School Counselors, Meet the Common Core!

You work hard every day to help kids communicate clearly, solve problems, collaborate, gain independence, understand others’ perspectives and cultures, and become college and career ready. You facilitate discussion in one-on-one, small group, and whole-class settings. Depending on the grade levels you cover, it’s likely that you read books with kids, help students prepare for college or job interviews (or disciplinary hearings!), help them interpret assessments or other data to make decisions, and provide guidance about writing application essays. So guess what! You’re probably already on your way to addressing the Common Core State Standards. Here’s some information to help you better understand what the Common Core standards are all about, and how you can integrate them into your practice to improve student learning and build system-wide support for your school counseling program.   

F is for Success, Not Failure

I never know what I’m going to find in the mailbox outside my office door. It could be a request for help, a thank-you note, a picture, a detailed description of what went on at recess (can you say third grade girls?), a mushed up cupcake, or one of the flurry of notes I get about nothing much once first graders discover how exciting it is to deposit their missives in my mailbox. “Can I help you with something?” I ask. Often the answer is, “No. I’m just writing you a note.” And sometimes I get something like this:

F this scool. Get me out of hear know.

“I Got Safe So Quickly!”: How Kids Feel After Telling About Sexual Abuse

In the days after a student discloses abuse, I always touch base to see how things are going. I tell them (again) how brave they were and how proud of them I am. Unfortunately, not all of these stories have happy endings, but in many cases, telling helps kids find safety, and they feel protected, empowered, and proud of themselves. Some of the most profoundly moving moments of my career as a school counselor have come when kids have told me about how telling made such a difference in how they are feeling about their situations and about themselves. Here is some of what they have told me (and how I plan to use their words to help other kids too):

Teaching Kids to Recognize Grooming

When thinking about perpetrators of child sexual abuse, many people picture an image of a creepy stranger. Parents and schools generally do a pretty good job of teaching their kids about “stranger danger.” But this is not where most of the danger lies. The vast majority of sexual abusers are known to the children they target, so it is incumbent upon us to teach kids not only how to respond when an uncomfortable or dangerous situation arises, but also how to recognize when danger is approaching.

A Post-It Note Happy Ending

One of the most widely-read posts on School Counseling by Heart is Post-It Note Counseling, which outlines a technique that I use in individual counseling sessions to help kids who are reluctant to talk about how they are feeling. I use Post-It Note counseling all the time, to great effect. I think others must be using it too, because fairly frequently it pops up on my Pinterest page, so far removed from the original pin that I think it must have circumnavigated the globe before arriving back here! (Luckily, it still links back

My Absolutely, Positively Most Favorite Counseling Game of All Time Throughout Eternity (So Far)

Did you get the idea from the title of this post that I might be talking about a game I kind of like?

I have a good collection of board games and card games in my office, but my hands down favorite — and the kids’ favorite too – is Max. It is no exaggeration to say that it is the most beloved game on my shelf! You should get it! Seriously! You can get it for less than $12 (at Funagain Games, or for a little more at Amazon), which is a rarity for any game, much less a game that is so applicable to the work that we do with kids. Here’s the spiel that I give to kids before they play the first time:

All Pirates Cry. And So Do I.

It’s been something of a sob-fest around here recently. Last Friday, on our last day of school, the fifth grade boys in particular had a very hard time. Two of them burst into tears and could not finish reading their poems during the graduation celebration. Afterwards, the guy who ALMOST NEVER stops being silly was sobbing, as was a boy who is moving, and the boy who doesn’t like to show any feeling other than annoyance. The boy who is probably the coolest of them all threw himself into my arms before I even knew he was headed my way. Several others teared up over the course of the day and, for a few of them, crying recurred over the course of the day. It provided a great opportunity

The Wildflower Effect

Friday morning a fifth grader burst into my office, threw himself into a chair, said, “I think I’m depressed!” and burst into tears. I think he’s right. Poor guy! He was inconsolable, really stuck in his unhappiness without knowing why. He just wanted to go home. Even though this friend has a hard time letting go of a plan once he’s made it (whether or not the adults think the plan is a good idea or if it’s even possible), I was hopeful

I’ve Got a Secret . . .

. . . and I know what to do with it!  

Do You Have a Secret?  by Jennifer Moore-Mallinos is a great book about good and bad secrets, how to tell the difference between them, and the importance of telling secrets that make you feel uncomfortable, yucky, or unsafe. I use it — along with my Good Secrets Box and Secret Cards — in first grade class councils and with individual kids in a range of ages. It’s probably best for preschool-grade 2, but older kids sometimes like to read it too. (I love to give older kids books to “review” for younger readers. It helps teach or reinforce concepts and gives struggling

Introduce Conflict Resolution with “The Zax”

Zax are terrible role models for how to solve conflicts! But their story, “The Zax,” by Dr. Seuss, is a great way to start a discussion about conflict resolution. The zax are two single-minded characters, one who wants to go north, and the other who wants to go south. When they meet face-to-face on the north-south path, neither one will budge. At all. Ever. End of story.

I use “The Zax” to introduce my conflict resolution unit because it perfectly illustrates what happens when you don’t use conflict resolution strategies.