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When Parenting Help is Needed, Why is Individual School Counseling Rejected?Individual school counseling is often the answer whenparenting help is needed, but there are a number of, apparently, valid reasons parents might reject counseling. First, there’s the idea that you should be able to raise your child yourself, without any parenting help from, individual school counseling. Let me tell you, from my experience, every parent needs a little help now and then with their kids because it just isn’t easy with parents often living far from grandparents, with both parents working, and with some of the negative influences by television and the internet. Most former parents tell me that raising their child was the single most important job in their lives. Some of these parents sigh and tell me they wish they had raised their children differently. They didn't know any better and still blame themselves for the way their kids turned out. Many of these parents tell me how unprepared they felt and that they wished they had been some parenting help like individual school counseling. My advice: When in doubt get help. Why take a chance with your children. Only you will know how you will feel afterwards, if you could have gotten help for your children but didn't. Anyway, you're already doing the right thing by your kids by reading this article. Why not act upon it, and get parenting help by preventive individual school counseling? Imagine being hired for a regular job without any preparation? Without any college experience or prior on the job training, how long do you think you would last? So why should we expect to raise our kids without any help? Surely we must accept the fact that a little parenting help like individual school counseling or child rearing classes could make a big difference, just like our college experience and on the job training did with our present occupation? What’s more, in the past, when parents belonged to extended families, it was common for parents to get help from relatives to rear their children. In fact, I recall a cousin, who lived in the city, coming to live with my family in the country for three months because he’d gotten in with the wrong crowd. This break helped him get back on the right track. So, you see, parents never raised kids alone, at least until relatively recently. Sometimes just one simple idea from individual school counseling can save you and your family a lot of frustration and time. For example, I recall seeing a six year-old, I’ll call Tanya, whose mother was a single mom. The problem was that Tanya couldn’t go to sleep at night without crawling into her mom’s bed. Naturally, this disturbed her working mom’s sleep. After suffering an interminable number of sleepless nights, Tanya’s mom talked to the teacher and was referred to me. After meeting Tanya and her mother and becoming familiar with the problem, it was agreed by both mother and daughter that I should see Tanya for individual school counseling during school hours. And that's all it took for Tanya and me to figure out the problem. You see when Tanya went to sleep in her own bed, she lay on her back, waiting for her mom to go to bed. Then she’d creep into her mom's bed because she couldn’t get to sleep. Tanya told me that when she slept in her mom’s bed, she slept on her stomach and went right to sleep. The treatment was simply a matter of helping Tanya understand what she was doing to keep herself from going to sleep and helping her realize that she wanted to sleep in her own bed just like her best friend. Having mom come in the room and read a short story, and kiss her good night, before she rolled over onto her stomach and fell asleep, proved the solution to the problem. Tanya's mother decided, after the successful resolution of the sleeping problem through individual school counseling that she wanted some parenting help. She'd tired of nagging and yelling at her daughter to get her to do what she wanted. What's more all this bothered her because sometimes Tanya seemed to fear her, even flinching in her presence. Mother wanted to update her parenting skills by learning some of the modern day approaches to child raising, like parenting with love and logical consequences that made parenting sensible, natural and easier. Mom wanted a simple plan that worked for her that she could adjust to suit her and her family, and that's just what we worked out. So, Tanya’s problem was fairly easily solved, but her mom had experienced months of sleep deprivation over it, months that she could have avoided by seeing a counselor sooner. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of seeking individual school counseling as soon as possible, or even “sooner” than possible. Generally, the younger the child, the easier the problem is to solve. A problem that can be solved in a few sessions when a child is in first grade may take five times longer in sixth grade and ten times longer in tenth grade. Why take such risk with your daughter's or son's future? Bring them in for preventive individual counseling now. The counselor will be able answer any questions you might have and relieve any worries. Also, she will help ease any parenting guilt you might have. And we parents, almost always, have some parenting guilt. It comes with the job. Sometimes a bar to a parent seeking individual school counseling is the word, therapy. Parents often worry about their child getting therapy. That’s probably because they confuse the word, therapy, with psychotherapy. Therapy really means treatment. When you visit the doctor and he treats you for a cold, that’s therapy. When you clean your daughter’s scraped knee and cover it with a band aid, that’s therapy. So think of therapy simply as treatment and it won't seem so scary. In regards to words, like