First Day Of School

I just dropped of my little son for his first day of Kindergarten. It is not easy for a parent to do this. It is good for me to experience what so many parents go through when leaving their kids in the hands/care of today's educational system. Things haven't changed much. I remember like it was yesterday when I was dropped at school for the first time. The fear still is in me. I could see the same fear/anxiety with my son so it was definitely difficult to let him go there. Luckily I know the school, administrators, and teachers so I can't imagine how hard it must be for so many parents to drop off their kids at schools where they do not know the staff so well. Even more scary it must be for those parents with special needs students who are even that more worried about their children and their education. This puts a new perspective on things for me from a school psychologist's viewpoint. I believe it will make me better for it in many ways but especially as a professional trying to help parents deal with this world.

What is YOUR Sphere of Influence?

The concept of "spheres of influence" is not new. It has been commonly used in sociological studies as well as marketing campaigns. It is a systematic way to view how your surrounding environment influences who you are and who you will become. The phrase "Birds of a feather flock together." comes to mind here.

This concept is not earth shattering but it can be beneficial to think about in terms of your own immediate life. Not only is this concept applicable to students, children/adolescents. It is also applicable to adults, businesses, and governments. I often ask myself the question; What company do I keep? How are these people and their behavior and views affecting my life?

As the diagram above illustrates how each part of your life overlaps and affects the outcomes in your life. Individuals fall somewhere in the smaller triangular shaped curve where all three spheres overlap. The diagram and theory attempt to help one realize how their family, community and school/work life interact with their personal life. Believe it or not, our environment and who we interact with dictate who we are now and who we will become later. One can not insulate themselves from these affects but one can focus on one sphere more than another to create more productive outcomes. For example, if you are coming or came from an abusive home life that sphere of influence will continue to affect who you are today. At that time of your life you may have had a positive sphere of influence in either your community or school or even family that compensated for this abuse and helped you get through it. This example is meant to make people realize that if you can identify your negative sphere of influence and replace that with a more positive one you will have a better chance at having successful outcomes.

So take a look at your life today and identify those areas/people who are not positive influences in your life and replace them with more positive influences. This is not easily done and takes quite a bit of hard work and thinking along with purposeful action. However, with determination and some guidance you can begin to point your life in a more positive direction.

Building Self-Esteem

What is self-esteem?

Self-esteem is probably the most in demand commodity and it is in very short supply. This is not something that can be obtained in a jar/bottle or in pill form although many have tried. It can't even be obtained solely by reading books or dreaming about it...although both of these activities help lead to it's acquisition. In fact, there is no recipe for it but there are certain things you can do to help create the right environment for your mind to develop it.

I am not a big believer in counseling to develop self-esteem. I believe most healthy individuals could use improved self-esteem in order to maximize their functioning in school, at work, and at home. I am, however, a big believer in laying the ground work and implementing purposeful planning to develop it. Once this is done it is time to go out and start taking action to improve your self-esteem. This is where the reading, self-assessment, and talk need to take a back seat to going out there and interacting with your environment.

Self-esteem encompasses quite a few different things. Sometimes positive activities lead to self-esteem or positive self-statements help build it....but really, no one knows if these activities help develop self-esteem or if they are simply by-products of an individual who already has a well developed self-concept. Much like developing the mind and body one must work at developing their self-concept and self-esteem on a daily basis. When working on improving any aspect of yourself you need a plan. When we go to college we follow a plan that leads to a degree.

When we prepare for a triathlon or marathon or any athletic event we have a certain training regiment we follow with certain strategies that are designed to provide the highest possibility of success.

It is common for teachers and psychologists to state that you or your child has low self-esteem but it is not so common for any of these professionals to devise a plan that will help you to develop this attribute. Why not? Well, for one reason it takes time, plenty of thought and some creativity on the part of the professional facilitating or coaching the person seeking this. It also takes courage, communication, strength, determination, motivation and trust in the one being coached and doing the work/exercises on a daily basis. As an athletic coach knows, you can write the best workouts in the world and if they are not followed by the athlete with the utmost discipline and motivation they really won't do any good.

