Taming the Storm: School Counselors' Guide to October

Navigating the Challenges of October

Welcome back school counselor friend , welcome to the School for School Counselors podcast and welcome to October . As I'm recording this , I've got a blanket in my lap . I'm nice and cozy , waiting for a cold front to blow through here . Even in Texas , the weather's starting to turn , my friends . It is fall , things are changing , the leaves are changing and our school campuses are changing . I'm sure that you're feeling the effects of those .

October is a tough , tough time in the school year and I really struggled with this podcast episode . I had lots of different things I wanted to talk about this week , but none of them felt exactly right . None of them felt like the message that I should be giving . In light of the things that our mastermind members are talking about , the things I'm seeing all of you discussing , and our School for School Counselors Facebook group and elsewhere just felt like we needed a different message , and so I've returned to my little office , in my little recording space , to create an episode in the 11th hour here , something that I hope will resonate with you , that will speak to you and let you know you're not , by yourself , all alone in this October madness . Before I hop too far into this , I'd like to give a special thank you to Reba1976 , who left the sweetest review for the podcast and Apple Podcast here recently . They titled it Beyond Grateful and they went on to say this this podcast and all of the resources School for School Counselors offers are game changing .

I am in my second year of getting back into the field of school counseling , 15 years after graduating . Needless to say , I've had a lot to learn and for a while got lost in all the noise out there . But since finding this podcast , steph is my number one guide . Everything is explained so clearly and with such a realistic perspective and tons of empathy . I am just incredibly grateful to be able to absorb all the knowledge and insight . Thank you so much , reba1976 . That is one of the highest compliments I think I could ever receive and I don't take that lightly for sure . I try to be very real and authentic and honest in the podcast and I'm glad that's resonating with you and coming through . We always want to focus on the real world aspects of school counseling , not this cookie cutter , everything's bright and beautiful approach . We see a lot of other places which are great . That's not a criticism of anybody else , but sometimes we just need a good dose of reality . We need a good dose of knowing . Other people have been there . They've experienced what we're experiencing , and we're not the only ones . So thanks again for that wonderful review . Guys , if you haven't left a review for the podcast , you are more than welcome . Hop over to Apple Podcasts . Leave a review there . It is so , so helpful to us . We've been working hard to grow this thing to serve as many of our colleagues as we can , and your reviews actually help get the word out for us . We just recently hit a milestone 10,000 downloads in a month , which is crazy and just feels completely insane to me , but I'm so humbled and grateful that our message is reaching the right people and then it's resonating with all of our friends and colleagues . So thanks again .

This week I really want to talk about October . October , as a school counselor , is an animal all its own . It's something that you can't even understand until you've experienced it , and if you're in the middle of what we call Shocked Over on my campus , you'll know exactly what I mean . The honeymoon period is over . Kids are settling in . They're starting to not show their best selves every day . We're starting to have issues compound on top of things that maybe we're coming in at the beginning of the year I didn't feel like such a big deal with the adrenaline pump in and door fins were going , but the news worn off and now everybody is settling in for the long haul and typically in a lot of places anyway , we don't have a lot of breaks in October . Some of you lucky folks have fall breaks and I am so jealous of that . Here in Texas we don't do that , and so October is a long , hard journey , and it seems like I don't know if it's just every year we say this or if it really is particularly applicable this year in 2023 .

But I know a lot of people have talked about how the behaviors that they're seeing on their campuses are head and shoulders above anything else they've ever seen before , and I hesitate to say that . I don't want to sound like a negative Nancy over here , but I actually did go back into my school counseling data . I wanted to see what mid-September through mid-October has looked like in years past , and I'm going to tell you that at least in my corner of the world , I've been able to empirically validate that . Then I am seeing more extreme behaviors , more needs for more intensive supports this year than I've seen any other , and so , just like we like to support you and validate your experiences throughout your journey , I'm grateful that you guys are validating mine and that I don't have to wonder if it's just my campus or if there's something that I'm not doing right .

