Mindfulness. So Hot Right Now.

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.

Lazy Dogs…and Children?

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.

IN THRPY.

I have run into this issue lately working with my teenage clients. They answer texts during therapy. Now I have to admit, I am an iPhone junky myself, so I can see the inclination. My iPhone alerts are like a baby calling. I know when my iPhone wants its mama even when it’s buried in my purse or far away in another room. *Ding!* That’s a text! Mama’s coming! While I’m being honest, I actually texted during my cardio workout the other day. So embarrassing. Why don’t I just get me a teacup poodle to put in my gym bag to complete the look? But it was important! At least I don’t have too loud conversations on public transit like the one I overhead last night: “Pookie! You know I want to see the kids, but I’m busy! Damn!” Everyone on the train knows about your marital issues. Fabulous.

So kids aren’t the only culprits.

In fact, I have had parents answer calls in the middle of presentations about whether or not their child has a disability. I have had parents check their email while their kid is telling them how they feel. A while back, I was working with a kid who did a drawing for me that was so telling. I have kids do what is called a “Kinetic Family Drawing” which is essentially a drawing of each family member doing something (to avoid the stick figure linear array and to get more at the roles the family members have). This girl, about age 12, drew a picture of her sitting on a chair in between her two parents, each with a cell phone on their ears, with a bubble coming out of their mouths saying, “Blah! Blah! Blah!” We had been talking for a while about her feelings, it was the end of the session, and I asked her, “Would you feel comfortable with me sharing this with your parents?” She said okay. I asked her, “Shall we bring them in right now?” She said, “Oooh. It’s just like Oprah. Bring them in.” Ha! I love that girl.

So what do you do when a kid is texting during treatment? I have taken several approaches. First, I think about the quality of the texting. Is it just one text and they say, “Sorry, I just have to respond to this because it’s my friend waiting for me?” Or, is it whenever we start talking about a touchy subject, the phone comes out? These are qualitatively different. I typically “notice and explore” to see if it is poor cell phone manners or a symptoms of something else (e.g. boredom, avoidance, passive aggressiveness). I say something like, “I notice when we started talking about school, you started texting. Is this an uncomfortable subject for you?” or “I notice that in the first few minutes of our session, you seem distracted with your phone. Can you tell me what that is about?” Usually, this ends up being a great starting point for other issues, such as parents trying to control them and their cell phone use, or how they get in trouble at school for their phone, or even how friends misinterpret what they text and they don’t understand why. I would have missed all that good stuff if I had been authoritarian about it, and stated “There are no cell phones during therapy.”*

Much of the time, when the phone comes out, it is just absent-minded poor cell phone etiquette.** So how do I address that? I think about what the underlying social skill violation is, and what the appropriate teaching point should be (usually, that it's rude to not pay attention to someone sitting 2 feet from you). Then, and give an “I message” to the student. As in: “I feel left out when you answer a text from your friend during session. Would you like to share what you are texting about?” Nine times out of ten, I only have to say that once, and I never see the phone again. On that tenth time, they sometimes share what the texting is about and it's a good topic to discuss in therapy. I can only hope my "I message" also planted the seed for preventing them from being that person who texts while doing cardio at the gym. Or at least that person who feels shame about it….

*In the public schools, I’m more rigid than in private practice. If there is a school-wide no cell phone rule, I give a warning and tell them the rules still apply in my office. They usually just put it away, no prob.

**In searching for a New York Times article I read a while back about how kids feel neglected by their parents because of excessive Blackberry use, I found this nice one on teaching kids cell phone etiquette. I couldn't find the original article I was looking for, so if anyone has the link, please share!

The Therapy Box: You Can't Fire Me, I QUIT!

I have this fantasy every year that my students I counsel in the schools all suddenly become self-actualized on June 15th or so. On the last day of school, they all finally "get it" and together, we magically get to tie the bow on the therapy box together. Off they go, with their newly developed coping skills in their therapy box, always readily accessible for their summer plans and the next school year.

This is a fantasy.

Last year, I thought I made a breakthrough with a girl who was cutting herself. We had a beautiful session together in May in which she proudly admitted she didn't need to cut anymore. I started imagining her perfect therapy box tied up with a neat little ribbon. Oh, and then she ran away from home and I never saw or heard from her again. Around that same time, I had a boy leave a beautiful reflective session with me at the end of the year only to hear he punched out a kid the same day.

This year, around January, I had a breakthrough with one of my boys I'm trying to keep out of a gang, and then lo and behold, today, he was back to the mentality he had when I met him.

My final hope for a tidy end to therapy is a girl I work with who has basically refused to talk to me about anything remotely related to feelings all year. As in:

Me: How was your weekend?
Her: Weekend-ish.

Me: How would you like to spend our time together today?
Her:

Me: Perhaps you would like to pick something from this menu of activities?
Her:

Me: We can sit here in silence if you would prefer. I'm okay with that too.
Her:

AAAAAAAAAARRG. She finally opened up around February and we have been getting into some pretty serious conversations together. Ah, I can envision the therapy bow neatly wrapping up the....screeeeeeeeeeech...(record scratches). And we're back to square one today and she is radio silent again.