So it takes a team approach by two individuals who are working towards a common end. Both sides need to communicate and share ideas and thoughts on how to move forward. Each party learns from their mistakes and improves upon the plan. The plan becomes a living and breathing animal that almost takes on a life of its own while at the same time propelling both the client to new heights of success and self-confidence. Each activity and exercise has a purpose and moves the client forward in a positive direction focusing on and maintaining their strengths while at the same time improving their limiters. Activities and exercises are driven by the client's dreams, goals and objectives that begin to become reality as the client starts to interact with their environment in a positive way. Above all else, a constant stream of communication between the client and the coach is available for when the client has a question or idea that he or she would like to express to or bounce off of the coach.

So how do YOU go about building self-esteem?

I have developed my own plan that is partly based in the fields of psychology, education and athletic training. These are the three fields of discipline I am greatly familiar with and have been proven to get results in common ways. Each field or discipline is dedicated to improving an individual's performance whether it be within their own inner mind (Psychology), their field of study (education), or physical performance/health (athletic training). Within these next few paragraphs I hope to sketch-out the steps to be taken when working with a student/client/individual who is interested in improving their self-esteem.

STEP I:

Identify your personal/behavioral strengths and limiters. This is a critical part of laying the ground work or base for your self-esteem development. Being honest and truthful here is critical and taking a good hard look at yourself is mandatory. Finding out what you are doing that is holding you back and impeding your progress is one thing you have to come to grips with before you can start making change. Otherwise you will be driving with one foot on the brake and one on the accelerator. In addition to determining your biggest limiter it is important to determine your biggest strengths. This is where we look at what is working right within your personal behavior. The main idea is to focus on your strengths while we address your limiters.

Step II:

Identify those individuals in your life that are supporting your positive life changes and those that are dragging you down. This is where many of us need to look at those we associate with with a very critical eye. Are your friends moving you in the positive direction that you want to be moving in? Who are those in your life that mean well and want to help but are creating what is called "resistance" to change by their overzealous nature and pushy behavior?These are usually those people closest to you and who have your best interests in mind but who are emotionally involved in your behavior and unable to help due to this dynamic playing out in your everyday interactions with them. These individuals are usually a well intentioned parent, teacher, counselor or friend in your life.

Step III:

Begin to develop your dream life and picture of how your life would be with improved self-esteem, confidence, and positive interactions with others. This is the time to dream big and challenge yourself. No dream is really to big or too outrageous but it is mandatory that the hair stands up on the back of your neck when you think about it. It is also extremely important that you see this dream as a possibility, albeit a long shot.

Around this dream your 3-month goals and annual goals will be built with benchmarks set by you the client. As you begin to work your way towards your dream goal it will become evident that your dream goal is not such a long shot after all but begins to start to look like a real possibility.

This is the beginning of your plan and what all your daily and weekly exercises and activities will be based of off. It is imperative that your dream be tied into your emotions and that your dream is something you want more than anything else. Your dream is just that. Your dream. You determine it and you decide the criteria that will indicate to you that you have accomplished this dream. As with any plan, nothing is set in stone and is subject to change but your dream will point you in the right direction .

Step IV:

Set-up challenges that will move you towards your dream goal. As in athletics if someone is interested in finishing a long distance triathlon they usually set out to complete an event that is shorter in nature but still challenging. This helps build self-confidence and conditioning for the "Big Event". Your big event can be whatever you want it to be, and guess what?, your chances of success are actually quite good if you are able to follow the plan and stick with it. Same goes for your self-esteem/dream goals. Your 3-month or 6-month challenges will be significantly related to your dream goal but will not be long shots at all but will be challenging.

