Officer Friendly Pays a Visit

Anyone who has a baby and a dog knows that solicitors, mail delivery people, and UPS drivers have a knack for coming by and ringing your doorbell juuuuuuuuust as you finally get baby down for a nap. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we have a barky protective dog and all, but the BARK to WAAAAAAHHHH sound is one that makes mothers across the country cringe. So, imagine my disdain when I get a knock on my door at 3am the other night. Or I guess it was morning. It’s the police. He looked like this Officer Friendly guy:

 
Not really, I just liked this google image that came up when I typed "Officer Friendly." But I have digressed.

I had called the police at 7pm the evening before because we have had several break ins in our neighborhood recently and there were some suspicious “solicitors” who were “selling magazine subscriptions,” but they only had one crumpled up piece of paper with them and no information about any of the magazines. So, I called to report them, because they were totally shady acres characters. I didn’t want to seem paranoid, but my hubby said to call anyway. What could it hurt?

EIGHT HOURS LATER the police responded. When I opened the door, the policeman said that they got my call and asked if I had any further concerns about the suspicious activity. Um, no, I’m pretty sure they got away in the past EIGHT HOURS. A blind and crippled snail could have gotten away in that time period. The officer sheepishly apologized and said that it had been a busy night and calls are put in order of priority, and he just got around to responding to my call. Immediately, I understood why our whole family was woken up, and I empathized with the cop.

I know this scene very well as a school psychologist—having too many cases and crises to respond to, having to prioritize crises, and often having to follow illogical procedures.  I am certain that his ringing my doorbell at 3am was the result of some dumb rule that he had to follow like: “You must make contact with the reporter once you respond to the call” or something. I imagine him pausing before ringing the bell thinking, “this doesn’t make sense, but here I go.” As a school psychologist, have you ever been there, having to follow a district or legal procedure that defies logic?

The one that comes to mind in the world of school psychology is the manifestation determination rule. To oversimplify it, the law is basically that if a student with an IEP commits an expulsion offense or reaches over 10 days of suspension, then a meeting must be held to see if it was caused by the student’s disability or the team's failure to implement the IEP. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable law, right? I mean on the books, it makes sense that you should make sure that you aren’t penalizing disabled students for behaviors that are a manifestation of their disability. For example, a student with an intellectual disability might not fully understand cause and effect of his or her behavior and we wouldn’t want to go around expelling kids with intellectual disabilities for things they don't really understand. However, because this law extends to ALL kids with IEPs, I have found myself engaged in the most ridiculous conversations:

Me: We are here today to determine whether the child’s reading disability caused him to carry a knife to school.

Me: The purpose of today’s meeting is to decide if Johnny setting another student on fire was directly caused by his writing disability.

Me: Thank you for coming. As an IEP team, we need to figure out if Janice cut off Janie’s ponytail because she stole her boyfriend was due to our failure to implement her behavior plan of increasing her classwork production.

Me: Yes, Mrs. Jenkins, I understand that Frank has a disability, but I am having a hard time understanding how deficits in phonological processing cause you to threaten a student with a machete sword.

The manifestation determination law just never really seems to apply to the students with learning disabilities. I am basically the sheepish cop in these situations, trying to turn a stupid rule into something productive. At these meeting, I try to quickly get the dumb paperwork out of the way, and then work on the real intervention by discussing what is needed to support the offending student. Clearly, kids who are bringing weapons and hurting others need help.

As an aside, one good thing did end up happening as a result of our 3am wake up call (besides this post, obvi)—the cops ended up apprehending the suspicious gentlemen in a nearby neighborhood the next day, and they were found with stolen property from my neighbor’s house. So I wasn’t paranoid after all. But I am still paranoid of the UPS guy coming between 1-3pm and waking up Baby B...maybe it's a sign I should stop buying developmental toys online. I mean, Baby B kind of equally loves a tupperware container or a crumpled up piece of paper over the snazzy Baby Einstein stuff anyway.

Ma-ma!

This is my first Mother’s Day as a new mom! When my husband asked me what I wanted to do, I told him, “I want to sleep in.” I added, “until at least 7am.” A mom can dream, right?

 I got an early Mother’s Day gift of Baby B saying “Ma-ma” for the first time the other day…in context, not as she was gnawing on a wooden spoon or something. She distinctly said, “Ma-ma” and outstretched her arms to me. And I died.

But enough about my awesome baby (for now). Unless you want to hear about her latest developmental milestones, that is. *crickets chirp* Okay fine, I’ll tell you. She is pointing! I was so excited, I told my friend, Amber yesterday:

Me: Baby B has a new trick. She is pointing to indicate interest, which shows a burgeoning theory of mind, in which she understands that I have thoughts different than hers!

