Handling School “Staff Infections” (Part I: The Over-sharer)

In the spirit of B2S, I want to give my fellow school psychologists a few tips for how to work with difficult adults in the school building. I think that when we first go into this field, we have a vision of working with kids all day long, in a cozy office, providing shelter from the storm of their troubles. And then, it turns out we don’t have an office, and if we do, it may be either Arctic tundra conditions or Bikram school psychology in there. Not cozy. Also, it turns out a lot of the work we do in school is consulting with the adults who interact with our students.

At any given school site, there is typically one teacher or support staff member that I find challenging to work with. Not everyone can be a teacher rockstar like my Internet BFF, Mrs. Mimi and the amazing Angela WatsonFormallyPowell. I really try not to be Negative Nancy on my blog, but there are a few archetypes of challenging adults that I’ve run across in the schools that make me wish I were in charge of hiring and firing with a regal flick of my wrist.

Remove her from my sight! *flick flick*

This one does not please me. Get rid of him. *dismissive wave*

This one amuses me. She can stay.

It’s weird though, as no one has granted me this power in the schools yet. So instead, I give you tips on how to manage staff members who give you, as I call it, a staff infection. One staff infection archetype is the no-boundaries staff member. They hear you are a psychologist, their eyes light up, and they talk with you as if you are their personal psychologist.

I remember in my first year on the job, there was this one parent liasion at one of my elementary schools who had always given me the heebyjeebies but I couldn’t put my finger on why. His name was Mister W. Fuzzy. Okay, obviously not, but I will call him that to protect his awfulness disguised as warm fuzziness. This guy dressed in African dashikis with a lot of beaded products adorning himself.  Mind you, he was not African American, let alone African. But since we are all technically from Africa, and perhaps he was trying to connect with the students’ roots, I’ll let that go. He referred to everyone as his brother or sister, which was a little cringe-worthy, to tell you the truth. He spoke with a soft voice and nodded with affirmations, in a Stuart Smalley kind of way. He always complimented every kid that came in his office in the third person: “Mister W. Fuzzy knows you didn’t mean to hit your friend.  Let’s walk on the Peace Path together and solve your problems. Now both of you give Mr. W. Fuzzy a squeeze.”  Sounds like a decent guy, right? Maybe a bit over the top for my taste, but different strokes for different folks, I guess. Oh, but then…

One day, I came in our support staff room after a meeting with a family and he asked how it went:

MWF: Hello Sista B! [cringe] How was Marcus’s meeting?

Me: It went well, we talked a lot about strategies for limiting his violent video game time since he does that all afternoon instead of homework.  

MWF: Well, video games can be addictive, and can breed an aggressive mindset. You become what you watch.

Me: *sipping coffee* Mmm hmm. Agreed.

MWF: Kind of like porn.

Me: *spitting out coffee*

MWF: I mean, I watch a lot of porn, and when I do, I can’t help but then transfer what I see in the porn onto my feelings about women…

Me: *looking around desperately for an escape route thinking: “Someone please make this stop. Ah! There’s a phone. Maybe I can pick it up á la Matrix and find me an exit!*  

MWF:  …I mean, after watching hours and hours and hours of porn, then I suddenly start looking at every young woman in real life and start thinking they’re a ho.

Me: Um. I have to…um…go away now. *backing sloooooowly away*

Can you believe that guy? From then on out, every time he looked at me, I couldn’t help but think he was turning me into a ho in his mind. Egads! I mean, who am I to judge someone’s private life, but I am here to judge sharing that private life with a young woman in an ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. Boundaries, people.

When I first started out, I didn’t know how to handle the no-boundaries staff member. I guess people hear you are a psychologist and think you want to hear all their intimate thoughts.* Or, for example, they ask you to make behavior plans for their cats. In one way, it’s a sign that they trust you, which I guess is good. For the run-of-the-mill over-sharers, I tend to handle it with a dash of humor.** I say things like, “Whoa, I’m a psychologist, not your psychologist” or “Sorry, my expertise ends at age 18, can’t help you!” However, if they are disclosing something very distressing or serious, then I definitely take the time to try and connect them with a mental health professional. Or if their problem is serious enough to impact the kiddos they work with, I will talk to a supervisor about the issue to get advice on what to do.