Fortunately, I have enough experience to know that the resurgence of the issues that originally brought the student to counseling at the end of the school year is a common process. As kids anticipate the "end" or "termination" of the school year and the therapeutic relationship, they begin to present the original symptoms. It's as if to say, "See? I still need you." Then there are others who have difficulties with transitions and goodbyes, and want to be in control of the situation, so they push back against my efforts. It's as if to say, "Hey! You can't fire me, I quit you!"

These "termination issues" are challenging if you don't realize they are coming. They happen sometimes on the classroom level as well. And not to be a Me-Monster, but check out this article about how to help kids with the last days of school.

And for the record, yes, therapists can experience termination issues too. I am already missing my students. But I won't be acting out...I promise.

Finding the Proper Motivation

My dissertation was on adolescent motivation for school, and it has been read and enjoyed by ones of people. I was told when I graduated from UC Berkeley that every time someone downloaded my dissertation, I would get $1 in royalties. I have, to date, received $1.*

Because I am feeling generous today, I will give you the results for free, in one sentence. I will spare you the 118 beautiful pages of pure data and analysis that has riveted one reader to date.* Guess what?

Adolescents with positive relationships with their parents have better grades regardless if they are Mexican-American or White.**

Someone please, ALERT THE MEDIA about this.

I’m allowed to put the “dis” in my dissertation, because enough time has passed that I won’t take it personally that it could have been published in the Journal of Duh. But what I will say is that the results do influence my beliefs about my students. Sometimes, we think of adolescents as more influenced by their peers, but I’m here to tell you that even your most snarly disgruntled moody teen still wants his or her parents’ approval. I do this activity with adolescents where I give them a survey of things that might motivate them to do well in school. I swear, the number one “reward” or "motivator" they pick, no matter what age they are, is a positive call home to parents.

I know! So cheap! So easy! Why don’t we educators do this more often? It makes the kid feel good, and if you can manage to block the school’s number (so the parent picks up), and you can manage not to get hung up on when you say, “This is so-and-so from your son’s school…” (because they think their kid did something bad), it really works. Go on, give it a whirl this week.

And if you need more ideas for what makes a kid tick, try my fancy, non-researched-based, but helpful, Adolescent Motivation Survey with a kid and see how it goes.

Student: ____________________ Date: _________
Different students like different things. As your teacher/counselor, I hope to get to know you individually. This survey will help me understand what you like and don’t like about school, so I can work with you/your teachers to make school more enjoyable for you. There are no right or wrong answers, just complete the sentences with your ideas

1. In my free time, I like to….
2. If I had $5, I would buy…
3. The thing I like most about school is…
4. The thing I do not like about school is…
5. When my teachers pay attention to me…
6. When my classmates pay attention to me…
7. When I am frustrated, I like when teachers…
8. My favorite subject is…
9. My least favorite subject is…
10. I wish my teachers knew that…
11. After I finish my work, I like to…
12. When my teachers call my parents…
13. When I don’t want to do something in class, I…
14. You can tell when something is too hard for me because…
15. The behavior I am working on as a part of my IEP is…
16. The rewards I would like to earn are…

You might just be surprised at what you find. Last time I gave this, the kid had a Behavior Plan where the reward for doing his work was “praise from teacher” and he wrote “When my teachers pay attention to me….I hate it because my friends think I’m a teacher’s pet.” Not so rewarding. I guess it’s like giving black licorice as an incentive for increasing class participation.*** It could work for some people, some might find it absolutely vile and repugnant and not know why someone would think that nasty stuff would be consumable or desirable and thus would never raise their hand to participate. I think you know which category I’m in. Bleh.

*Thanks, Dad.
**My dissertation committee argued for a long time what to call the White kids. White? Euro-American? Caucasian? I didn't care. Call my people "Pigment Challenged" for all I care, just sign off on the thing so I can graduate already.
***NFTSP does not endorse candy motivators. Except when they really work.

The Bucket List

It is not often that I am at a loss for words. I know, you are surprised, right? But recently, I did an assessment with a 15-year-old boy who was in a special school for kids with emotional disabilities, and part of this assessment was to interview the parent. Now, I try my best not to be judgmental about parenting.* I mean, lets face it, it is a ridiculously difficult job, especially if your child has special needs.

So I was interviewing the mom about what she thought were her son’s strengths, and she replied, “He ain’t got none.” Wow. No strengths? I tried to guide her to some non-traditional strengths in case she thought she could only answer about academic strengths (he was significantly below grade level).

Me: Um, okay…what about hobbies? Does he like to do anything special? Is he good at a sport or a hobby or something?

Parent: He likes basketball, but I don’t let him play.

Me: Erm, uh

Parent: I don’t let him play because he does too bad in school.

Me: Well, I’ve seen him play basketball here and he seems like he’s pretty good!

Parent: Not really.

Me:

Parent:

Me: Ummmmm. Well, sometimes kids are not always the best athletes, but they feel good about themselves when they improve, or when they are having fun with their friends playing basketball.

Parent: Are you saying that he has no self-esteem because I won’t let him play basketball?

Me: No, I’m just saying that kids tend to do better when they feel good about themselves in at least one area, and it doesn’t have to be school.

Parent: Oh.

Me: Let’s see, other strengths…sometimes kids are not strong in school, but are street-smart and get along well with others. How would you describe your son, Jared?

Parent: Street smart? HA! He’s street dumb. I tell him all the time.

