, but in the psychological cleanup and intervention area. I have the distraught student in my office, who finally admits she is sad because she is relentlessly teased. I get the iChats emailed to me by parents to prove their child is being cyber bullied. I get the middle of the night emails from parents worrying their child is being bullied, and requesting a meeting. I get bombarded in the mornings before school starts to talk about bullying. And yes, I even got a parent showing me her secret iPhone video of her daughter being excluded on the playground. It seems like the bullying awareness campaigns at my schools are working.

I am glad that bullying is no longer being written off as a developmentally appropriate “kids can be cruel, what are you going to do?” kind of thing. The problem is, we have gotten so good at raising awareness, but we really haven’t taught the students (or adults for that matter) what to do once we see bullying behavior. By the way, I usually use the term “bullying behavior” instead of “bully” because bullying dynamics are really complex. I have seen kids be the "victim" one day and the "bully" the next.

Addressing bullying on the individual level is hard, especially since much of the behavior is hidden or underground, and there is typically a “he-said she-said” quality to the conflict. How we respond to bullying behavior is really important. While we can’t ignore it, we also can’t jump in and try to solve all of kids’ interpersonal problems for them. Sometimes, when we intervene, we even give lame advice (see: My Words Taste Yucky, by yours truly).

We also need to be careful not to see “bullying” under every single interpersonal conflict. In some of my schools, it has become a catchall for all negative peer interactions. Unfriendly look in the hall? Parent meeting about relational aggression. Child not invited to play tetherball? Request for anti-bullying intervention. During fantasy play, one child pretends to kill off another child’s unicorn? Two hour meeting with parents and students.**

Please don’t get it twisted. I’m not saying to ignore bullying behavior. Chances are, if its reached the level of involving you as a school psychologist, it’s serious, or at least the subjective experience for the student is that it's serious. As school psychologists, we must treat each incident brought to our attention as “bullying” seriously, but also not jump in when it’s not necessary. The problem is, it is hard to tell in advance how serious an incident is. One incident could be the tip of the unicorn’s horn, or it could just be kids playing make believe and having normal conflict. I remember one kid who reported to his teacher that he was being bullied and was scared and she wrote it off as him being “sensitive” and then the next day another student brought a knife to school and threatened him in the bathroom.

So while we can’t jump to intervene at every peer conflict, we should listen to kids when they report bullying behavior. It’s a unspoken challenge for school psychologists to decide what requires individual intervention. That is why I'm a huge fan of prevention programs that teach actual skills to kids, rather than waiting until there is a school culture of bullying behavior that requires a ton of individual intervention.

Now, the real truth about how I feel about bullying will come out, from a new mom’s perspective. If Baby B grows up and someone is mean to her, I like to think I would gently coach her to deal with peer conflicts, and only intervene if necessary, like I do with my students. I like to think I would calmly alert the school to the incident and trust them to handle it. But it’s equally possible that I might just do the same thing as the parents I work with and flip out and call an emergency meeting. I might even turn all Mama Bear protective and demand a school-wide anti-bullying intervention, I don’t know. I just know that when I look at my baby girl, I want to protect her from all things mean. It’s unrealistic, but it’s totally different when you are the parent. This may be the beginning of a series of posts entitled: “Things I recommend to parents as a school psychologist that would be way harder if it were my own child.” I think I’ve figured out a way to be a secret mommy blogger with that series of posts…

*By the way, it takes every fiber of my being not to turn into a mommy blogger. I mean, who doesn’t want to hear about Baby B’s latest developmental milestones? Posts about her visually tracking objects and crossing midline, orienting toward sound, and reaching for objects have broad appeal, right?

**I am not making this up. Happened to a school psych friend of mine. I asked him if his advice was to teach the other kid to make believe their unicorn had a protection spell from all harm. It wasn’t. It should have been.

“Labor” Day Confession—Why I Didn’t Go Back to School This Year

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:16:00 +0000

I have a confession. I didn’t go back to work as a school psychologist in the public schools this year.

You may or may not have noticed an absence of back to school posts and tweets and Facey Face posts about how the school year has gone so far. No Kindergarten quotes of the day, no status updates or posts about vermin in my office, no posts about cute attacks in the Kinder class, nothing. In fact, you maybe noticed a general drop off in posts over the past, oh, 9 months…

That is because I was busy making a person! Who knew making a person with your body could be so exhausting? (Besides anyone who has been pregnant before). This was my first, so it was all new for me. I mean, wow. It really wears a gal out. It turns out that blogging is the last thing on one’s mind after working AND making a person all day. I am fairly proud of myself for posting anything at all last semester! During my pregnancy, while I didn't enjoy the fatigue and weird comments adults would make about my weight (e.g. "Whoa! There's a 3000 lb weight limit on this elevator, you might want to take the next one!" or "Are you sure there's only ONE in there?" and "Hey, Fatty! Waddle waddle!"), I did enjoy the comments made about my pregnancy by the kiddos...

• A 2nd grader and I were playing a board game and she gave me two turns because I was “playing for two people.” Cute attack.
• Around month 5, a kiddo asked me if my baby had a head yet.
• A teenager I was working with told me I should name my baby “Aquafina.” I think she was inspired by my water bottle in my office.
• A teenage boy said, “Ooh! Having a baby is gonna hurt, you should get high before you go into labor, that’s what my mom did!” Um, pass.
• A first grader shushed the whole class when I entered the room and said, “Shhhh you guys, the baby can hear you!”
• Every day in my last trimester, as I waddled into my school, a kindergartener asked, “Have you had it yet???” (clearly not!) and worse yet, “How did it get in there?” Um, ask your mom…
• A kindergartener eyed my giant belly suspiciously and asked, “What happened there???
• And finally, as I waddled into a classroom in June, looking humungous, a 7th grade boy said, “Dude. It is so messed up that they are making you work still!” Amen, little brother!

After spending most of the school year preggers, my due date was three days after I was supposed to report back to work this fall. I had my baby girl two weeks ago, on the first day of school.* Sure, I’m totally biased, but I think Baby B is perfect. I just stare at her all day (and at night, every two hours) and marvel that I made a tiny person. It's my greatest accomplishment to date.

It is quite strange to not be back at school though. I must forewarn you, I will not have any amazing material or stories to share with you for a while (unless you want to hear about diaper changes, sleep training, and my baby's sensorimotor development?). I will count on you all to keep the torch alive on the Facey Face page by sharing with everyone how back to school has been, and posting intriguing questions for the group to comment on. I will join you in the fun in a few months!

Oh, and Happy "Labor" Day! Get it? Labor? Oh, never mind, its the sleep deprivation, I think I'm being clever.

*Hey, fun fact about having a baby: Natural childbirth is no joke. I had the baby in Berkeley, and felt a bit of peer pressure to go natural (not like, a home birth with a doula/lotus flower bath natural, but like no drugs natural). After the birth, I told my husband, “Oh, look at our precious only child!” But only 2 weeks later, I have labor amnesia and could have a whole litter of newborns, and just stare at their tiny hands and button noses all day and night.

My One-Woman Fight to Call It Something Else.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:28:00 +0000

It’s back to school “professional development” time! In my district, we call them “PD Days” and in my mind, every time, I call them P. Diddy Days because if you say PD Days fast, that’s what it sounds like. I only wish we were learning how to be the richest figures in hip hop. That would be entertaining. You see, after 10 years in the profession, I have to say, I typically am disappointed in professional development activities. I usually pull out a few gems here and there, but it is rare to have a P. Diddy Day totally rock my educational and psychological world with new ideas.

UNTIL… (anticipation builds)

I went to the Ross Greene Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS)* conference, which is a model for understanding and helping kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. Ross Greene, for those who don’t know, is a psychologist who has written the books The Explosive Child and Lost at School and developed a non-profit organization called Lives in the Balance. The website (and the book Lost at School) are both excellent resources that can explain the model far better than I can. But let me give you the gist:

• Kids do well if they can. If they are not doing well, the traditional framework is that they are not motivated to do well, and we as educators and psychologists need to find the proper rewards and consequences to motivate them. Sounds a lot like every behavior support plan I’ve written—we usually frame the behavior as resulting from the kid getting something or getting out of something. This is faulty reasoning because doing well is always preferable to not doing well. I mean, why would a kid really be motivated to do poorly?