Amber: Does she have a burgeoning sense that her mom is a huge nerd?

Me: Probably.

But I digress. This post is about school psychology, not my mommy diaries. Therefore, for Mother's Day, I give you the top things school psychologists need to know about motherhood:

 1) Kids do waaaaaay more at home than they do in other settings. I know, this seems obvious, but before Baby B, I would sometimes raise a skeptical eyebrow when parents would describe their kid’s behavior or skills at home as much more sophisticated than what I was observing. I sometimes found it hard to believe that the shy kid in my office was Chatty McGee at home. Then, I had my own kid. Baby B can be a straight up infant blob in public, and at home, she’s pointing and imitating language and crawling around like a genius child. She also does not perform on demand when I try to get her to show her relatives her new developmental skills. She’s not anyone’s trick pony, thank you very much. As a school psychologist trying to get a little one to perform on demand, I can see why parents say, “She can do it at home though!” It’s not always a case of the parent having a halo effect on their own child. Kids do better in familiar environments.

 2) The instinct to protect your child from all things unpleasant is ridiculously strong. Before Baby B, I would sometimes catch myself judging overprotective parents. I would tell parents, "We can't smooth out the ocean for our kids, we have to teach them to ride the difficult waves." Good advice, right? Sure, but I totally get it now about how hard it is not to try to make everything happy for your child. When Baby B bonks her head, when a little boy takes a swat at her on the playground, or when she is crying because she can’t reach that toy, your heart aches to make it all better right away. I have to consciously stop myself from trying to save every wonky attempt at standing, doing a peer mediation with the swatting boy, or push the toy over to her to make it easier. Doing so would prevent her from learning.

The hardest thing was teaching her to self-soothe and fall asleep on her own. Any parent who has done some form of “cry it out” knows that you have to fight every instinct you have to swoop in and soothe your baby. It reminds me of that True Blood episode when the witches put a curse on the vampires to have a strong urge to go into the sun and they have to put burning silver chains on themselves to stop themselves. Hearing your baby cry and not going to her is like emotional silver chains. Or at least it was for me. And then, after a few nights, she learned how to put herself to sleep and it’s all good. So next time you think a parent is being too fiercely overprotective, know that it is hard not to be. I mean, I don’t want to be that mom who yells at the principal because during a fire drill, her daughter went outside without any sunscreen on or anything (true story), but I’m just saying I get the inclination to overprotect.

 3) Mothers get judged all the time, unless it is Mother’s Day, and being a mom is hard. We do the best we can with the tools we have. Moms are often blamed for everything. If we do attachment parenting, we are smothering. If we don’t, then we are cold and ruining our children’s attachment. Many a therapist’s couch is full of someone complaining about his or her mother. I also find that school staff are sometimes quick to blame the mother for their kid’s difficulties. Sure, there are instances where there is a parenting issue contributing to the kid’s challenges, but it is far better to support the mom than to blame. As a mom, there have been many times when I don’t know what I’m doing, and one call to another mom for support is all I need. Because the problem isn’t that there isn’t a manual for raising kids, there are TOO MANY manuals with conflicting advice. Every mom has to discover what works for them in their particular situation. As a school psychologist, I now spend more time asking questions of moms instead of prescribing "easy" solutions. Moms know their kids best and what will and will not work. 

4) Moms often know what to do to, but don't have the energy because they are teaching a human how to do everything all day. Give them a break! I have a school psychologist friend who has a toddler and her partner is also a school psychologist. I remember her telling me a story of how her kiddo was fussing for something and she gave in. Her partner said, "You know you just reinforced that behavior, right?" And my friend said, "I know, but I'm tired."  As school psychologists, we talk to parents about being consistent. Yep, I totally get it, but sometimes you are just tired. And that's life. There's a difference between being consistent and being rigid. Sometimes, kids miss their naps and sometimes you give in so you can go to the grocery store with a happy baby instead of a fussy one. So perhaps school psychologists should be asking "what conditions and supports need to be in place to have consistency in [insert behavior]? instead of "are you being consistent in [insert behavior]?" Being consistent is hard. Especially because your little one has such a darling face and sometimes, you give in. Babies have darling faces that makes you want to bend to their will, even when they are being tiny tyrants.

So to all the mamas out there, I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day today! And a special shout out to my mom for all she has done for me--thank you! Also, as a special treat, if you want to die of a cute attack on this fabulous day honoring moms,  just google "mama and baby animals" like I did for the picture for this post. You. Will. Die.