Me:

Right. I was speechless. How could you not think of ONE single strength?

At the meeting, after I tested him, it turned out he did have some strengths. He was an artist. He made beautiful drawings. He learned well visually. He had a friend at school that he was kind to. He was also pretty resilient for having such a negative parent. I gave my schpeal about self-esteem:

Let’s imagine this table has a bunch of little buckets on it, and each one is a part of self-esteem and we can fill them up. Now, there isn’t just one single bucket called “Self-Esteem” because there are a lot of different types of self-esteem. If we want to help Jared feel good about himself, we need to think of all the buckets we can help him fill up, like “Self-Esteem in Math,” “Self-Esteem in Basketball,” "Art Self-Esteem," or “Friendship-Making Self-Esteem.” Then, if you aren’t very good at one thing, maybe reading, then you have all these other buckets that you can rely on to feel good about yourself.

Parent: I know, I am always telling him how smart he is, how great he is in basketball, and all that.

Me:

Sigh. I really hope she does.


*I had a recent slip up in being a Judgy Judgerson in the Apple store though, when a parent was screaming at her 5 year old child that she was going to “break his finger if he flipped her off again.” I wanted to intervene, but thought the mom might not appreciate my card at that moment.

Awkward Conversation #247

As a school psychologist, I get many little notes in my mailbox when I enter my school building. They are usually cryptic and anonymous:

Check in with Darius. He’s sad

Susana wrote in her journal that she wanted to hurt herself. Can you see her?

Not signed. No last names. Detective Branstetter is on the case.*

One I got the a while back made me dread the day I had ahead:

Jim thinks he’s retarded. Can you tell him he’s not?”

Ug. The problem was, Jim was borderline mentally retarded, so he was kind of right. He is in that group of kids who are smart enough to know that they’re not as smart as other kids. Jim was a 9th grade student with an IQ of 72 (below 70 is the technical cutoff for mental retardation) and low daily living skills (how he uses his intelligence in the community, like getting around on public transit, communicating with store owners, using money, and having hobbies or leisure activities with friends). These are the kids who you don’t quite trust to go to the store by themselves. By all other accounts, they look like “normal” kids, but they have pretty slow processing and they don’t problem-solve well (academically or socially).

Right. How do I explain this one to Jim in language he can understand that won’t make him hopeless? Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, “Awkward Conversation #247”:

Dr. B: Hi Jim! Would you like to take a little break from class? You’re not in trouble.

Jim: Okay!

Dr. B: (small talk ensues) Then: Jim, I heard a teacher say that you had some worries about…erm….uh…[In my head: Don’t say retarded yet. Don’t say retarded yet]…that you had some concerns about how well you are doing in school.


Jim: Yeah, I’m retarded.

Dr. B: Who told you that you are retarded?

Jim: My brother tells me all the time. Kids call me “retard” in class.

Dr. B: Would you like me to explain what our testing said about your learning?

Jim: Okay. It will show I’m retarded.

Dr. B: [In head:Urg. It kind of will]. Let’s see!

At this point, I take out a big piece of butcher paper and lay it out on my desk. I draw a number line with numbers ranging from 0 to 100, representing IQ. Keep in mind, Jim got a 72. I make marks at 20, 50, 70, 85, and 100. At 100, I put “average” and explain that most kids without any learning problems get scores of 100.

Dr. B: Where do you think your score on how well you learn is?

Jim: Like here [points to 0]

Dr. B: Actually, it’s here [Points to 72]. Kids who are severely “retarded” and can’t take care of themselves or learn well have scores here [points to 0-70]. Kids who can learn but it takes more help from their teachers and parents are here [points to 70-85].

Jim: You mean I’m not retarded?

Dr. B: [In head: Blerg. Borderline…should I even say it? What benefit would come from telling him he’s “almost retarded”? But I want to be honest and realistic…] No, you’re not “retarded” because your score was not in this range [points to below 70]. But your score is not as high as other kids in your class and that’s probably why you feel different.

Jim: Oh.

Dr. B: You can learn, but you were born with a brain that takes a little longer to learn new things. Once you learn them, you can do well. Can you think of something you know now that you didn’t know in middle school?

Jim: Nope.

Dr. B: Urm...er....what about in math? Did you learn anything new this year?

Jim: Uh, [longest awkward pause in the world] I guess fractions.

Dr. B: [In head: Thank God he thought of something] There you go. If you were retarded, you may never have been able to learn fractions.

Jim: I guess. Can I go back to class?

So there you have it! So awkward. Not sure if he totally got it.

Then, a few months later, his therapist came to me and said, “Thank you so much for talking to Tim. He came in a few weeks ago and drew me a number line and totally explained to me where he was, and was SO excited to show how he wasn’t down there in the 0-50 range.”

Huh. Who knew? It stuck. This is the job of a school psychologist. You plant a seed and hope it grows. You don’t often get “proof” your seed grew and actually helped the child very often. Every once in a while, you get some positive feedback like that, and it keeps you going.

*Weird to use my new last name. A kid told me that “Dr. Branstetter” sounded “meaner” than “Dr. Bell.” Yes! Perhaps the kids won’t tease me anymore. Plus, no more rhyming “Bell” with Hell! Or Smell! Just try to rhyme with Branstetter! Marriage is great.