• Challenging behavior in kids is best understood as the result of lagging cognitive skills (in the general domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving) rather than as the result of low motivation or passive, permissive, and non-contingent parenting. The best way to reduce challenging episodes is by collaboratively solving the problem, rather than imposing adult will. This helps explain why we have what one of my administrator calls “frequent flyers” to the office for discipline referrals. If imposing adult will (e.g. rewards and punishments) was going to work with challenging kids, then why is the kid being sent to the office every day? We are doing the same thing over and over, and not teaching the kid the problem-solving skills to change his or her challenging behavior.

• Imposing adult will or trying to correct the behavior through rewards and punishments is considered “Plan A.” It is the predominant model in most schools, and the model we were probably all trained on in doing functional behavioral analysis and behavior support plans. But if we continue to try to solve the behavior problem unilaterally, we will continue to see the same poor results.

• In Collaborative Problem Solving, we move toward a collaborative endeavor with the student to solve the problem(s) in a model called “Plan B.” Plan B starts with the understanding that problem behavior comes from lagging skills, not lagging motivation. The book and the website (especially the great little video models) goes into the components of Plan B in depth, and in your free time, I highly suggest you check them out. In essence, you go through a few stages with the child—empathy, defining the problem, and inviting the child to come up with a collaborative solution.

Since going to the conference on Co-Pro-So*, I have totally changed the way I consult about and frame discussions about kids with challenging behaviors. I have changed the way I interact with students. Here’s just one example of a technique that I got from the conference, called “tabling.” It is used in the Plan B “Empathy” step, to really try to understand the student’s perspective of the unsolved problem. In the case of my student, it was a middle school girl who refused to write during journal time. We had set up a behavior plan in which she got points for doing the journal and the points were tallied and sent home to parents, etc etc, and there was no change in her behavior. After the conference and my new framework for understanding the problem, I interviewed her:

Me: I notice that during journal time, you are not writing. What’s up? I’m not mad, I’m just noticing this.

Girl: I don’t know.

Me: Hm. What do you think is the reason if you had to guess?

Girl: I don’t have pencils.

Me: Great! So lets say your teacher went to Office Depot and got you tons of pencils. Then would you write during journal time? [note: here is the “tabling” part—you table their first reason, because its usually not the only thing going on]

Girl: No.

Me: What else is getting in your way of writing?

Girl: It’s too noisy because my friends distract me.

Me: Okay, great! So lets say you have all your pencils and all your friends are absent from school one day. Then would you write? [table each idea]

Girl: No.

Me: Okay, what else is keeping you from writing?

Girl: I don’t like it [okay, this went on and on for about 10 minutes, and we tabled other ideas too, like she doesn’t like writing fiction, she doesn’t have paper, the room is too hot…and so on and so on. We finally got to the “aha!” moment at the end]

Me: Okay, so lets say you had pencils and paper, all your friends have the flu, you get to write non-fiction, and the room is 68 degrees, then would you write at journal time?

Girl: No, because the teacher has us read what we wrote out loud and my heart starts to beat fast and I think everyone is looking at me and that they all are thinking I’m a bad writer.

AHA. So if we had continued down our current theory that she had a lack of motivation, she would have likely continued to balk at writing, because it wasn’t a motivation issue at all. It was a performance anxiety issue, and the lagging skill was her actual writing skills, or she wasn’t confident in her writing skills, or she was not able to regulate her anxiety about presenting her work. This changes the intervention, right? We teach writing skills and coping skills for anxiety.

This is why I heart Co-Pro-So. I swear, if you have the chance, go to the trainings. If you don’t, then go to the website and learn more. It may not change your life as a school psychologist, teacher, or parent working with a student with challenging behavior, but it may just be another great tool to have fresh in your mind as you begin another school year.

Oh, and have fun at your P. Diddies this week. Do post what you’ve learned on the NFtSP Facey Face Page for all to enjoy!

*Herein lies my only issue with the model. I hate that the shortened version of it is called “CPS” because it reminds me of Child Protective Services. Therefore, I am on the one woman fight to get Ross Greene and others to call Collaborative Problem Solving “Co- Pro- So” Instead. It sounds like a trendy neighborhood in New York. Please start referring to it as such. Join my one-woman fight.

Mindfulness. So Hot Right Now.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:57:00 +0000

I am not a trendsetter. I am a reluctant, late adopter of newfangled technology, and I want to see the research before I try something with my students. True, in the tech realm, I have had a blog for over four years, which in blog life, is kind of long, but it's because my trendsetter friend, Jennifer, encouraged me to start it. I was late to join Facebook because I thought it was like MySpace, and thought MySpace was dumb and basically just for tweens and bands. My bestie, Kendra, encouraged me to join Facey Face and I can't believe I resisted so long. I even copied the trends of Mrs. Mimi of It's Not All Flowers and Sausages Blog by starting a Facebook page, twitter page, and Amazon.com links for my blog. If we weren't Internet BFFs, she might say, "Seriously. Stop copying me."

Now, I come to you with my latest reluctance that I know is supported by research, and is so hot right now, but I can't find myself jumping on board to use it: mindfulness. In essence, mindfulness is a practice in which we teach students (and adults for that matter) to be aware, present in the moment, and non-judgmental through a variety of techniques (e.g. deep breathing, meditation, visualization, etc.) I'm sure there's more to it, but like I said, I'm not that into it. I do know that research is emerging that mindfulness techniques have been shown to reduce stress and increase positive feelings. I am totally on board in theory, but when I try it myself, I am mindful of how lame it seems. I just don't feel happier or more centered listening to a Tibetan singing bowl's vibrations or really feeeeeeling what it's like to wash my hands (seriously, it was a "tip" at a conference to be really aware of the sensation of having soap trickle off your hands when you are washing them).

But I can't run from mindfulness practice anymore. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, after all. It infiltrates my life. For example, the last several professional developments in my school district have had mindfulness themes. We listened to drums, singing bowls, did deep breathing, and visualization exercises. I was only mindful of how friggin' hot it was in the room and started making my mental to-do list instead of feeeeeeling my brain waves align with the drums. You can't blame me for not trying. I tried Tae Kwon Do, which is all about eastern patience and such. I quit it though because it didn't move fast enough for me (what? after a month I just get a black mark on my white belt? I just kicked a board! Upgrade me to a yellow belt, at least!). I also tried yoga, and after 30 minutes of listening to the Aboriginal didgeridoo in child's pose, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and never returned. Next pose! Next pose! Let's keep it moving, people.

Sigh. Perhaps this is the very reason I need mindfulness meditation?

I shouldn't deny the children the benefit of mindfulness though, right? So last school year, I went out and bought a deck of mindfulness cards and plopped them on my desk for kids to choose from if they wanted to. One day, after getting kicked out of class for laughing hysterically for no reason, a middle school girl came to my office and took the mindfulness bait. Together, for 30 minutes, we went through several of the mindfulness cards together. She went from hysterical to calm and at the end of our session said, "I feel like myself again" and skipped off to class. She did fine the rest of the day. Now I realize this is a sample size of 1, but I may, just may dust those cards off for this year too. I may not be down with alternate nostril breathing and imagining my heart is a flower, but I can't deny that there's something to this mindfulness practice for some students.

Namaste.

Pulling Your Weight.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 18:23:00 +0000

I have a confession, which long time readers will already know. I can’t stand icebreakers. It dates back to college when I joined a million clubs to bulk up my resume for graduate school* and every single group had the stupidest ice breakers (e.g. what is your favorite scab or scar?). Gross. But in education, we just love the ice breaker, so each year as I gear up for back to school meetings, I gear up for ice breakers.