therapy, preventing parents from taking their children to counseling, I’ve had instances where parents flatly refused to see the school psychologist, but agreed to talk to me because they feared psychologists but not counselors. Again, don’t let words get in the way of doing what is best for your child. Basically, a psychologist is just a counselor by another name, like another name for janitor is custodian. In fact, in my case, I have as much formal education as a psychologist, more so in fact, because I have a medical education as well. It is how you think and feel about your counselor or psychologist that counts. If you don’t like him or her, go to someone else, the same as you would a car repair service that didn’t impress you. What’s more never let any psychologist or counselor tell you what to do with your child. We are advisors, confidants. We are there to help you with your challenges. The same reasoning applies to this website: use what makes sense to you. If you find one idea or example useful, I consider that a success. It could make all the difference to you and your family. Another bar to individual school counseling is parental worry about what the other kids or parents might think about their child seeing a therapist. I can only convey what experience taught me in the public school system. There were a few rare cases of, often envious, older kids teasing their peers for seeing a counselor, but, generally, kids begged to see me, particularly the younger ones. Even kids with no apparent problems frequently asked to see me because after talking to their friends who were attending therapy, they felt they were missing out on something. They, even, said the counselor was cool. Nothing seems to bother kids more than the feeling that they are missing out, even if they don’t quite know what they are missing out on? At lunch time my office was often crammed with boys and girls eager to talk to me, not necessarily about problems, but they were just curious about what I did, and they often asked me various questions as, for example, what normal was. They just wanted to be assured they were okay. Sometimes they might have a problem, like a squabble with a girlfriend that they wanted advice about, but didn’t need any therapy otherwise. From my experience as a school counselor, I can say that a good school counselor can stop minor problems from ever becoming major problems. They can prevent years of needless suffering by dealing with problems early, and they can save lives. By aiding children who’ve proven disruptive in the classroom, they can allow teachers to teach, instead of having to deal with repetitive classroom disturbances, and they can help parents who have come to their wits end with their children to get their lives back because they’ve stopped wasting time fighting with their children. Wouldn't it be nice to have a little peace around the house? Individual school counseling can help. Don't let fear of counseling prevent you from seeking parenting help. When in doubt, arrange to interview the counselor before you send your child for individual school counseling. You deserve peace of mind and your child will benefit from the help you get him. The wonderful thing about helping children with adjustment problems is that it is relatively easy. The sad part is that parents, too often, wait years before referring their children to individual school counseling for help, years that could have been spent peacefully, instead of filled with tension and stress. That’s why I emphasize getting aid for your child “sooner” than possible. To recapitulate, given the fact that individual school counseling can save parents and children alike from innumerable months and, even, years of heartache that therapy is, simply, treatment, that it often consists of mutual problem solving and learning communication skills that these days there is no stigma associated with it that it can allow the parent to have a life of his or her own, instead of frequently fighting with the child that it can relieve parental guilt that parents do not need to feel they, alone, should deal with their children’s problems, and that the majority of adjustment challenges are solved relatively easily, it is important for parents to find a counselor they like and to bring the child to individual school counseling as early as possible or “sooner.” To summarize this section, regarding individual school counseling: 1. Parenting, the most important job of your life, is too valuable to risk going it alone. Seek preventive individual school counseling, family therapy, or at least enroll in a parenting class. 2. People spend years training for their occupations. Doesn't it make sense to seek parenting skill training for the most important job in most people's lives, parenting? 3. A little parenting help in the form of individual school counseling or family therapy can save a lot of heartache, frustration and time, time that can, otherwise, be spent enjoying yourself, instead of battling with the kids. 4. If you were a parent, struggling with a teenager, how would you feel if all that struggle might have been avoided by a simple tip from your family therapist when your child was in first grade? 5. Whether you call it counseling or therapy, it all amounts to the same thing: helping you find what works for you and your son or daughter. So, don't let big, medical sounding names prevent you from helping your child. 6. Counseling is virtually stigma free these days. Most kids look forward to counseling, particularly when they're young. 7. To ease parental guilt and worry, seek preventive counseling "sooner" than possible so you can have the peace of mind you deserve and spend your time enjoying yourself. For parenting help, regarding individual school counseling, click here for the parenting advice page, and here for the counseling page. |
