By Laura Driscoll | Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
Kids are terrible at apologizing. Heck, adults aren’t much better. I’m sure, like me, you have found yourself demanding a child say sorry to another child only to have them not show the least sign of remorse. Putting the words in their mouth doesn’t seem to be working. So let’s try directly teaching them how to apologize. More […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
Many of the students I have seen for counseling have been referred because they are struggling to control themselves when they get angry. As counselors, it can be tempting to create a behavior plan, practice some deep breathing with the student, and give their teacher a list of strategies. Voila, anger management intervention.How often has […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy , Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
Research has repeatedly shown that programs claiming to increase a child’s or teen’s self-esteem have failed to do so. These programs have opted for activities full of superficial affirmations, rather than activities that discover the underlying causes of self-esteem and target interventions there. Think of it like this. Say you run over a nail with […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
You have students on your caseload and you want to make sure they are making progress and you are being effective. Social and emotional skills aren’t always the easiest skills to measure though. I found at least one solution to my problem though. I explicitly set goals with students. This allowed me to have data […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Group Counseling , Individual Counseling , Social Emotional Skills
Understanding who you can count on is a key social and emotional skill we can teach early and reinforce through high school. Students benefit from knowing who is in their support system, when to access them, and how to access them. It is so powerful for a child to know that when they are upset […]
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By Laura Driscoll | Individual Counseling
I love the first counseling session with a new student. You get to introduce yourself as an encouraging, safe adult that is going to help and support them. It’s the place that you establish norms, build rapport, and involve the student in their own growth. That’s a pretty incredible day’s work. Until I realized, I was […]
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