I also do not care for the forced team-building activities, like untangling the human knot or doing a ropes course (or, for that matter, going to hippie education conferences with interpretive dance, labyrinths, and sacred objects**). Perhaps it says something deeper that I really don’t want to do a “trust fall” with people I just met? In any event, I think unstructured team building with the theme of “let’s eat this food and talk” is better.

A few years ago, I was asked to go on a team building 20-person kayak situation for one of my schools. The symbolism was so great, I couldn’t turn it down. I mean, 20 people working together for one goal? It could be a motivational poster. What would it look like if the school psychologist declined to be part of a synchronized, effective team of educators? Plus, it was better to be outside in nature than in a stuffy hot professional development room talking about writing rubrics.

It was a disaster for me, psychologically speaking.

We had our practice session in the morning, where we all got on indoor stationary kayaks. I can be competitive from time to time, so I was there, trying to go faster than everyone else, making the strongest whooshing sound and getting the most rotations per minute. The coach reminded me that the objective was to all row together. Fine. So I slowed down and we got in a rhythm, rowing together (symbolizing shared work load, common goals, and something else).

We finally made it out on the water. We were ready. Our multidisciplinary team of cohesiveness was ready to set sail on a new school year. (why isn’t there a sarcastic font? I’m going to invent that). Anyhoo, it started out pretty shaky, and the instructor started guiding us with her words (pull, bend, release, pull bend release) and 19 out of the 20 staff got it. The one who didn’t was right in front of me. No matter what the instructor said, she was totally off and she didn’t even realize it. I found myself getting super annoyed at her. I reminded myself about learning curves, and tried to focus on keeping time with the others. But she was distracting me with her inefficiency. I started to superimpose thoughts about her performance as an educator on to her performance as a rower. She doesn’t pull her weight! She's holding back the whole team! I know! It’s not cool, but I couldn’t help myself. I was thinking in metaphors all morning and I couldn’t stop.

Fast forward a few years. She was still struggling as an educator (I can't speak for her improvement in water sports). She seemed impervious to suggestions, coaching, modeling, peer support, anything. Her classroom was so chaotic, I had difficulties being in there for more than 5 minutes. Then, in her fourth year, things began to click for her. She turned a corner in her learning and seemed to get in her rhythm.

I have never been a teacher, so I can’t say what a normal learning curve is for getting in the rhythm. I just know that during this year’s ice breakin’ team buildin' time, my New School Year’s Resolution is to be more patient and understanding of those who are still navigating those bumpy first few years waves. I know if someone had put me under a microscope in the first few years of my practice as a school psychologist, they would have likely been annoyed at my incompetence. Thankfully, I stayed the course and rode the waves of my learning curves-—now I’m sailing away, with my course charted and…oh forget it. I’ve filled up my metaphor quota for the year.

* If you can get your hands on a PsiChi Psychology Honor’s Society recruitment video, circa 1998, you will see me with ugly hair and bad acting trying to promote membership.

**I had forgotten to bring a “sacred object” to this educational conference, so 2 minutes before the “ceremony,” I rummaged through my car and found my coffee mug. I looked shallow and weird as I described how important coffee was in my life as an educator, and the next girl brought an amethyst necklace that was given to her by her grandmother, a teacher for 45 zillion years or something.

Back to School Readiness—For Kindergarteners (and Educators!)

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:57:00 +0000

I recently posted on the NFtSP Facey Face page that I thought it was bit premature to see Back to School advertisements in July. To my horror, many people responded that their report back to work days were in early August. Yikes!

Perhaps because our district tortured the children into Bikram-hot learning through late June, we don’t report back for another few weeks. Mind you, August is often spent having my own internal "I’m-ready-I’m-so-not-ready-to-go-back" ping-pong battle in my mind. August is typically educator purgatory in that you are finally relaxed but there’s this nagging feeling it’s all coming to an end soon (insert collective tiny violin playing from people with jobs that only allow two weeks a year of vacay). I don’t need to tell educators that when you are instrumental in shaping the young minds of the future, you need the summer to recharge for that kind of societal pressure. I see your tiny violin, traditional workers, and I raise you a symphony of miniature violins that you aren't responsible for whether or not future generations can get along with each other and be educated, well-rounded lifetime learners.

Anyhoo…I digress. The real point of today's post is back-to-school readiness. Today, I was taking one of my daily walks with my lazy dogs and I ran into a neighbor who is sending her little one to Kindergarten this year. She was asking for advice about the transition, wondering if he was “ready.” So, I thought I’d whip up a little list for parents of activities and routines they can build into their schedules in August to prepare. If anyone else has suggestions for Kindergarten parents sending their little ones for the first time, feel free to add them in the comments section.

Tips for Transition to Kindergarten

1) Get into a “Kindergarten Routine” in the month leading up to Kindergarten entry. This means establishing a morning routine, an evening routine, and a bedtime routine.

2) Assess your morning routine: How similar is your current routine from the Kindergarten program your child will be entering? Are you already in a Pre-K program that is 5 days a week, from 8:00-2:30? Is your child entering a morning Kindergarten program and you have been going to afternoon Preschool? The more similar your routine is now, the easier the transition. If your child is unaccustomed to getting up and being ready by 8am, and their new Kindergarten starts at 8, start practicing being ready by that time now.

3) Evening routine: Even in Kindergarten, your child will begin to have homework if they are in a traditional program.* It is important to begin establishing a “Homework Time” in your evening routine, separate from the “bath-book-bed” routine. Since they will have homework the rest of their school careers, explore when works for your family (e.g. After dinner, before bath? After school before dinner?). During that time, you can play a game that involves sharing or turn-taking, or if you really want to, buy a Preschool workbook and do one page together. The game may be better than the worksheets though, because it reinforces social skills of losing gracefully, not cheating, taking turns, etc. They will get plenty of worksheets in their school careers.

4) Bedtime routine: Have a consistent bedtime, and think about how your child will probably not be having naps in a traditional Kindergarten. If you haven’t already, wean them off naps in the summer time (I know, it’s not fun, but it will help in the long run).

5) Self-Help Skills: There is no potty training in Kindergarten. Wiping is important. No one will wipe your child’s tush in Kindergarten. Also, teach your child how to zip, button, and tie/Velcro (added bonus, improving fine motor skills). Teach “practical life skills” like pouring, opening food containers and drink boxes, etc.

6) Anticipatory Guidance for you and your child: About a month before entry, read getting ready for Kindergarten books (e.g. Mrs. Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, Kindergarten Rocks!, The Night before Kindergarten). Also, know that your child may “fall apart” at home for the first 2-3 months of Kindergarten, and this is typical, especially for kids unaccustomed to long days of instruction. They hold it together all day and then when they come home, they lose it. Acknowledge that you see how hard they are working to be a student all day.

7) Reinforce Reading Readiness: If your child went to a play-based preschool and didn’t get much exposure to pre-reading skills, don’t worry. Reading is supposed to be taught in early elementary. It’s harder to teach social skills and behavioral control skills to a kid who is reading than it is to teach reading to a kid with lagging social skills and behavioral control. Remember, kids have to be able to listen to the teacher and control impulses in order to profit from instruction!

You can reinforce reading skills at home by developing print awareness, playing simple phonetic awareness games, and practicing reading comprehension skills during story time:

• Point out environmental print (e.g. stop signs, names of businesses, menus)
• Point out that print occurs on different surfaces (paper, computer screens, billboards, books, iPads) and make a distinction between pictures and print.
• When you read, put your finger on each word you are reading, so they can make a connection that print corresponds to speech.
• Read nursery rhymes, sing songs, and clap along with the rhythm.
• Play games with words that sound alike as you experience them in everyday life (e.g. We’re passing Mike’s Bikes, that’s a funny name because they sound alike!)
• Demonstrate how sounds blend together in familiar words (e.g. Let’s sign your name on Grandma’s card, T-o-m --- Tom)
• Play a game where the goal is to find objects with names that begin with a certain initial sound. This is a great game for walks or car rides.
• Play clapping games and clap with each distinct sounds (e.g. “C-a-t is a three clap word; so is fam-i-ly”)
• Practice attention to stories by reading short stories, high interest books, and reading the same favorites over and over
• Connect stories and titles by predicting the story from the title. Ask your child to make predictions about stories and follow simple plots by asking questions while reading (“What’s going to happen now?”)
• Allow children to retell stories

One final note about readiness: As a school psychologist, I often console “criers” on the first day of Kindergarten. It’s about equal whether I am consoling a parent or a Kindergartner! Your child will take your cues too. If you are emotional and crying as they enter the class, they will tend to be emotional and turn into little barnacles you have to pry off your leg. Model calmness and a positive attitude! Also, don’t be surprised if they are fine the first day and then after a few days or weeks, they start to have difficulties. If I could interpret their tears on days 3 or 4, they would probably be, “OMG, I have to keep coming back every day???” They will get used to it. If the transition difficulties are ongoing, consult with your child’s teacher or the school psychologist.