I think this is something that's happening for the majority of us . I think our overwhelm comes from a lot of places . Some of these things you've heard me talk about before they won't be a surprise , but they might be nice to hear again Some of the things that lead us to feeling even more overwhelmed in challenging school counseling situations , particularly in times of year like this when we don't have a lot of breaks or a lot of things to look forward to . One , I think , is the hero complex . I wish there was a nicer way to say that . I don't know that there is .

We often approach our school year , particularly when we're newer to the field , with this idea that we're going to come be the savior of students on campus . And that doesn't mean we have a big ego , that doesn't mean we think we're the greatest thing that ever walked into that school building , but it does mean that we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to try to be that rock star , behavior intervention , social emotional support counselor that we want to be , the kind of school counselor that we know we could be and the right circumstances , with the right program paradigms , with the right time allowances and materials allowances and all the things we know the tremendous impacts we could stand to make on students . Then we get on campus and we start working and we realize that the expectation of what we want to do is not matching the reality . Right , and this is not just for our newest school counselors . I think we all do this when we start the school year fresh and we're expecting this wonderful rainbows and butterflies school year and we really want to make a change . We have goals , we want to up , level things and then all of a sudden we start to feel really bogged down by all of the obstacles in our way , so that hero complex can really come back and bite us . We've got to keep all of that in perspective and make sure we're not overreaching and expecting too much of ourselves . The affirmation we give all the time in our school for school counselors Facebook group when we say I'm a helper , not a fixer , right , that was a wonderful piece of wisdom passed down to me by one of my mentors and I live by it daily and I have to remind myself very often I'm a helper , I'm not a fixer .

I think another component of our work that makes this time of year feel difficult is when we see behavior concerns escalating . When we start to accumulate evidence of social , emotional concerns for students , we start to kind of connect the dots with a lot of things we're seeing . We begin to realize things that are going on . It all takes a toll and we're concerned about our students . We want to do the best things we can for them , but at the same time , many of us are working in environments where we feel very judged . I don't know about you , but I know the majority of our school for school counselors , mastermind members , have been talking about this .

As a matter of fact , the day that I'm recording this podcast episode , we had a masterclass . Earlier in the day we were talking about use of time , data collection on our campuses , the things that are holding us back from that , the things that are motivating us . One of the things that we really talked about a lot was this feeling of being judged , of being under a microscope all the time , a feeling like we have to justify every single thing we do in a day , that we need to answer for every single minute of our time and that we are typically the only folks on campus that are either cold to do that or feel an expectation to do it , which is really interesting in and of itself . But unfortunately that's the educational climate in a lot of places where we work . So we feel like we're being examined or investigated with all the things we're doing . We worry about the whispers about how we're doing our job , if we're having the right effects , that we haven't fixed that student yet . All of those different things can really take a toll on your self-esteem and your confidence . It can lead to imposter syndrome . We have a podcast episode on that imposter syndrome . So if you're struggling with that , head to schoolcounselorpodcastcom and search for imposter syndrome . It'll take you right to it .

Challenges and Perspectives in School Counseling

But this judging or feeling like we're being judged really starts to affect our work perspective . It really starts to affect our ability to be very rational , very even-keeled in our judgments and it begins to really weigh us down . And I think too , the fact that there are so many factors that are beyond our control . Sometimes we can set up the best interventions . We can have the best counseling sessions , we can really invest hardcore into our students . But we know that at the end of the day , when we send them out of that school environment , which is a little bit more protected for them , into the wild outside world , that a lot of the things that we do can get undone , Either by environmental factors , just situations that students are confronting as they're going through their daily life at home .

Family issues Sometimes families try to talk students out of what we're trying to teach them if they share it with anyone . There are lots of different things going on and that's hard to grapple with when you feel like man . If I could just give this student a chance to implement these things , how great would that be to see them realize their full potential . There are a lot of factors we can't control . Personally , I wish that we had a family systems therapist on every school campus . I think that would be maybe one of the most impactful things we could do for students right now . It would just be an incredible sight to see . I think we would see so many issues resolved and my dream is that someday we can incorporate a lot more family and parent counseling and coaching onto our campuses to help everybody Everybody realize their best selves .