Step V:

Revisit steps I-IV and keep what works and throw away what isn't working. Revise your plan as necessary and move forward in the process.

Conclusion:

As you can see there is no magic pill to developing your self-esteem and your dream life. It takes hard work, purposeful activities, objective evaluation, and positive support from friends and family. This is what I like to call educational coaching. Although you can call it what you like. It is focused on you the client. It is focused on moving you forward, what is working right in your life, and it is focused on your successes not your failures. You are in control and it is designed to move you in a positive forward direction with you controlling the pace. This is not a program intended for those content with stagnation in their life, those that find it hard to motivate themselves, those that rather find excuses than solutions. It is a challenge to those that want to improve themselves in all areas and aspects of their life but need support, objectivity and a daily plan to help move themselves forward. You bring the motivation,,,,I bring the plan.

Got Motivation?

Educational Coaching

What is educational coaching and how it can help your child achieve their academic/personal goals, and how this service is delivered?

Educational coaching is not counseling. It is goal based, client centered, and client directed. We are focused on what is working for you. Not what is WRONG with you. We focus on your strengths, dreams, ambitions, and talents. Unfortunately, counseling is still based on the medical model which focuses on your past and on the disease model. Educational coaching is positive, interactive, client centered and directed and progressive. Coaching is based on progress and measuring that progress that is determined by the client. The client determines what success is and how it will be measured. Educational coaching is much like sports coaching. It helps to have a bench mark of where you are at now. There is no set or predetermined baseline and progress is measured against your own abilities....not those abilities of others.

Educational coaching is all about YOU improving. It is not about comparing your progress with your classmates or neighbor. You are in competition with yourself. Having said that, educational coaching is a plan that is facilitated by your coach based on YOUR goals. You decide what is important for you to accomplish. Not your coach, teacher or parents. Your coach is there to help facilitate positive and progressive goal formation along with providing support, guidance, ideas and accountability. Most of us have an idea of where they want to be and how they want to get there. Educational coaching will help devise a specified plan of attack, take out the element of resistance so commonly found among young students and adolescents, and put you in control.

How is this plan delivered?

Educational coaching can be delivered in one of many formats. Some individuals like to work face-to-face with their coach. This is fine if you want to take the time to transport your child to the coach's office, wait for an hour or so, then return to home later that night. However, this is really not necessary. If you have access to the internet and a telephone educational coaching is available to you.

Typically an initial consultation is provided free of charge in order for the coach and the client/student determine if there is a good fit for service. Can the coach help? Does the client feel comfortable with the situation? Once it is determined that educational coaching is a viable avenue to pursue for achieving goals then specific goals and objectives can be addressed. This is where the coach's training, experience and value comes to light. Again, the client determines their own goals but the coach is there to help facilitate the client's goal formulation. This takes time and may require several sessions before a client's goals are realized. Goals must be determined by the client and viewed as important and credible by the client or the motivation for the client to do the work to achieve those goals will not be sufficient.

Once goals are developed the coach helps create objectives to reach those goals with the input of the client. An annual plan is devised that identifies the client's dreams, goals, objectives and major benchmarks that will need to be met at certain times throughout the year in order for the client to stay on track and on schedule to meet their dreams/goals.

At this point you may be asking how can you accomplish this on-line and over the phone? Actually on-line coaching is more efficient and interactive than face-to-face coaching could ever be. First of all you have immediate and unlimited access to your coach via email or phone. Second, you are emailed daily activities/exercises to perform that will help keep you on track, improve self-esteem, and specifically address your educational goals and objectives. Interactivity is ensured by the client being able to write in comments on each activity emailed and which allows the coach to know if they are following the program, find things interesting and motivating, and being accountable to their dreams.

I am interested so where do I go from here?