Oh, and its worth noting for all you educators and school psychologists going back to work this month (or very soon!) that you may want to start weaning yourself off of naps and getting back in a regular schedule too! Here are some tips for educators making that transition back to work from the archives. Of these tips, I find B2S shopping to be the most therapeutic. ;)

*Kindergarten seems to be the new 1st grade, so it may be more academics than you anticipate. I think this is why there are kids rolling around on the rug during whole group lessons and kids start resisting pencil-paper work—they’re not always developmentally ready for it. The main skills I would hope they learn in Kinder are all social-emotional (e.g. following rules, playing well with others, working independently with supervision). But that’s a soap box speech for another time.

Lazy Dogs…and Children?

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:01:00 +0000

I don’t know why I continually find myself writing about my dogs over summer break. But it has been a while since I had to use my “children aren’t dogs” disclaimer, so I thought I’d dust it off for olde timey’s sake.*

Since I’m home now, being a lady of leisure, I have had the chance to observe my dogs closely. I used to feel badly about leaving them all day for work, but it turns out they actually just sleep all day. This morning, I thought I’d be a good puppy mama and take them on a walk, and I got out the leash for my greyhound, and he didn’t even get up off the couch. I called to him, and he closed his eyes, as if to say, “Please. I’m sleeping in.” This dog is LAZY. In fact, greyhounds are nicknamed “the 45 mile an hour couch potato” because they are really lazy animals. I guess they are storing up for the big sprint, but still, what dog doesn’t want to go on a walk? I used to be alarmed by his lethargy. I even took him to the vet once because I thought something was wrong with him (clinical depression? Thyroid problem?) , and after $300 of lab tests, the diagnosis? Greyhound. Awesome.

I only bring this up my lazy dog because a) he’s right next to me, being lazy, and I’m out of school so what else can I write about? And b) because it burns my soul when kids, parents, or teachers use the word “lazy” to describe a student. To me, the word lazy is used not as a transient state of being (see Bruno Mars’ “Lazy Song” for detail--Today I don't feel like doing anything), but it is often used as a personality or character trait in a student. It kills me when kids describe themselves as lazy in school, as it suggests the whole problem is a motivation or personality issue.

I was working with this teenager a while back who ended up having a pretty severe language-based learning disability that had gone undiagnosed until high school. During the social-emotional section of the testing, I asked him if he had one wish, what would it be. He said, “To not be lazy. I’m super lazy.” *soul burns* I ended up asking him, “Were you born lazy?”** and he laughed and said, “No.” I took it a step further. “When you were a toddler, did you sit around on the couch and not do anything?” He laughed again and said, “I don’t think so!” So I asked, “When did being lazy start for you?” He then really opened up and said that it started in 5th grade when school work got “really hard and they moved too fast.” He went on to explain he ended up not studying because he felt he couldn’t learn anyway.

I had my “aha moment” and so did he—it wasn’t that he was personally a lazy person, it was that he was struggling with his learning disability and didn’t have the tools or support to push through it, so he avoided studying. I sealed the deal: “So if you were a lazy person, would you have just spent the past 3 hours doing really hard tests with me and not giving up, so we can figure out how you learn best?” He said, “I guess not. Can I go now?” I will take that as a teenager version of a resounding, “you are right.”

*Dogs are not children, and children are not dogs. See Psychologist vs. Puppy for more information.

**I love this question. It can be adapted for all things. Were you born hating school? Were you born hating math? Were you born being angry at your parents? You can really start to pinpoint when attitudes and feelings about things started for students. I tip my hat to Ross Greene, of the Collaborative Problem Solving model for this one. It’s a gem.

Yes, I Still Have a Blog.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:46:00 +0000

Friends,

I have been going down a shame-spiral for not posting lately! The weather is hotter, the kids are crazier, and yes, I am STILL working in the school district even though the official first day of summer was yesterday. I spent yesterday in a room that had a temperature roughly the same as the surface of the sun doing professional development.

The previous weeks were full of trying to tie therapy bows on all my counseling kiddos (FAIL) and finishing up assessments with kids who wanted to be there as much as I did. I also got a few crises thrown in the mix, because we just can't hold it together in June, can we? Sigh.

Soon, friends. Soon I will be able to start the summer recharging process...will this be the summer I actually meet my goal of learning how to reupholster vintage furniture? Will I write meaningful blog posts again? Will I finally learn how to post resources on my blog for people to download, like I've been wanting to for 4 years? Stay tuned...

One thing I can say I have been doing regularly (not posting, clearly) is keeping up with the Notes From the School Psychologist Faceyface Page. I am loving the dialogue and tips from people across the country. Also, loving the commiseration of folks who are making up snow days right now and feel my pain. Come join the awesomeness.

I should also note that I am on twitter too, and if you follow me, I promise you I don't tweet what I had for breakfast and stuff. Mostly I re-tweet interesting articles every week or so. And yes, articles on the Onion count as articles.

Pay Attention.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sun, 08 May 2011 16:46:00 +0000

Lately, I find myself giving the same speech. It takes me a while to get the language right in explaining difficult concepts about child development, so when I do, I like to make it count and use my new speech whenever possible (apologies to people who attend meetings with me on a regular basis and get to hear me say the same thing). Anyhoo, I think my latest speech/analogy is a fairly decent one, so I will share it with you.

At my school sites, I have been getting a lot of requests for assessment for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) that sound a little like this: “So and so is inattentive and hyper. Does she have ADHD?” It’s a legitimate question, but it is not an easy answer. As in previous posts, like the one where I went to a Circus School to assess a student for ADHD (true story), ADHD is a complex assessment. Especially if you yourself are distracted by trapeze artists during your “school observation.” But I digress.

My new speech/analogy is:

“Attention is the ‘fatigue’ of the psychology field.”

Here is what I mean by that. I want you to imagine you have fatigue and you go to your doctor and say, “Doc, I have fatigue. Do I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?” The doctor (if they are any good, of course) would have to investigate all the potential causes for fatigue before concluding anything. Offhand, (and I’m not that kind of doctor), I can think of about a hojillion reasons for fatigue besides Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: the flu, cancer, pregnancy, working in a school district, depression, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, anemia, seizure disorders, poor sleep…..and it goes on and on. “Fatigue” is a non-specific symptom.

The same is true for attention. Offhand, the “causes” of inattention can be: (um, all medical conditions above), ADHD, difficulties focusing because of a learning disability, anxiety, depression, low IQ, high IQ, autism, social-emotional distraction, situational factors, psychosis…..and it goes on and on. So, when people ask me if I will “test for ADHD”, they are really asking me to test for everything else as well. I enjoy ADHD evaluations. I feel like a detective looking for clues and hitting a bunch of dead ends until I get to the bottom of the inattention symptoms.

That is why it burns my soul just a little bit when I get reports from outside professionals who give one rating scale to the parent, and if it is elevated in attention problems, they get the diagnosis. They don’t interview the teachers, they don’t observe the kid at school, and they don’t rule out the other causes of ADHD-like symptoms. Really, it gives “my people” a bad name to do an incomplete evaluation like that.