There are many more things that come into play in October as well . You know we're being overworked . Some of you are working for micromanagers that want to know every single thing you're doing all seconds of the day . Some of you are working for Know-it-all administrators who think they know your job better than you do . Some of you are working with very clickish and dismissive staffs . Some of you are working with mean girl staffs . I'll just be honest about it . There are lots of other things that are happening . October can be a pretty tough time , so I think it's important that we focus on some things that maybe can help us through this in a little bit more of a healthy way .

It's always interesting to me to see the social media conversation turn about this time of year when folks start talking about I'm not sure I'm in the right place , I'm not happy at my school , there are things being expected of me that I don't feel that I can meet , or I shouldn't have to do these things , or no one takes me seriously these kinds of things . I spoke with a school counselor just today who was telling me that they'd been on their campus for three years now and their psychologists and principals are still having closed door meetings , without inviting them in , about behavioral and mental health concerns . So I know that kind of dysfunction is out there on school campuses . I used to work in one . I know exactly what that feels like .

So we've got to be able to find a way to frame our work , maybe as a short-term solution , just to get you through until you can find a better and more productive and healthy place to work . Sometimes we just need to do this just to get us through the intensity of our work . We're dealing with some of the hardest situations that students can encounter , and we just get pelted with them day after day after day , because we're serving large groups of students , hundreds of students . So first I just want to validate the fact that when you feel like things just keep coming , it's because things just keep coming . That's the nature of the work , and I think , too , that's one of the things we really do love about it . We love being in the position to be a helper for students . We love to be in the position of guiding them toward realizing their best paths , their best selves and how they can be academically successful , but it also takes a toll .

One of the things that we can really focus on is the idea of impermanence , and this is something that is notoriously difficult for us as human beings to do . Our perception is often our reality . Right , I can think about speaking of the October weather blowing in and it getting more and more chilly . We're very prone to wild weather snaps where one day it's 32 degrees , it feels like we've settled into winter , it's going to be this way forever , and the next day it's 95 outside Perhaps in reality not that extreme , but you see what I'm talking about . In those moments of cold weather , the wind is blowing , it feels like it's going to be that way forever and , conversely , when you have record heat waves , like we were having down here in the south this summer , it felt like it was never going to end . Our faces were literally going to melt off before the summer calmed down . Our perception tends to be our reality .

When we're faced with some of these difficult situations with students , it's easy to think it's going to be this way forever , that the challenges on our campuses are going to be this way forever , that the level of behavior concerns we're seeing on our campuses are going to be this way forever , and we really have to do ourselves the justice of remembering that everything is impermanent . The challenges that we face , the challenges that our students face , the setbacks , the disappointments , they're all temporary . They don't last forever . Some of them are a little less temporary than others , but at the end of the day it's all impermanent and so it's kind of that idea of this too shall pass . Right . We'll get through this one way or another . We're going to make it . But we really have to actively remind ourselves of the impermanence of some of the situations that we're facing and that our students are facing .

I think too , when we're presented with a situation or a circumstance , we need to be really rational with our responses . We need to make sure that we're modulating our thoughts about those so that we can really have a good judgment about it . It's really easy to fly off the handle . It's very easy to get ingrained at these ideas of unfair , not right , not okay , and bring ourselves down with those judgment statements . Let me give you an example of what I mean .

A lot of school counselors get really , really concerned when they're given jobs to do that they don't feel should really fall within their scope . And I get it . I 100% get it . And we do need to have standards and expectations for the work that we do as school counselors . Every day we should be allowed to build school counseling programming correctly . We should be allowed the time and the latitude to utilize our expertise to make those happen . And at the same time as you're working toward that goal , the likelihood of you being tasked with something you don't necessarily agree with is pretty high .

As a school counselor , it's almost inevitable that you're going to receive some sort of role or responsibility that you would not have asked for , and a lot of folks will get really bogged down in that . They'll start applying these value judgments to the situation . They'll start thinking how this is not fair , it's not appropriate , they're being misutilized and while all those are true to an extent , it doesn't do any good to be thinking that direction . Folks sometimes also slip into these judgments of they don't trust me , they don't think I'm good enough , they don't think I'm doing enough on campus , those kinds of things , and then it really kind of sends us into an emotional tailspin , it wears us out , and so it's really important , as we find ourselves doing that , to kind of rationally detach a little bit , to examine them super critically , to decide if they're really true and valid and whether or not it's going to help us along our journey .

