A: I would say some personal strengths that were very helpful in my role as school psychologist were my social interaction skills, good humor, empathy, being a good listener. It also helped to be a good problem solver: based on my math background, I was able to take test and experiential data on students and solve the puzzle of their academic, social, and emotional challenges. I learned over time not to be too hard on myself, if I didn’t have an answer. I was always a good team worker and enjoyed very much working with teachers, parents, and administrators to improve student’s lives. I made myself well known and well liked in order to destigmatize seeking mental health.
A: I loved the variety of activities that I was able to engage in, ranging from assessing students, consulting with parents and teachers, running a number of groups for students, including social skills, divorce, dealing with ill parents, dealing with special needs siblings. I also ran mathclubs for very able math students to give them greater challenges. I taught lessons in classes such as understanding good and bad touch to protect themselves, teasing and bullying, and friendship skills.
A: Some of the most challenging aspects of the job were having to report child abuse, deal with parents who would not be willing to try reasonable interventions to help their child, including medication, dealing with highly anxious or depressed students, and hardest might have been trying to connect with students who wouldn’t talk or showed not motivation.
Q: What qualities does a good school psychologist have?
A: See the “valuable skills” question below
A: Both counseling and contracts were the two main strategies for dealing with students’ behavior problems. My first task was to try to deconstruct the misbehavior, to understand what really triggered it and to see if those triggers could be eliminated or modified. I would work with teachers to develop a contract with a reward at school and/or home, assuming the student wanted to earn the reward. I also worked with parents to see if they were experiencing the same student behavior at home. If so, and if they had tried a number of strategies that didn’t work, then I would recommend outside therapy for the child and parenting counseling, as well.
A: This was a major concern of me, particularly in the last few years. If there were bullying between two students, I would meet with the victim first, try to figure out what the other students was doing and why and offer a choice of my talking to the other one, to both together, or giving the victim strategies such as “I Statements” to express his/her opinion in a respectful way to try to change the situation. My favorite was to meet with both students together to work on what was triggering the bullying, what each could do to not trigger or to respond differently. It is not unusual that the “victim” is doing something to annoy the bully, but unless he/she gets specific feedback, that doesn’t change. I have worked with individuals to try to manage angry responses by teaching a 1-10 scale, putting minor events in perspective, compared to really awful life events. This works not only for students, but for adults, as well. I have in the past few years, based on an escalation of meanness, in my opinion based on an increasingly mean culture in the United States, gone into classes to discuss teasing and bullying. I ask what kids should tease other kids about and even students as young as third graders know about appearance, race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, academic performance, athletic performance, and more. I introduce the phrase “hurt people hurt people,” which a lot of of students understand that a bully is probably being bullied and is hurting and wants to take it out on someone else. That’s when I introduce the concept of self-esteem, noting that if we have positive feelings about ourselves, we don’t have to diminish others. While it may not cure bullying, it does give students a common language to reflect on.
A: I would work with students to set up personal goals to make academic or social improvement. Of course, I would not impose this on students, but depended on their motivation to change. I would often talk to students about their self-esteem and if theirs’s were low, we would work on changing that through a number of of self-talk techniques, as well as developing lists of actions they felt good about.
A: Absolutely. I provided counseling for students who had lost pets, grandparents, and even parents. I made myself available for them to express their feelings, cry, and eventually work on ways to remember and honor their loved one who had passed away. For example, I would ask what they liked the most about their loved one and convinced them to demonstrate some of those positive traits to keep the loved one alive.
A: I wasn’t the expert in academic programs, but I did work with teachers on social emotional learning. School psychologists have ample access to programs for emotional learning and either training teachers to use such a curriculum, or if time permits, to do general classroom lessons on specific social emotional topics is within the purview of the psychologist
A: This was not a very common situation. Fortunately, staff members looked upon me as wise, and experienced, so there weren’t many arguments. I would work closely with the Special Education teachers in analyzing data and trying to accurately diagnose students. If there were continuing disagreements, we would look at what interventions seemed appropriate and if they didn’t work, we might do further assessments to better clarify the diagnosis.
A: That is one of the most challenging situations to face. Sometimes it takes years for a parent to realize that nothing they have been doing has worked. The key is to try to build a trusting relationship with the parents, show a lot of empathy, and eventually have a deep discussion about why they may be so resistant to suggested interventions. Sometimes/often a small team including teacher, principal, and psychologist can be persuasive. What underlies resistance is often guilt about feeling that they are not good parents, so trying to assure them that all parents have challenging situations to face might make them be more open to trying a different intervention. If the situation is critical enough, such as very bad behavior, then the administration has to take over. The two most common situations I’ve dealt with are students with intellectual disability (low IQ) and students with ADHD. For the first parents do not want to admit that their child is a slow learner and may reject the academic support offered. Keeping consistent over the years with offering appropriate help can sometimes change the parents’ willingness to try special education. Numbers of parents with ADHD students are resistant to medications. That’s understandable, as they may be fearful of addiction or side effects. Again, time can help with this; as students enter middle school and can no longer complete much work, pay attention in class, and succeed, parents may grow willing to try medication, particularly if they trust the school psychologist as a caring and knowledgeable person.
A: I speak with the teacher first to determine when this is happening and try to identify the triggers. I would take time to observe the student in class, to identify what might be the reason for the behavior. As I said earlier, I would take time to counsel the student, understand his or her awareness of the acting out, work with parents, maybe establish a contract to improve the behavior. There are students who really are young sociopaths and they are very difficult to get to internally change. They are students who need very strict discipline with clear external rewards and perhaps consequences, though I prefer not punishing students generally. Discussions with “victims” of the behavior can sometimes help if they see the effects of their behavior on others, though for sociopathic students, all they care about is their own benefits.
A: I always considered the role of school psychologist as a Renaissance role – with many “hats.” As I said earlier, there are many “soft” skills (not technical ones) that school psychologists should have. These include good communication and interpersonal skills, excellent problem solving skills, critical thinking, ability to work with other adults, including parents, teachers, and administrators, On the emotional front, empathy, emotional intelligence, creativity can all contribute to understanding and problem solving. On the personal protective level, school psychologists need to be flexible, adaptive, and resilient. We are not always correct or even knowledgeable about everything. We cannot always hold to a schedule we set for ourselves. We will make mistakes and should learn from them, rather than be overly hard on ourselves. Finally, having good leadership skills is important and we have knowledge about areas that even teachers and administrators do not have, so be may be able to influence changes in programs both academic and social emotional.