Second pet peeve about ADHD evaluations is when a doctor then “prescribes” an IEP or Section 504 plan based on their results, without seeing if the inattention is really having an educational impact that requires special education or accommodations. I have had students with ADHD on the honor roll, earning all As and Bs, and the outside professional recommends an IEP. I always wonder what service they think the kid needs. Then I have a fantasy of calling them up and telling them what psychopharmacological medications to prescribe. Because you know, if they’re going to tell me what to do in my school without knowing what their talking about, surely I can pretend I’m a medical professional and tell them what to do. It’s only fair.

I realize that doctors and outside professionals are only trying to help. But I think that school psychologists are the ones best equipped to assess for ADHD (given they have had training and aren’t super old school psychs who should have retired during the Clinton administration or sooner). In some districts, school psychs are not allowed to assess for ADHD, and in some they are. In some, they do screenings and send the information to a doctor. In my private practice as a clinical psychologist, I do ADHD evaluations all the time. In my role as a school psychologist, it has gone back and forth about whether or not I am allowed to do them, even though I have the training. I feel bad for parents, whose doctor says to go to the school for an evaluation and the school says to go to the doctor. It’s confusing, and then the kids with legitimate issues get bounced between professionals.

I am curious how other school psychologists and districts handle referrals for ADHD. I find that it varies from district to district, school to school, and even by school psychologist comfort level in assessing for ADHD. I would be curious from other school psychologists what your district policy is on how ADHD evaluations are handled in your district. Discuss amongst yourselves...and feel free to try on the fatigue analogy at your next meeting!

Emotes.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:08:00 +0000

Anyone who has been a therapist or counseling with kiddos for a while will appreciate this post. I don't know about y'all, but there are some things in my play therapy kit that I kind of want to throw away because every kid seems to want to play it and I'm so over it (Uno and Connect Four, I'm looking at YOU guys!). I often need play therapy toy "crop rotations" to mix it up. Of course, sand tray is always a classic that never leaves, but sometimes I throw a new dinosaur in there to see if it morphs into the principal or a bully at school. It's a good time.

There are some kids though who don't play with anything in the room or get bored easily with the materials you have. I had such a kiddo a while back. He was a kindergarten kiddo who was referred because of impulsivity and aggression in the classroom. He spent most sessions complaining about my toys and asking why he had to be there. At the same time, I had his middle school equivalent in my office a few hours later. Only instead of aggression in the classroom, he also showed aggression in the community. And would you believe I found a series of toys and activities they BOTH liked???

I think sometimes that boys present an extra challenge when it comes to helping them express the range of feelings they have. They tend to endorse "anger" pretty easily and the other stuff takes a long time to get to. That is, unless you have this fabulous tool called "Emotes".*

I was at a convention and was drawn to these little guys who each represented a different feeling, positive, negative and nuanced. For example, "Boom" is the angry one, "Joi" is the happy one, and "Can't" is the frustrated one. I bought the starter kit and the introduction book to try them out. My boys LOVED them. My kinder poppet wanted to read the story every time, and he loved finding the ones that matched his feelings (he gravitated toward Imp-the mischievous, Boom-the Angry, and Super-the confident). He started drawing them in class spontaneously and would do almost anything for a sticker of one of his guys. He even referenced them in reflecting on his own behavior (e.g. Dr. B, I was like "Hype" today in class and got in trouble) Como se dice AWESOME?

My middle schooler, who was notoriously "too cool for school" ignored their pointy little faces for about 2 weeks, and then finally gave in. He started playing with them and wanted to draw them and go on the website and find coloring pages or more stories about them. I did not see that coming! It gave us a way to talk about the feelings that underlie anger without him feeling like I'm a cliche "How does that make you feeeeeeeel?" counselor. Genius.

So after testing them out on my two toughest customers, I contacted the Emotes peeps and asked for them to send me more goodies so I could start integrating these little guys into the Kinder and 1st grade classes as class-wide feeling vocabulary lessons. Okay fine, I guess I am a "How does that make you feeeeeeeel?" kind of gal after all. I just think this is a more fun way to go about it. Plus, they have the books in Spanish. Holla.

Check out their stuff when you get a chance at www.emotes.com. Oh, and if you're looking at it at work, turn the sound down because it starts off with a jaunty little song and a loud exclamation, "How are you feeling today!" It made me feel like "Jumpi" the first time. But the kids love the website because they have comics and whatnot. Enjoy!

*Note: Not related to the term "Emo". When the term "Emo" first started percolating a few years back in the lexicon of my yoots, it took me a while to figure out what they were referring to. At first, I thought a group of students was calling a girl "Elmo" from Sesame Street, and I couldn't work out what it was about, until I asked. It's very different than Elmo, trust me. When I say Emotes, I also over-enunciate the "-tes" part of the word EmoTES to make sure I am clear. Emo has a bad connotation for kids.

Ain’t Nuthin’ But an Educator Paaaaarty

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 01:20:00 +0000

This week was my spring break (yes, this late). It was so late this year, I almost tricked myself into thinking it was summer break. The good news is, when I go back to work tomorrow, it is practically May, so it won’t be long. You think kids are the only ones who get Spring Fever? Ha!

Anyhoo, I spent my spring break in NYC. I had only been one time before, in February, and I wrote off the entire city at that point for being a miserable place. Turns out, in the spring, it’s lovely! Who knew? Everyone but me, probably. I had a great time touring the city with my husband when the weather was nice enough to enjoy it. But by far the best part was meeting up with my Internet BFF, "Mrs. Mimi" for the first time.

People, if you don’t know “Mrs. Mimi” of Its Not All Flowers and Sausages blog, you simply must. She is a teacher who GETS IT. We became Internet besties a few years ago and we are just one broken heart necklace away from being Best Friends in real life too. We met on the Upper West Side (West Siiiiiiide!)* for brunch. It was totally an East Coast meets West Coast Educator Party. It was kind of like when 2Pac and Snoop Dogg got together to make Gangsta Party and they done just put two of Amerikaz most wanted in the same *bleep* place at the same *bleep* time. Wait, they were both west coast rappers. Nevermind. But kind of like that, but not. I digress. ANYHOO, it was a bi-coastal urban-education-love-fest. My husband couldn’t believe we had never met before, the way we were talking nonstop for two hours.**

And I won’t steal her thunder, but DO check her blog in the next few weeks, she has some fabulous things going on right now. Even though she is no longer in the classroom, she is doing some great things in the world of education. Sure, we miss the stories of her getting a g-string for Christmas from one of her students, stories of administrative dysfunction junction, and bodily fluid stories***, but she has some fabulous new projects in the works we will all be excited about. Plus, she has such fancy news from just this past week, I’m dying to congratulate her publicly! But you know how BFFs are, we keep these types of pinkie swear secrets quiet, and we don’t gossip into the blog-o-sphere. We just allude to them so you’ll check out her blog.

After we talked shop over brunch for over an hour, she suggested we go eat the world’s best chocolate chip cookies together (seriously, she’s a gal after my own heart). Could she be more fabulous? The cookies were a.ma.zing. And so was meeting the infamous Mrs. Mimi.

*Sorry, I have 2Pac Tourettes from time to time. RIP, 2Pac *tips 40 to his mem’ry*
**Hubby is such a trooper. His eyes only glazed over a few times as we talked about the state of public education today.
***For more stories, get her fab book by the same name—just clicky click here or on the right side of my blog under “Buy Yourself Something Pretty.”

The Reveal.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 18:22:00 +0000

During March Madness, my sports aficionado husband was all over watching the college basketball games. I lost interest after my itty bitty alma matter from undergrad, University of Northern Colorado got knocked out in the first round and my grad school alma matter, UC Berkeley was nowhere to be seen. I did have a little interest in picking the final four based upon my favorite mascots. I have a husky mix dog, so I did quite well in my predictions.

During this time period, husband and I had a nice agreement that we would have a balanced evening television routine, and we got to also watch the Do-it-Yourself Channel’s “Mulch Madness” series as well. I became slightly obsessed with Yard Crashers, in which a lovely man comes up to people in home stores and offers to redo their whole yard in a weekend. Husband I and look for this guy every time we are at OSH or the Home Depot. Where is he? I have some major yard needs and no time. Unfortunately, the guy is nowhere in sight, so we are on our own.