Dear Me, I Love Me

Ah Valentine’s Day. How you sneak up on me every year and how you make my life so interesting. Working in a middle school, I have seen so much drama this week, all centered on Valentine’s Day. Will he send her a flower? Will her ex- come back with a grand gesture? Will the boys and girls actually dance at the Valentine’s Dance tomorrow, or stand by gender against the walls? I just can’t wait to find out.

In elementary schools, I so enjoy the art projects that come around this time of year. I think there is nothing more precious than a giant glittery slightly deformed (and thus more anatomically accurate) heart valentine made out of construction paper. Priceless.

My favorite though, is a comment that was made by one of my students at a high school for students with emotional disturbances. This young man has come so far in his behavior and controlling his emotions, that our team was thinking he might be ready for "mainstreaming," which is a chance to learn with non-disabled peers. The teacher was asking him when he thought he might be ready to join a sports team and work together with the team appropriately (turns out, kids with emotional disturbances aren’t the best sportsmen sometimes. Who knew?). So teacher asks him when he would be ready and he said, definitively, “I will be ready to be a good sportsman on February 14th.” She asked, “why the 14th?” and he said, “So I can be my own Valentine!” His logic wasn’t so bad, actually. Why not be your own Valentine and love yourself enough to do something great for yourself?

I wonder if it’s too California-hippy-love-fest to make my counseling students make Valentines for themselves tomorrow...It could be really cool or really super lame. Discuss.

Obama Wuz Here

Every morning, I am greeted at my office by graffiti. I am blessed that the dead rat and ant party has moved elsewhere, but it’s always a little discouraging to be greeted with “F*** Haters!” every morning. I do not like haters, but it looks like I exclaim this every day on my wall for all to see. I do not claim “Da Mob” either, just fo’ the record. Graffiti happens in any middle school, sure, but this particular colorful display has been an unsolved mystery and on the “emergency maintenance list” since last year. Apparently, pre-teens claiming gangs does not constitute an emergency.
Today I saw some new graffiti:


Vote for Obama!

I have seen election politics trickle down* into the classrooms like I’ve never seen before. In a science experiment on growing seeds under different conditions, the 6th graders named one soil “Obama Soil” (sun and water) and one “McCain Soil” (dark and water). I’m not making this up. The teacher did not appoint these names, the kids did. I will withhold my political commentary, but will note that the Obama soil was flourishing, and the McCain soil was withered and dying. *Ahem*

In a 3rd grade elementary classroom, the teacher was talking about making good choices and making bad choices, and how some people use their power for being leaders and some use power for making bad choices. Discussion ensued about when the kids had made good choices to be leaders. A little boy then raised his hand and said, “George Bush makes bad choices!” Another piped in: “He uses his power for making bad choices!” Finally, a little girl raises her hand and earnestly asks, “Can you tell me how people voted for him TWICE? I just don’t get it.” Here, here, sister.

In my 6th grade Girls’ Talent Group today, we played the “String Game” in which one person says something they like, and then tosses the string to another person, until we see a nice web of how we’re all connected, even if we don’t all like exactly the same things. After we all giggled following “Who likes Antonio?!?” one girl said, “Who likes Obama?” and they all squealed, “Me!” and jumped up and down.

No matter your political leanings, you have to admit, it is fascinating to see even our little ones get involved. I wonder where they got these messages from. Teachers? Parents? TV? Bootleg Obama shirts that I see on every street corner, peddling Hope? I just think it is wonderful for my young African American kids to feel that they too could be President someday. I just hope they’d use their power for making good choices.

*Not to be confused with trickle down economics. Our schools are still holding out for that trickle down effect to pay for graffiti abatement and better salaries…

The Worst Party Ever

I have written before about how when I do group counseling, I always make it about building positive traits rather than having students join the Anger Management Gang or the Oppositional Club. So instead of working on our ANGER or RULE FOLLOWING (fun!) we work on planning a group project together, and then when someone gets angry or breaks a rule, we solve the problem right then and there. As I’m recruiting for my “Girls’ Talent Group” this year, I thought back to my group of 6th grade girls from last year, who accidentally planned the worst party ever as their project. I have never seen such sad little faces when after 10 weeks of procrastinating planning, avoiding delegating tasks to each other, and arguing about what they should do, they ended up planning nothing.

I tried everything to get them to plan. I even made them trace their feet and think of what “steps” they needed to take to plan a party. They like the tracing of feet, but then their tasks were “Whatever” and “Whatever needs to be done.” Despite my efforts to help them bring it all together, they really thought the party would plan itself. The day of the party, there we were, sitting alone in a classroom. Worse yet, the Boys’ Talent Group had just had a kickin’ party complete with movie and pizza and hot sauce.* The real lesson began when we processed why the party didn’t come together.

“We played around too much.”

“We didn’t listen.”

“We got lazy.”

“This is the worse party ever and it’s all our fault!”**

Why did these girls fail to follow through? Was the task beyond their skills? The boys were the same age and they pulled together a party (albeit last minute). The answer may lie in these particular students’ personalities, or even their level of Executive Functioning skills (the ability to plan, organize, and prioritize). Developing these skills is the hallmark of adolescence, and it is not an easy process. It is hard, if not impossible, to speed up frontal lobe development, and often, adults function as kids’ frontal lobes for a while, as we teach them how to do adult tasks like thinking through consequences and planning accordingly. What seems so obvious to us has to be taught.