My last piece of advice? Don’t let the over-sharing go on unchecked like I did with Mister W. Fuzzy. Let’s just say that he thought my silence was a green light to continue over-sharing about his personal life. Yes, untreated, the over-sharer is a nasty school staff infection that will never go away…

*Happens on airplanes too. See my debut in the New YorkTimes on this topic. 

**Are you dying of not-surprise yet?

Well I Feel Sheepish.

A while back, I wrote a post about how a reader commented that my blog wasn't fun anymore. Truth be told, I had been feeling a little low about my blogging ability lately, especially since the amount of comments recently has been basically non-existent. And then, when there were no comments when I was offering a free copy of my School Psychologist's Survival Guide, I got suspicious. I went into my Blogger panel and lo and behold, there were 79 comments pending approval all the way back to APRIL. It turns out, when the people at Blogger changed their control panel or whatever its called, I didn't check a box to have unapproved comments sent to my email. Neat.

But you have been commenting after all! [Insert Sally Field's voice from 1984 Oscar Speech] You like me! You really like me! It turns out I'm just not that great at moderating comments on this newfangled world wide web. 

SO....

Gak! Those of you who commented with your b2s tips on the blog were actually not entered in the contest! I know, you were waiting with bated breath to see if you won. So to be fair, I put all y'all's info into a random number generator and came up with another winner!

Lauren Pegg, come on down. You're the next winner on the NFtSP Blog! Email me at studentsgrow@gmail.com to get your pressie!

As for everyone else, I am truly sheepish for not knowing that you have been commenting all year! I hope ewe will forgive me.* I promise now I will actually post and respond to comments now. It was "shear" luck I discovered my error.*

*I can't resist a good pun, my apologies. ;)

Together, We Could Probably Raise a Super Nerd.

I realize everyone is in major b2s (back to school) mode right now, but if I may, I have some nerdy news. First, the backstory:

I recently had the pleasure of meeting up with my Internet BFF, Mrs. Mimi of Its Not All Flowers and Sausages. If you don’t know about her yet, pop by her blog and def poke through the archives of her posts working as a teacher in NYC. And actually, to be more exact, when I say I “met up with her,” I basically invited myself to her vacay in southern Cal because I’m in NorCal and I figured the odds of me, hubby, and Baby B flying across the country to NYC again in the near future will be slim to none. Girlie doesn’t like to be contained like that. Nor do I.

Anyhoo, upon our arrival it took about 4.2 seconds for Mimi and me to begin exchanging nerdy compliments about each other’s babies.

Me: I love how Mini Mimi is pointing at objects to indicate interest, then socially referencing me through eye contact, thus demonstrating theory of mind!

Mimi: Look at how Baby B has concepts of print already, holding the text right side up.

My husband:

Her husband:

Yeah, the men folk didn’t get how amazing these tasks were. Humph!

So yesterday, I was reading a board book about shapes and colors to Baby B and she pointed to the hair bows of a girl holding a blue oval and then pointed to her own hair bows! She made her first text-to-self connection, people! I excitedly looked over at my parents, who happen to be in town for her 1^st birthday:

Me: OMG! Did you see that? Her first text-to-self connection!

Grandma:

Grandpa:

It was clear I needed a different audience to appreciate this milestone. I remember Mini Mimi’s first Text-to-Self connection, so I emailed Mrs. Mimi right away and got an email back congratulating me and asking if she also used her baby sign to say, "I like bows, mommy."* Ahhhh, someone who gets my nerdy love of developmental milestones. I bet we could have a nerd-off with the documentation in our kiddos’ baby books.

I promise, I’ll write about something that involves school psychology again one day. Just not when there is nerdy news to be shared. 

* We are still working on the baby sign. We've been signing "milk" every day since she was born, but she won't do it. But she does "gorilla" and "hat" which are also useful, if you happen to want to put a hat on a gorilla.

Back to School...Gak!