Last weekend, I started my weeding and planter box project I meant to start in 2010 and it was so therapeutic. In the DIY shows, they are big on “The Reveal”—when they show the homeowners the final product. In truth, I’m not sure how this falls under “doing it yourself,” as I always see a team of a dozen or so professionals doing all the work and then voila! Here’s your perfect yard in a half an hour! My planter box project, however, was truly DIY, and I got to do “The Reveal” with my husband, and it looks great. I was so friggin’ pleased with myself, you would have thought I won the final four of gardening.

Later, I thought about why it was so satisfying to me, and I realized that it is because my work as a school psychologist is the opposite of that. I spend my days digging out weeds of negative influence on kids, teaching gardeners how to take care of my students, planting seeds of ideas, and waiting. Then waiting. Then more planting, more teaching, and more weeding. And waiting. I don’t get to see The Reveal that often. I wish I could fix up a kiddo in my office, then present him or her back into the classroom, all prettied up and blooming, academically, behaviorally, and emotionally. Voila! All better!*

In reality, I just have to trust that all the ugly demolition of old ideas phase, and the replanting phase will eventually come to fruition and that no one will stomp on my student’s new seeds of ideas about how to change for the better. Sometimes, I just wish it was easier, and I could storm into a classroom, ala Yard Crashers, with my tv crew and team of professionals, pluck a kid out to fix in a weekend, and everyone would be happy with the final product. Until then, I will just have to keep planting, waiting, nurturing, and having faith in the process.

*I had an intern once who wanted to go into school psychology because as she said, she had a "fix it personality." I tried not to squash her dreams, not at least until second semester. At her final evaluation, I told her that a "fix it personality" may be a double edged sword, because we don't really have the power to "fix" all kids. She said, "Okay! I'll fix that about my personality!" I loved the enthusiasm. I hope she is doing well in our field...

Dance with the Tiger.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 21:19:00 +0000

Twice this week, I embarrassed myself by making an obscure reference to an obscure part in an obscure film to make a point. Has anyone else besides me and my husband seen Cedar Rapids, starring John C. Reilly and Ed Helms? No? Well then you would have looked at me with the same look these two groups of people did. But I like the analogy, so here you go.

In the soon-to-be-classic film, Cedar Rapids, starring John C. Reilly and Ed Helms, the main characters are insurance agents attending a conference to battle for the prestigious “Two Diamonds” award for excellence. In one scene, John C. Reilly’s character gives Ed Helms’s character advice: that in order to meet his goals, he can either “fight the tiger” or “daaaaaaance with the tiger.” In the context of the movie, it is basically a decision to fight the guy in the jacked up insurance system or work the guy and the system to your advantage.* And it’s funny because John C. Reilly he does so in his underwear and does a tiger dance.

In one case where I embarrassed myself this week, the school staff and district muckidy mucks (sp?) were having a strategy meeting before a highly contentious parent meeting. The parent has had her child assessed three times over the course of the kid’s school history, and each time, the child came up in the intellectually disabled range cognitively (formally known as mentally retarded). She claims that the school district each time has not assessed him properly and further, that she is entitled to a hojillion dollars in compensatory education at the district’s expense for failing to bring him up to state academic standards. Oh, and the child is autistic as well. Like, biting other people autistic. Low and behold, the last assessment also came up with low cognitive scores as well. As the conversation turned to how to fight this mom and her denial, I told the staff, “I think on this one we should daaaaaance with the tiger” and I made a dancing gesture not unlike the one John C. Reilly does.

[Crickets chirp]

So I went on to explain the movie, and then suggested that we might partially validate mom’s concern, without totally caving in. I get denial. Dealing with the truth is painful. Externalizing blame happens. I can’t claim that if I had a severely disabled kiddo that I wouldn’t be a fighting tiger for his or her rights. I’ve never been in that situation, and can empathize with the grief and anger of having an out of control child. I know that some districts do not provide a very good education for some groups of kids. We're not perfect, and we have no money to create perfect programs. But if I were in the parent's situation, I would like to think I would not sue poor urban school districts for a squillion dollars in compensatory education and blame the teachers for my child's disability. One never knows though.

Anyhoo, the mom’s big thing was that her child had untapped potential. And maybe there is untapped potential we can’t see because the kid is off biting and punching people in class. In my post-doc years, I learned a great way to describe the concept of untapped potential in kids with Autism. I had the great fortune to train with the amazing Bryna Siegel, autism guru, and author of The World of the Autistic Child and many others. She explained it something like this:

Each child’s cognitive potential is like a bowl. Some bowls are deeper than others. We can measure cognition in kids without Autism, because they comply with “on demand tasks” (as in, put these blocks together, answer this question right now, finish this puzzle this fast). Kids with Autism (or behavior problems, for that matter) have saran wrap over their bowls. We don’t know how deep the bowl is, because they have trouble performing on demand. The bowls could be very deep and untapped potential is in there, or the bowl could be shallow. We don’t know until we peel the saran wrap off. We peel the saran wrap off by working on the behaviors that are interfering with joint attention.

I proposed that we use the analogy with this mom. That way, we are acknowledging there could be untapped potential, but in order to fully see it, we have to address the behavior and work on “peeling the saran wrap” off. Instead of arguing about how “deep” his cognitive bowl is, we can shift the conversation to helping this kid connect to others and be safe. I am sure this is a mutual goal of the mom. Let’s just hope after the meeting, it looks a little something like this….

Wish me luck. I do want to have a productive and positive meeting. No one likes getting swiped in the face by a tiger mom.

Pink Slips.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 02:38:00 +0000

Well people, March 15th, the deadline for possible layoffs in the schools has come and gone, and I did not get a letter that I am on the potential pink slip list. I can officially stop stalking my poor mailman. Its a bittersweet moment, because while now I don't have to look for another job and re-title my blog, "Notes from the Former School Psychologist Who Got Stabbed in The Back By the People She Gave 10 Years of Her Life To," there are many of my colleagues who did get the dreaded letter and may not be returning. Some of the best psychologists are our new people, and the policy "last hired, first fired" is causing our department and some of my schools to potentially lose some of the best people.

In my moment of crisis when I wrote this post about the Ides of March drama, I received many wonderful emails from people lending me their support. One such teacher, Nancy, of The Teacher Geek Blog wrote me an email that brought me to tears. She also shared a link to an article she recently wrote about how to deal with being laid off from a school district, and I found it really helpful. So here it is for my colleagues and blog friends who are sadly in this position: Surviving Unemployment:Purgatory.

If anyone else has any tips for our colleagues in limbo with a potential layoff notice, feel free to post them here. The best thing written to me, that I can share is Nancy's quote: "Working in a large urban district, you have already shown that you have amazing resilience. That same resilience will will get you through this."

Holla, Nancy.

I'll Take Questions I am Not Prepared to Answer on the Spot for $800, Alex

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 01:32:00 +0000

I know how you all just love School Psychology Jeopardy, so here you go with the "So Unprepared For This Question" category:

Scene: Recess

Kindergarten kid #1: My daddy's in jail!

Kinder kid #2: My daddy used to be in jail.

Kinder kid #3: My daddy said mommy went to Wal-Mart for a long time. But it was really jail.

Kinder kid #4: Dr. B, what's jail?

Me: [As whole kinder class is now listening] Erm, uh...jail is um.. [I then remember one of the most awesome teachers I know responding to this question last year, and channel her] Well, jail is like time-out for grown ups. When they make a mistake they go to jail and learn how to not make that mistake again.

Wowza. Talk about interesting playground talk, right?

As many of you know, I work in a community where it is common for the poppits I work with to have a parent in jail. It is always a difficult discussion to have with kids, but just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean we shouldn't have the conversation. Sometimes, teachers, family members, and school psychologists need a little help with finding the right words. The following is an excerpt from the book "What Will Happen to Me?" and I think it does a nice job of outlining how to answer these difficult questions.