So how can teachers help their students with these important Executive Functioning skills?

1) First, understand that “Executive Functioning” is actually a number of skills, not just one skill a student has or does not have. Some of the skills that middle and high school students are working on are: paying attention for longer periods of time, starting tasks on their own, controlling impulses and emotions, planning, strengthening their short-term memory, and inhibiting responses(do THIS, not THAT).

2) Remember that it takes over TWO DECADES for executive functioning skills to develop. We should not expect students to have these skills or be able to apply them on a consistent basis. Sometimes, Executive Functioning skills are thought of as the Mini Executive of a company in the brain who makes all the decisions, like a CEO. Now think about whether or not you would put a 12 year old in charge of a company?*** Even under optimal conditions (like my group where I scaffolded every single step) these skills take YEARS to develop.

3) Think of executive skills as being on a continuum. A student can be poor at sustaining attention, good at initiating tasks, or just okay at planning a long-term project.

4) Be explicit when you teach an “Executive Functioning Skill,” and don’t teach too many skills at once. Pick one to focus on, such as task initiation, and say why you are teaching it: “We are working on how to start a task you don’t know how to do, because there will be times when you have to solve problems on your own.”

5) Think of middle school and young high school students as “Zen.” They are in the moment. That is normal. When you were 13, were you thinking of your 10 year plan? No. You were thinking about how cute Jason was in English class that day. Or at least I was.

6) Include the students in planning and give them an active role in decision making. So if your class is working on a class-wide project, have the students come up with roles, tasks, and deadlines. Make everything visual. It’s better if the kids make it visual. Even though it flopped, I still liked the “Steps” activity.

7) Utilize visual checklists. So if your students are having problems remembering what homework to do and what materials they need, make a checklist together that you go over at the end of the class and have them check off when they have written down the assignment, checked their backpack for any books they need, placed the homework in the appropriate folder, put the folder in the backpack, etc etc. It sounds so basic, doesn’t it? For some kids, it really isn’t, and they need to be reminded how to do it. This is where all teachers go to heaven for their patience.

8) Make a Classwork Planning Sheet, in which the students write down the assignment, the materials they need, make a prediction about how long it will take to complete the assignment, identify what they need in order to stay focused on the task, note when they plan to start and when they actually started and finished, then evaluate how they did and note what they could have done differently the next time. All these steps will eventually go “underground” in their frontal lobes, but for many adolescents, they must be explicit.

9) Remember that our role in teaching executive functioning skills is to be the instructor and safety net. We must resist the urge to be the helicopter, hovering over and rescuing the kids before their plans fall through. Processing why the girls’ party was so lame was a far more valuable learning experience than if I had planned the whole thing when they failed to do so. What would they have learned? That when they don’t follow through, it doesn’t matter because someone will do it for you.

10) Make sure that you think of teaching executive functioning skills as a circle of Planning, Executing, and Evaluating. If I had stopped without the evaluation part, the girls wouldn’t have learned what didn’t work.

*I know. Gross. They planned it, and I obliged. I then witnessed the fun middle school boy game of “Who can make their pizza unbearably hot and eat it anyway!”

**It really was. I couldn’t bear it after 30 minutes of our Pity Party, and bust out some leftover snacks from the boys’ party, and we went outside to play a little bit. It softened the tough lesson, I know, but I do think that some celebration is important when a group ends.

***Besides if you are a 12 year old who gets turned into Tom Hanks and you are put in charge of a toy company. Then, it’s okay.

My Words Taste Yucky

Don't you hate it when you have to eat your words? Today was one of those days. I had to take my own advice and I hated it.

As usually happens, an administrator plopped a kid in my office and wanted me to see why he was fighting so much lately. He is a 7th grade boy and had just gotten into a fight in the middle of class. The kid tells me that it's because he's being teased. I know this kid from last year, and he is, in fact, a teaser as well. So I could easily imagine how words were exchanged, words escalated to yelling, and then (since words are the gateway drug to fighting), kids started shoving each other. This was, in essence, what happened.

Oh clever Ph.D.! I will utilize you today to change this child! I made the kid do a "Responsibility Pie" to see how much of the conflict he owned and how much the other kid owned. He started out with 99% other kid's fault, 1% his, but we talked about it more and he ended up giving himself a fair slice of pie, about 25%. We talked about teasing. I gave him permission to use foul language if needed, to tell me what the kids were calling him. To my surprise, the trigger for this "tough kid" to fight was that the kids called him Nemo. Yes, as in the fish. I asked him if when they called him that, did he grow gills, hop in the sink, and start eating fish food? He laughed and said, "No" and we talked about how "Just because someone calls you something, it doesn't make you that." I was pretty proud of my shrewd counseling skills at this point. Since I was on a roll, we brainstormed other ways to react to teasing (e.g. ignoring in the same way you ignore rude MySpace people because then they tend to stop, making a bully-deflecting joke, etc etc.). And I sent my kid on his merry way, with the statement, "Try out some of these things today and let me know if any of them work!"