Getting started is extremely easy and fast. Your first consultation is free and there are no obligations to continue if you find this is not for you. Simply email Coach Pete at educationalconsultingsolutions@yahoo.com in order to set-up your free and initial consultation. If you decide you would like to pursue your career/educational/life dreams then you will be sent an invitation for coaching via email. An initial intake will be performed where you complete several questionnaires, sign a parent/client permission waiver, and further develop your goals/objectives with Coach Pete.

Bullying

With the recent sad events of the consequences of bullying in the news I thought it would be appropriate to touch base on this one. This problem seems to rear it's ugly head now and again with the same sad circumstances. This problem is not new and the solutions seem to be as varied as what causes this insidious problem. Is it our culture? Is it just human nature? What do you think? Send me your thoughts. Please be respectful of those who have suffered from this as I feel there are many out there that have personal experiences with this problem. It really must be brought to a quick end. Ideas are welcomed.

Larry King / Sarah Palin Interview

Positive Psychology

Traditionally, the field of Psychology has focused on the negative side of things. It is common for traditional psychologists to focus on what is wrong with you and NOT what is right with you. Traditional Psychology is based on the medical model and bound to discovering what you are doing wrong. However, there is a new field on the horizon that offers something new. Positive Psychology is a relatively new field that is focusing on your strengths. It is not what most critics have defined it to be. It is not a field that tells you to just smile and everything will be okay. It is actually a strengths based plan that focuses on what you are able to do and not what you are unable to do.

A true pioneer in this field is Martin P. Seligman from the University of Pennsylvania. Positive psychology is not a Pollyanna view of the world but rather a realistic assessment of what your abilities are and then developing a realistic plan and goals designed to move you forward in life. For some individuals this may not be possible and for these individuals traditional Psychology may be warranted. However, for the vast majority of those in need of some order in their life and motivation to progress forward positive psychology may be the way to go. Why go through life in stagnation when you can go through life flourishing, thriving and growing. Focusing on your strengths becomes contagious and can spread throughout your life compartments.

As with any change....it is challenging and always an uphill battle. However, giving up and allowing negativity to take control of your life is not fair to you or those close to you. You do deserve more and now there is a field that is based on the positive.

Cal. U. School Psych. Program

Pictured above are two of my previous professors from Cal. U. University. I thought this write up would shed some light on not only where I was educated but also where parents can go to find affordable testing options for their children. A great place to look for outside evaluations by qualified school psychologist is your local university. However, be sure to request a SCHOOL and/or EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST to do the testing as they are experts in diagnosing learning disabilities and other disorders related to your child's ability to learn new information in the school setting.

APA's True Colors

As the saying goes....when someone shows you their "true colors" believe them the first time. For those who may not understand where I am coming from here it has to do with the American Psychological Association's failed attempt at disallowing School Psychologists from calling themselves Psychologists. Fortunately, the National Association of School Psychologists fought this move by the APA and won. Nothing against clinical psychologists, but School Psychologists are specialists in the area of SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY! We are not trying to be clinical psychologists, although our skills overlap a School Psychologist is specifically trained to work with school age children as well as consult with teachers and administrators in a public school setting. In my opinion this attempt by the APA was a desperate move to find employment for some of "their own" by depriving School Psychologists the right to employment and by depriving students and school systems the specialized services that only a School Psychologist can provide at the expense of the APA's own self-serving interests. So as the saying goes....when someone or some organization shows you their true colors....be sure to believe them the first time.

Above you will see what is called the "Bell Shaped Curve". It may look intimidating but it is really quite easy to understand once you take it one step at a time. The curve is divided into 8 sections which simply tell what percentage of the population scores in that given range. If your son or daughter are being tested by a school psychologist all tests will provide a "score" whether it be an IQ score or an achievement score. It is easiest to ask for the percentile of that "score" If you follow the percentile category up to the bell shaped curve you will be able to identify where your child falls in relationship to the rest of the population. It is highly important to notice the "0" or "50%" marker in the middle of the curve. 68.26 % of individuals tested will fall on either side of the "0" or "50%" mark.