Ten Question Often Asked By Children Whose Parents Are In Prison
By Howard Zehr and Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz,
Author of "What Will Happen To Me?"

Children need time to adjust to the separation caused by having a parent in prison. But it takes more than time. As we have heard in their voices, children also need to make sense of what has happened to them and to their parent or parents. Because of this, they have many questions.

Some of the questions they ask are straightforward. But sometimes their questions come out indirectly or in their challenging behavior. Incarcerated parents, as well as caregivers of children or other adults in their lives, often have to answer their uncomfortable questions.

Children who are present when a parent is arrested, especially young children, are usually not told where their parents are being taken, when they will be coming home, or why they have to go away. As time goes on, the children have even more questions.

Our childhood experiences shape much of our adult lives. Children who live with these kinds of questions, many of which are not answered to their satisfaction, experience trauma as a result. Frequently that leads to their general mistrust of authority, especially the legal system. Not having their questions answered can also lead children to blame themselves for their parents' absence or to believe that they are destined to follow in their parents' footsteps.

Here are questions that children whose parents are incarcerated often ask, along with suggestions about how to answer them. We will address some of the questions more fully in later sections of the book.

1) Where is my Mom or Dad?
Parents and caregivers often believe it is best to protect children by not telling them where their mothers or fathers really are. Children may be told that their parents are working in another state, going to school, or serving in the military. Sometimes children are told that their parents are ill and had to go away for special treatment.

Sooner or later children will realize the truth and know they have been lied to. This tends to hurt their relationship with the persons who have told them the untrue stories and can lead to feelings of distrust that affect their other relationships as well.

While the adult who hides painful reality does so believing it is in the best interest of the child, such an action (or inaction) creates a family secret that results in children feeling ashamed. Most childhood experts advise that children be told the truth.

2) When is he or she coming home?
The outcome and schedule of a parent's arrest and/or imprisonment is often uncertain. However, it is important to keep children up-to-date about what parents or caregivers do know. Children need to have concrete information they can deal with, even if it is, "We don't know what will happen yet."

3) Why is she or he in jail or prison?
Sometimes an innocent person is arrested. But when a parent has done wrong, it is important that this wrongdoing is acknowledged. Children need to know that there are consequences when people do things that are against the law or harmful to others.

At the same time, they also need to be reassured that even if someone sometimes does something wrong, it doesn't mean that s/he is necessarily a bad person. While a child's parent may be serving the consequences for something wrong s/he did, the parent is still worthy of love and capable of loving.

A child can learn to trust a caregiver who is honest about what a parent has done wrong. This practice of honesty allows the child to believe other things that the caregiver tells her or him as they progress together on this journey.

4) Can I talk to my mom or dad?
Jails and prisons have specific and often constraining rules about prisoners talking on the phone to their loved ones. Phone calls from prison are often quite expensive and restricted in length. Many times a parent does not have enough money to call home because it is so expensive.

When phone calls are difficult, letters can be especially important. Although young children may find it hard to express themselves through words, they may find it more meaningful to make drawings. As Stacy Bouchet, now an adult, suggests in her reflections, children often treasure the notes and letters they receive from their parents, as she did from her father.

5) When can I see my mom or dad?
It is helpful to explain to children that prisons have specific times for visiting, and their caretakers will get that information so that they can see their loved ones. If a parent is incarcerated at a distance, the child should be prepared for seeing his or her mother or father infrequently.

Some children are angry and do not want to see their parents, or at least they're ambivalent about the possibility. In general, though, it seems important for children to visit their parents as regularly as possible.

Before the first visit, they should be prepared for the circumstances of the visit. The caregiver should explain the security around the prison. The children should also know that there will be limits upon where they can visit and what they can do with their parents.

Most children want to know what their parent's life is like in prison. They may imagine frightening scenarios. Giving them a sense of mundane details of everyday life in prison can be helpful. If the child is interested, a caregiver can encourage the parent to describe his or her cell or room and tell what a normal day is like.

6) Who is going to take care of me?
Children in this situation often feel insecure. It is important to let children know who will be caring for them. If there is uncertainty about their living arrangements, children may need to be told that, but they also need to be reassured that plans for their care are being made and that they will not be abandoned. As much as possible, they need stability in their living situations and their relationships.

7) Do my parents still love me?
When children are separated from their parents, they often worry about whether their parents love and care for them. Most children need reassurance that they are loved by their parents no matter where the children happen to be living and with whom. They also value other loving relationships in their lives, but they still want to know about their parents' interest and love.

8) Is this my fault?
Children often blame themselves for being separated from their parents or even for their parents' misbehavior. They may imagine that if they had behaved better their parents would still be with them. They need reassurance on three fronts: that what happened to their loved one is not their fault, that it happened because that person did something wrong or harmful, and that this does not mean that their parent is a bad person.

9) Why do I feel so sad and angry?
Sadness and anger are children's common responses to a parent's incarceration. But most children do not understand their feelings or the origins of them. It is helpful for them to be reassured that their feelings are normal. Ideally, they can be encouraged to talk about their feelings of sadness or anger. If they cannot talk to their immediate caregivers such as their grandparents, they can be invited to talk to school counselors or social workers or even friends. Children often find it helpful to know other children in similar situations because they can understand each other's feelings. Children who find it hard to articulate their feelings can be encouraged to express them through their drawings or other art work.

10) Can I do something to help?
Children typically feel helpless and responsible. They need to know that their loved ones usually appreciate letters and pictures. They can be encouraged to send them as often as they want to.

The above is an excerpt from the book "What Will Happen To Me?" by Howard Zehr and Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy. Reprinted from What Will Happen to Me?. © by Good Books (www.GoodBooks.com). Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Modeling. So Hot Right Now.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 01:36:00 +0000

I gotta get out of my Ides of March funk, so here’s a jaunty little post on modeling. My husband and I are the face of Lenscrafters. I realize this is very random and totally not related to school psychology or education, but I’m gonna make the case that it is.

What is advertising all about anyway? Basically, putting people like you with a product and selling an idea that the product is fun, sexy, exciting and you NEED it. Doesn’t our pic here just make you want to run out to Lenscrafters and get yourself some Burberry specs so you can have as much fun as husband and I? Don’t pretend like you don’t ride piggyback on your spouse on the weekends in Union Square in San Francisco loving your life and perfect vision.

Funny thing is, this came out on the first day of our Honeymoon, and we saw it on a billboard in Santa Monica. I hoped it wasn’t too symbolic of our marriage to come, what with me on his back and growling at him (but see how he thinks its fun?).

As I work with kiddos and teachers and parents in the school, I see modeling in action every day. I see kids who are saucy and fun and then I meet their mom, and she is saucy and fun. I see angry kids who blame everyone for their problems, and then the parent does the same thing in a conference. We know that kids learn by watching, but we sometimes forget. I read a great quote once that we shouldn’t be afraid our kids aren’t listening to what we say, we should be afraid that they are watching what we do. TRUE DAT.

Sometimes, I see irony. I hear teachers screaming at kids to use their inside voices. I see staff freaking out and telling their kids to calm down. I see staff treat kids with disrespect and then they are shocked when they get disrespect back. I’m no angel myself, though I pride myself on being pretty unflappable (unless I’m planning a wedding, when I go from Bride-Chilla to Bride-Zilla in the span of a day). I tend to remain calm in most situations, and pride myself on being the calm in the storm. But even I lose it once in while, and I am not a good model (of calmness, not designer glasses).

I saw myself in action yesterday. I was working with a student who was one of those guys who working with feels like working with molasses. Angry, angry, molasses. He was so slow in his processing, and that made him really mad and want to give up. I tried to model enthusiasm and put on a “learning party” to fool him into thinking testing was fun. I even called testing “activities” and then he called me out on it and said, “These aren’t activities! You lied! These are tests!” I managed to get through about 45 minutes of testing before my Oscar ™ performance for Best Actress in a Pretending this is Fun Role was done. We agreed to reconvene after a break, mostly for me.