I think you know where this story is going. I left my office for my next kiddo and I overhear one of my counselee's say %#$%ing bleeeeeepidy bleeeeeep $%^$%^$% to a group of his 8th grade friends.* Out of instinct, I broke my cardinal rule of not reprimanding 8th grade boys in a group. If anyone has tried this, it is a lose-lose situation because the kid is far more invested in looking cool than listening to whatever you just said. The following is a painful transcript of me getting teased by a group of 8th grade boys:

My kid: %#$%ing bleeeeeepidy bleeeeeep $%^$%^$%
Me: I need you to use respectful language in school
My kid: (to my surprise) Okay, sorry.
Random 8th grade boy: $%^& you, dumbass bitch! (laughter erupts)
Me: That is not appropriate language for school. (turns and walks away)
Random 8th grade boy of unknown location: Puta!
Me: (whipping around) That is not appropriate. I know Spanish! (turns and walks away)
Croud of 8th grade boys: Puta! Puta! Puta!
Me:

Yeah, that's right. I ignored them. And it sucked. But I knew that no matter how long I stayed in that interaction, I would not win that one. I couldn't find the kid who said it, and they were really enjoying seeing me whip around and be horrified at their disrespect.

10 minutes later, I thought of all kinds of bully-deflating remarks. *sigh*

*I always have this internal battle with myself about when to ignore and when to intervene. In general, if the language is garden variety cursing, I let it go. If it's sexist, racist, or homophobic, I intervene. It was one of the latter.

Can Someone Tell Me Why This Chicken Soup for the Educator’s Soul Keeps Burning My Tongue?

My last week of school was this week. I had lofty goals of meeting with each of my caseload of counselees and processing the end of our work together. I have about 10 students I work with weekly at my school site, and each one has made strides in their therapeutic goals. They have reflected on their behavior over the course of the year. Some have accepted consequences of summer school. Most have made friends. They have learned how to deflate bullies. They have survived their first year in middle school or gotten ready for their first year of high school. They have looked eagerly at me and asked, “Are you coming back next year? Can we still meet?” This is the stuff of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Except my final serving of Soul Soup actually burned my tongue and spilled all over my lap on my last day.

One of my students has struggled all year with fighting. He has been in and out of juvenile hall all year. He gets suspended. He hates school. His attendance in counseling is about 50%. On the days I got him, we built rapport and he opened up. On my last day, I saw him and said, “Great! You’re here! I’ll come get you after lunch.” He smiled and agreed. I was preparing myself for internal accolades about how we would connect and reflect on the year and I would give wonderful anticipatory guidance for the summer. He might reflect on his choices and we would have a powerful therapeutic moment together. Then, I heard a ruckus that woke me from my soulful journey down future memory lane. He was punching out a student in the cafeteria. Then, he ran away and never came back to school. A few of my other students were gleefully watching, saying, “Dr. Bell! That was hella tight! Did you see that?”

So much for my helping of Soul Soup, and my dreams of tying a pretty little bow on a therapy box. But as one of my supervisors told me, “Do you best, and let go of the immediate outcome. You never know what will be therapeutic in the long run.” Maybe when my boy returns next year, and I welcome him back with a smile, that will be what he needs, not a pretty little pre-planned therapy box. Stay tuned.

Games Pirates Play

One time, I went on a blind date with a pirate.

Ha! Bet you didn’t see that coming from a blog about education. It’s true. He had just returned from a month long trip on the “Black Pearl” down the coast of California, all in the name of 5th grade science instruction. He had dressed like a pirate and taught students about life on the seas. But that was not his day job. In real life, he was a video game editor.* On our second (and final) date, he showed me a pirated *ahem* version of the newest Grand Theft Auto. There is a reason it was our last date. In any event, so many of my students have told me about this game and so I felt it would be a good quasi-experiment for me to try it out. So we played this game, which was replete with car-jacking, fighting, and general morally offensive behavior.

In general, I disdain violence. I am the type to leave a movie if it gets too violent (or I spend the hour and a half like an ostrich burying my head in my sweatshirt). I left the theatre after approximately 4 minutes of “Fight Club” and I think I lasted 2 minutes in that dumb movie where Rose McGowen’s leg is a chainsaw. I have repressed the title of that one. My friends now realize that I’m more of a “27 Dresses” kind of movie-goer. But I have to say, that video game we played was pretty entertaining. The first 10 minutes I was horrified, but then I got a little excited when I found out I could not only car-jack, but plane-jack! As I was “flying” my stolen plane, I saw the allure of such a game. I felt vicariously powerful. Driving home that night, I think I even drove a little more rapidly and aggressively.**

This all comes full circle because 99.9% of my students I work with who are referred for anger management counseling are obsessed with violent video games. There are many metaphors in these games that could explain the obsession. Typically, one earns points (status) and power (strength) with each subsequent fight or misdeed. I have pointed out this metaphor to help students understand why they fight in real life. I use the video game as a talking point for anger management, and they’re happy to do it, because it’s about their favorite topic. Through this process, I can also ascertain if the games are "appropriate" sublimation of aggression or by playing them, the student has reached a disturbing level of fascination and desensitization to violence.

Recently, a fellow blogger asked the question What is the Deal with Video Games and Violence? The post provides some good links into recent studies and books on the longstanding query about the causal relationship (if any) between video games and aggression. It also offers advice for parents and therapists about the context in which the games are played as a factor in the possible effects. Check it out. And in the meantime, I will lament about whether or not the person who stole my car was a Grand Theft Auto aficionado.