    

     I had my first B2S (Back to School) dream a few nights ago: I was trying to organize the files of the students with overdue assessments and I could only find 2 out of the 40 files I needed.* Last night, I had another: I dreamed the copier wasn’t working and I had an IEP meeting to get to and my report wasn’t copied. I suppose “dream” is the wrong word choice in this situation. Yes, it’s annual B2S anxiety nightmare season! I imagine my sub-c saying something like, “Guuuuuuurl…you better get yourself ready for the drama of a new school year.” So here we go. I am readying myself in the following ways, and invite those who are trying to get back in the spirit of B2S to join me:

1)    Go to Target. I know, it’s not very zen to put “obtain materialistic goods during B2S sales” as the top coping strategy, but I do actually find myself very zen and centered in Target. Perhaps it’s that mesmerizing bulls eye logo that does it. Only problem is, I go in for pencils and come out with a giant cart worth of stuff. That bulls eye hypnotizes me---I. Need. New. Curtains. And. Everything. I. See. I. Will. Obey. You. Swirly. Red. Friend.

 

This year, I plan to have self-control though. I will only purchase a few new play therapy toys (because if I play Uno one more time, I swear, I’ll lose it), one or two new school psychologist costumes (look out, Sister Wife 3, I’m jacking your style), and one zillion pens and pencils (of which one will remain in my possession by the end of the school year.) Oh, and maybe also some new curtains. The bulls eye doesn’t lie. I need them.

2)    Pick ONE New Tool to Use During the School Year to Improve Your Practice. After going to conferences, doing professional developments, or reading about new techniques and trends on Twitter and blogs, I get excited to implement them all in my daily work as a school p. But then, I have days like theseand it’s all I can do to not tear my hair out (not a good look) and get one little thing done. So this year, I plan to add only one new tool to improve my practice. This year’s winner? Integrating a strengths-based assessment tool into my testing battery. I am tired of my reports having 13 pages of what a kid can’t do and then at the end, a wimpy section that says something like, “Strengths include working well one-on-one!”

The winning assessment I am adding is also FREE. Can you believe it? It will need to be free once I accidently spend Baby B’s college fund at Target. The free assessment is the VIA Strength Survey for Children.It is based on the research that there are 24 “signature strengths” that can be tapped into to promote happiness. And let’s face it, our little friends struggling in school could use a little happiness infusion from time to time, by building their strengths, especially when there are horrible moments when a parent can't think of any strengths.  This FREE survey is a great little counseling tool as well, to have kiddos think of new ways to use their strengths. They have a survey for adults too if you want to take it just for funsies.**

3)    Read Some Kid or Young Adult Fiction. Now I haven’t read a book since “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” and “The Happiest Baby on the Block” (unless you count board books, where it is clear Baby B is is making text-to-text connections between her Boynton books). So this recommendation is exciting for me. Now you might want to get a Kindle for this rec, if you’re prone to being embarrassed for reading Captain Underpants or Twilight in public. Truth is though, most people have now read the Hunger Games and such, so go for it. I find that being up to date on the latest book helps me in counseling situations when kids are hesitant to talk about their problems, but they can relate to characters in books and talk freely. I once worked with a girl who refused to talk about her eating disorder, but she asked me to read “The Pretties,” which has themes about body image in it, and we were able to talk about the character’s feelings. Slowly but surely, we were able to talk directly about the girl’s feelings. Plus, some YA fiction is pretty good. I find that I enjoy how cognitively complex they are compared to Baby B’s board books. 

4)    Read My Book. What? You didn’t actually expect me to get through an entire post without shamelessly plugging The School Psychologist’s Survival Guide, now did you? Well, since I subject you to this all the time, how about this book is on me this time? Yea! A B2S Giveway!

To enter, you can a) make a comment on this blog or the Facey Face fan page with one thing you are doing to prepare for B2S or b) share this post on Facey or Twitter (be sure to tag Notes From the School Psychologist Blog or @studentsgrow so I know). I will put the names in a list and then use a random number generator to pick the winner. Good luck!

*I am not tech savvy at all, so I'm pretty dang proud of myself for making a meme. AND for knowing what a meme is. 
**My top strength is apparently “Forgiveness and Mercy.” Guess that’s why I am always returning each school year pretending I wasn’t a psychological punching bag all year long the prior year. My how summer vacay erases your memory...Even though my sub-c knows better.