After the break, he was worse. And I had the most slow-moving test in the world left to give (TAPS-3, anyone?). It’s torture. For me. And I think he knew that. But I had to do it that day, because of course, the IEP meeting was in 2 days and I had driven about 30 miles to work with the kid. I couldn’t give up.

Unfortunately, my exasperation was contagious. I initially presented it as a task he had to “just get through to be done forever with my activities” and he ended up falling asleep during the sound blending task. Like, snoring asleep. I woke the young man up, and proceeded with my Oscar ™ worthy performance that he had just slept through the BEST PART! And you know what? He totally finished it and said at the end that it was “kinda fun.” So the moral of the story is if you approach testing as drudgery, you model that testing is a drag, and the kid responds. Model enthusiasm and their mind-set shifts. And if you are bored or unenthusiastic about testing, especially if it is the test that makes you want to cry every time you have to give it for the squillienth time, fake it ‘till you make it.

And the Oscar goes to….The lady in the Burberry specs.

Beware the Ides of March...

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 23:01:00 +0000

I wrote this post in my head at about 4am this Saturday morning, when I awoke with anxiety about next school year. The past few weeks, every teacher’s lounge and every staff meeting has been doom-and-gloom about the state of our school district’s education budget being slashed. Symbolically, every March 15th, in budget shortfall years, staff get “you might be laid off” letters. This year, we may lose some school psychologists for the first time in my 9 years in the profession. It’s bad, people.

I may even be laid off due to an administrative rule that puts me in the same category as a first year employee, despite 9 years of experience. I switched districts and I worked part time some of my years, so basically none of my years count in seniority. Awesome. The way layoffs go down in a school district is not by performance, evaluations, or any other reasonable criteria, but by “last hired, first fired” or in my case, “let go because you worked part time a few years.” Some of the most talented teachers I know are in their first or second years in the profession, and they are the first to be cut.

So friends, I sincerely hope that I don’t have to change the name of my blog from “Notes from the School Psychologist Blog” to “Notes from the Former School Psychologist Who Now Works in the Private Sector with no Health Insurance but Still Believes in Public Education and Can’t Work There With Kids Who Need it Blog.” Not as catchy.

Even if I am spared my job, the budget picture is bleak. My school principals have had to cut most support staff. That means that my placement at my middle school would be only four hours a week and my placement at my elementary school would also be a whopping four hours. Goodbye counseling services, goodbye teacher and parent consultation, parent support groups, counseling groups, prevention activities, and all the things I love. Hello testing one kid, writing a report, going to a meeting and leaving. I will be sad to tell my students I see in counseling that I can no longer see them. Sorry about your abandonment issues, poppits.

My schools have also had to cut all supply budgets. No copier repair funds, no supplies. What enrages me is that I bet Goldman Sachs has never spent a day without a functioning copier or pens and pencils. I bet the Bank of America CEO and his cronies have never had to share one pen with three other people in a cramped janitor’s closet. Why can we bail out the foolios who got us in the recession and turn our backs on the students and teachers? Oh, and how much are we spending in Afghanistan again? Ah that’s right 6.7 billion per month. Do you know what California schools could do with just one month of the war budget? I rarely get all political on this blog, but I see how our kids and school staff will be suffering at no fault of their own, and I have a deep sense of sadness and anger.

I wish I could put a more positive spin on this post. All I can do is to encourage anyone who lives in a city where there will be a special election about funding for schools, please, please, I beg you to get your family and friends to vote for a small increase in tax to keep public schools functioning. I just hope our neighbors aren't penny-wise and pound-foolish. Investment in smaller class sizes, mental health professionals, quality teachers, and supplies to learn prevents school failure and the high cost of special education, not to mention the societal cost of drop out.

As for the Ides of March, I will be stalking the mailman on the 15th to see if I have been stabbed in the back 23 times by the Congress, just like Julius Caesar. Stay tuned...

Saliva. I Did Not See that Coming.

noreply@blogger.com (Rebecca) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 03:36:00 +0000

For those of you who aren’t aware, the National Association of School Psychologist’s conference is in San Francisco this week. Seeing as how it’s in my hometown this year, I couldn't not go, right? I usually pick all conferences by venue. I missed last year's NASP conference because it was someplace cold. No thanks.

So this year, I was very excited to see old friends, learn new things, and do it all from the comfort of my hometown. The first day of the conference, it was a bit of a sensory overload, but fun. The second day of the conference, I was in the groove, and I had my nerdy little NASP bookbag filled with 8 squillian pens I had hoarded from the exhibit hall freebies, ready to learn. That morning, I hopped on our local train, BART, and thumbed through the 80 lb list of sessions and planned my day. I’ve been in the Bay Area about 10 years now, so I am a regular BART-user, and I craftily picked the last car because I knew there would be a seat. I win.

I approached my station and as I exited, I heard someone scream, “Bitch!” and heard a spitting sound right behind me. I exited the train, turned around, the doors closed, and this belligerent man was roaming the back car, yelling and spitting. I foolishly then touched the back of my head, and my hand was wet with spit. I had been spit on. My crime was walking near a crazy person. Horrified, I went to the nearest police officer to report the harassment.

Me: Officer? Um, yes, I’ve just been yelled at and spit on by a belligerent passenger on the Daly City train headed southbound.

Officer: (Smirking) Well, ma’am, have you ever ridden BART before?

Me: I have been riding BART for 10 years and that’s irrelevant. Passengers should not be spit on and cursed at.

Officer: (Condescendingly) Well, sometimes, when you see a crazy person, you should just move away from them.

Me: Are you kidding me? I was exiting the train, never even saw this person, and I was spit on from behind! And how is this my fault for not being able to prevent a crazy person from targeting me for no reason? And he's getting away! He's probably at Civic Center right now, harassing other people! (At this point, I burst into tears)

Officer: (Using calm, soothy voice now, smirkiness gone). Ma’am, I will call it in.

Me: (sniffling) Thanks…it’s…sniff…just….that….I…don’t…sniff…want someone else to be…sniff…victimized.

Good times, right? I wanted to go home and disinfect my hair. I wasn’t even really crying because the guy spit on me. He probably had some sort of thought disorder in the schizophrenic family of diagnoses. Yes, I do 4 second DSM-IV diagnoses. As my friend who joined me shortly after the incident said, “Let’s CBT this. At least it wasn’t in your face?”* What was really upsetting was the officer’s response. He basically inferred that it was common, so it wasn’t a problem and then that it was my fault for not being psychic and avoiding the person.

After attending sessions all day, conveniently on anti-bullying, I got to thinking about my one incident of victimization, and about how we respond to kids who report repeated victimization and bullying. I work with them all the time. Teachers and parents want the kid to toughen up. I empathize, problem-solve with them, and teach assertiveness. I always work with the bully too.

I think inadvertently, we can re-victimize kids who are bullied. The officer’s “It’s common” argument sounds a lot like the “Kids can be cruel, you have to develop a thick skin” argument I hear in the schools. The officer’s comment, “Well, you should just move away from crazy people” is a variant of “Did you try ignoring him or avoiding him?” Both arguments put the burden of change on the victim. I have first hand experience with the “just ignore him!” argument backfiring on me big-time (See the My Words Taste Yucky incident of 2008.)

We could all be more thoughtful when we process bullying incidents with kids. I have found that bullying is a very complex issue, and we often jump to “easy” solutions like asking the victim to be less sensitive or avoid the bully. I can’t remember who said the quote, but I remember it: “For every complex problem, there is a quick, easy, and simple solution that is wrong.” We get it wrong when we only work with the victim on their role in the interaction, and not with the bully and even the bully bystanders.

As I attend conference presentations this week on bullying interventions, social skills promotion, and prevention of violence, I hope I do pick up some more insights on how to help. And I hope I don’t have to do it with any more spit in my hair. *gags*

*Cognitive behavioral therapy: change your thoughts, change your feelings. I needed that. My thought “I have some sort of disease in my hair” was not making me feel better. “At least it wasn’t in my face” did make me feel better.