*So was he Captain Hook, or was he Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up? Discuss.
**Was it the game, or to get away from someone who thinks playing video games is an appropriate date?

Color Me Badd

Don’t fret. This isn’t a post about the 1990s R&B group that infused mild rapping into their vocal styling that was so “bad” it had to add an extra “d.” It’s about graffiti.

As some readers who have been with me a while may recall, my introduction to one of my middle schools involved some delightful graffiti. Adventures in graffiti continued when my “Positive Graffiti Wall” went awry. My general rule with the students regarding graffiti (and most behaviors) is to attempt to channel it for good, not evil. Graffiti is an extremely powerful way for my budding adolescents to express themselves. My main task is to make sure that the “art” occurs on paper, no spray cans make their way on campus, and kids can’t claim anything but their school.

I am presently fighting a losing battle with the graffiti outside my office.

It all started with a small “Money Over Boyz!” marking on the wall outside my office.* In one week, it has exponentially multiplied to cover not only the wall outside my office, but the door as well. And while I’m mildly curious about who loves whom and who rules, it is clearly not “graffiti art.” Luckily, middle school kids are kind of impulsive, so they don’t think twice to put the same tag on their backpacks and every notebook as they put on the wall. So our school policy is to have the tagger clean it up, and our investigation process takes 2, maybe 3 seconds.

We have a mystery on our hands though.

My friend and I were examining the graffiti and have used our super sleuthing skills to narrow down the possible culprits.** We know the following:

a) Tagger is likely a 6th grader, as there was a diss of a current 6th grade teacher
b) Or, tagger is a disgruntled 7th or 8th grader who still holds a grudge (less likely)
c) May or may not have a Learning Disability as does not know how to spell a certain four letter F-word, nor a certain 5 letter B word.
d) May or may not be like Color Me Badd, purposely spelling thigz wrong 2 be kewl.

Basically, I am not a very good detective, so I opted for Plan B: Offer rewards to my counseling group if they agreed to clean it up as a community service project. Surprisingly, they agreed. In an effort to teach executive functioning skills, I let them try to figure out how to go about it. Needless to say, we spent the entire hour trying to figure out where to get the paint, who to ask to get it, locate brushes, ask the Principal if it was okay, etc etc. The bell rang and there we sat with a can of paint we couldn’t open, no brushes, and a giant wall of graffiti. I was delighted.

Why?

I was pleased because an unintended learning experience occurred. When we processed their experience of group, they all said something along the lines of “It’s hard work to paint over graffiti and it’s frustrating.” Now I cross my fingers that they think of this the next time they want to exclaim that in fact, Money is over Girlz.

*In hindsight, I should have pulled a NYC Transit Strategy and taken care of the small things before it set up a context in which graffiti is ok, and segues into more problems, the so-called “Broken Window” theory. It is not the case that I believe money should come over boyz, I just got busy.

**Finally, an opportunity to wear my newsboy cap and use my pocket spectacle.

Are you Playing Around on the Job Again???

"We can be sure that all happenings, pleasant and unpleasant, in the child’s life, will have repercussion on her dolls” -Jean Piaget

I have said before that school psychologists wear many hats, above and beyond being “that special ed lady.” The past few weeks I have also worn a wizard hat, a beret, a firefighter hat, a cowgirl hat, and a bridal veil,* all in the spirit of play therapy. I have to say that at times, I can’t believe how lucky I am to get paid for my job.

But what exactly is “Play Therapy” and how can that be therapeutic? Parents sometimes ask, what do we DO in there? Teachers have said, “I don’t see how playing UNO all year can help.”

Play therapy provides an opportunity for children to work through adjustment problems in a supportive, child-driven setting. I don’t set out the teacher doll and the kid doll and a fake gun and say “show me what happened!” I set out the materials and let the child play. If they want to “talk” about what happened, they will, when they feel comfortable. Making them talk about it is the equivalent of an adult sitting down for therapy wanting to talk about their job and the therapist making them talk about their family, because the therapist feels that’s more pressing. What’s pressing for a child is what they will play. You go with it. And then the relationship builds and the child feels supported because you are interested in their world.

Let’s put it this way. Adults find relief in talking about their difficulties with an understanding therapist. Usually children cannot express their thoughts and feelings in words, but can find release through various forms of play. Play therapy can offer a child a unique relationship with an objective and accepting adult who is not in a position to “use” any of his or her disclosures in any way.

Like any other form of therapy, Play Therapy takes time. The first few sessions are rapport-building. I tell the child that he or she will be coming every week to talk with me, and there are a lot of toys s/he can play with. I explain that it seems to help children to have someone that they can talk to and play with all alone. I ask the parents not to “quiz” the child after the session about what they did or what their piece of art means. It is important for the child not feel it necessary to give an accounting of the events that occur in the playroom, because this reinforces that the time is private and will build trust and cooperation. If the child wants to share what s/he did or show a painting s/he made, that’s okay. It’s best to say something like “thank you for sharing what you did/made.”