This is an interesting place , too , where you could start looking at some dialectics . That's a dialectical behavior therapy . One of the components of that is the understanding that two things that seem to be opposite can actually be true at the same time . That's a really hard thing for us to wrap our heads around . As human beings , we want to make value judgments and we want to leave them on the table . Right , that's either all good , it's all bad . I like it , I don't like it . There's very rarely any middle ground , which is funny , because we try to help our students find that middle ground every single day , don't we ? But it's really hard for us to do sometimes for ourselves , and so we have to be able to identify that middle ground . This schedule that I'm working in my campus stinks , but I also enjoy my job . Those two can be true at the same time . It does not have to be an either or value judgment , or it could be something like collecting my use of time data feels overwhelming and frustrating , and I know it's going to pay off in the long run .

Two thoughts that seem to be in opposition , but both can actually be true , there are lots of opportunities for this kind of dialectical thought , but I think the most important part of it is just being very rational in our judgments . It doesn't mean we can't have emotions about it . It doesn't mean we can't have opinions or feelings about it , but we can't let those take center stage and guide us through the remainder of our days or weeks or months on our campus . We've really got to have a little bit more objectivity to the whole process so it doesn't wear us down , so we don't get bogged down and being angry every single day or being sad every single day or feeling anxiety every single day that we walk onto campus . Last I'll say I think we need to be very aware of how external events are driving our inner world .

This is similar to what I was just talking about , but a little bit different thought approach to it . It's almost like that what I can control and what I can't control the exercises that we do with our students , we really kind of got to do it for ourselves as well . We have to get to a place where we can resist being emotionally affected by things that are absolutely outside of our control Some of those situations that our students are going home to at the end of the day , right , we may have some influence over those situations , it's probably going to be very small unless it's been asked for , and so being emotionally invested in that situation is not going to help anybody . It's going to wear you down but it's not going to change that student situation . Same with your job duties and your roles on campus . I think of school counselors who have been put in specials rotations on campuses so that they can provide breaks for teachers .

That's one of the most maddening things that I see you guys talk about and I know it's so super frustrating . You've got to really detach these emotional judgments from the external events . If you don't have much control over that external event , you're not going to be able at the moment to advocate or campaign for a different schedule , likely in October . That's not going to happen because they're not going to reschedule the campus for you . You've got to figure out how to relegate that to a different train of thought than the one that tells you how much you enjoy your job . Now I get it . They're intertwined .

For some of you who are really down deep in this , it sounds like I'm speaking gibberish right now and you're thinking how can I possibly tease out the two ? I don't think it's that you shouldn't feel upset or frustrated or angry about it , but you cannot let that guide the rest of your feelings toward your work . It's almost like you have to isolate them a little bit in order to make it through , if that makes sense , and then identify the things that you can do to start to influence those external factors . All right , that got kind of heavy and deep pretty quick . It was just something that was really on my heart , some ways that I like to think through these difficult times of year and these difficult situations in school counseling because , goodness and gracious , we've got to take good care of ourselves . We're up against so much day-to-day and our students are counting on us . They're counting on us to help them , to inspire them to be their best selves and to maybe break some patterns , break some cycles in their families , and we can certainly help them toward that end . But we've got to take good care of ourselves as we're doing that .

I would love to hear some of your thoughts about how you look at your work and how you approach it . We have a really cool new little button . It's in the bottom right-hand corner of our podcast website . You can go to schoolcounselorpodcastcom and there's a little microphone icon down in the bottom right-hand part of your screen . If you touch that microphone icon , it will take you to a place where you can actually leave me and my team of voicemail .

Sharing Feedback and Coping Strategies

You can give us feedback , you can give us your thoughts on the episodes or you can tell me how you look at some of these concerning or trying situations on campus . I would love to know how you frame your thoughts , how you cope with stressful situations , especially in the month of October , and I'd really like to be able to share your thoughts with the rest of our listeners . So head on over to schoolcounselorpodcastcom and leave me your thoughts . I'd love to hear what you have to say . All right , my friends , I'll be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast . In the meantime , I hope you have the best week . Take care .