In the school setting, I work mostly with 11-14 year olds, so the schpeal is different. I have also heard people wonder if play therapy is too babyish for teenagers. Au contraire. While there is more talking involved with middle schoolers, if there is play going on simultaneously, you will get a lot more opening up. In my earlier years as a therapist, I would keep kids in the four-walls and do only drawing or games. I was amazed at how kids, especially boys, opened up when we went on the basketball court or walked around the school. The wonderful side effect is for anxious or hyperactive kids, they get out some energy in a productive way.

Sometimes you have to “sell” the idea of coming to talk with some lady you don’t know about something you are pretty sure you don’t want to talk about in the first place. My schpeal is something like, “This time is “chill time” from your class. It is a chance to take time out of class to talk about anything that is going on, or to just to relax for a while.” I always add, “You’re not in trouble!” because most of my counselees have had the experience that someone coming to get you out of class is probably not because you’re getting the Best Student Award. In general, counseling is not a hard sell if you find a class they hate and suggest you meet during that time.

Oh, and by the way, I highly encourage you to play around on the job today. It is Friday, after all.

*Unrelated to my own pending nuptials. It was an arranged marriage. A child wanted me to marry Barney.

Resources: I like Garry Landreth’s Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship.It is one of the few “Nuts and Bolts” kind of books on how to improve your play therapy techniques. One chapter is dedicated to the “What to do if…” kind of situations. As in, “What do I do if the child steals a toy?” or “What do I do if the child leaves the playroom?” I also like School-Based Play Therapy edited by Drewes, Carey, & Schaefer. It provides some adaptations of play therapy in the school with both individuals and groups.

I Must Have Missed that Day in Grad School When They Taught This

Once again, I feel compelled to show this hilarious clip from Summer Heights High, a mockumentary of high school students. Originally, I thought it was from England, but my fellow school psychologist from New Zealand pointed out last time Australia actually deserves credit. Thanks, Shirley! In this clip, our friend Jonah is getting “Anger Management” lessons from the school psychologist. If the f- word offends you, I wouldn’t click on this. But if you are not around small children and want a laugh, click away.



Any school psychologist will tell you that this is pretty accurate when trying to give a scripted “Anger Management” program with a student who is angry. Allow me to reminisce about my foibles at Haides Middle School when I was an intern. That first year, our school truant officer stopped showing up and our “anger management therapist” got so angry that she was never given a key to an office and quit. Oh delicious irony! So the principal asked me if I could start an anger management group and gave me a list of about 20 candidates for the group. Being an obliging young intern, I took the list and started at the top with recruitment.

Here are some pitfalls, that I wish for other young psychs to avoid:

1) When you call a group the “Anger Management Group” it sounds to kids like the opposite of fun. Pizza may be the only way to get them there.

2) Parents also can be standoffish when you cold call to recommend that their child be in this group.

3) When principals put together these lists, they put the most severe kids on the top. And when you put several angry kids together, you form a gang.

4) When you are alone in a room with a gang of angry students, you have very little control over the situation, even with the best structure and positive reinforcement strategy in the world. There is one of you and 5 or 6 of them. Longest hour of your life.

So after a long period of recruitment and cajoling participants, I held my anger management group and it was melee. They cursed at each other, threw things, exploded into WWE Wrestling parties in the middle of my “take a deep breath!” speech. Later, my “Anger Management Group” banded together to go pop locks off of everyone’s lockers together. That wasn’t the group cohesion I was going for. After this first group, I consulted with a colleague about what went wrong and how to improve it for next time. We were CSI: Group Autopsy Unit.

Cause of death: Poor planning with group composition.

I have now renamed my group the “Talent Group” and it has a positive focus of developing assets in these students instead of trying to get them to not be angry. I also recruited a co-facilitator. The group goal is to develop a plan to showcase the group’s talent at the end of the 12-week session. The beauty of the “Talent Group” is that a) kids want to be in it, b) parents are less threatened by the content, c) you get to see your kids in a new light, and d) the anger/conflict that arises out of having to make group decisions is naturalistic and meaningful, not a poster of tips like the one Jonah rejected.

What I do is get teachers to “nominate” kids they think have a talent that is un-tapped. I have them rank this kid as “low” “medium” or “high” risk for oppositional and angry behavior based upon the DSM-IV criteria for Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Zero to one symptoms in the checklist is “low risk,” 2-3 symptoms is medium risk and more than 3 is high risk. Then I pick ONE high-risk kid, a few medium-risk kids, and a few low-risk kids. The importance of having low-risk kids cannot be underscored enough. They can serve as calming forces and models for good coping for the other students. I did some research to make sure that the role model kids don’t get damaged in this process, and fortunately, they do not. What the do is get experience on how to cope with a hostile peer in a safe environment.

The most rewarding thing about changing my Anger Management Group to the Talent Group is that the kids begin to identify themselves as talented individuals, not angry kids in need of help. I will never forget this little boy from my group one time. I was recruiting for my group, and I pulled this 6th grade kid out of class with his teacher to tell him his teacher had “nominated” him to be in the talent group because he showed “leadership potential.” This kid’s face went from this angry scowl that said “who the hell are you and why I am in trouble now” to this soft, doe-eyed child with a huge smile. He looked at his teacher and honestly asked, “You think I have talent?” The teacher smiled and said he did, and that kid was on Cloud-9 for the rest of the day. It changed the dynamic between the kid and this teacher and this kid was always the first to arrive at group, ready to learn.

You just can’t get that from the Angry Club.