This is How My Body Feels When I'm ANGRY

Third group session today in my emotions/anger management first grade group! Last time, we focused on identifying feelings in others, and today, I wanted to focus on how the kiddos can tell what they're feeling in themselves. Since this group is mainly focusing on anger management, we talked about how we can tell we're angry based on what our body does or feels.

We practiced making "angry bodies" and while the kids flexed like The Hulk and pulled faces that rival Chris Farley's in the "Colombian Coffee Crystals" SNL sketch (above, I couldn't resist), I pointed out different things their bodies were doing. D's eyes got small and narrowed, J's face got red, N's fists balled up. We also talked about what happens inside our bodies when we get angry too, like heads pounding, stomachs getting in knots or butterflies, and hearts beating quickly.

My modified worksheet for today.

Once we got the basics down (and the boys calmed themselves down again, because they got pretty riled up), I sent the boys back to their tables to complete a coloring worksheet our of Colorful Counseling! Life Lessons Learned Through Drawing. I don't own this, but somewhere along the way I received copies of the anger management unit, which I recommend. Most of it is too advanced for these little guys, but this worksheet was good. I modified it a little bit to make the writing portion more simplified, and gave the boys bigger spaces to write in. While they drew their pictures, I circled around and commented on various aspects, and wrote in highlighter their answers to the questions below, so they could trace.

Each boy had really neat parts of their drawing, it was awesome to see their uniqueness. D's was done all in red, because he said red was a "mean color." N's had balled up fists and a big blue stomach, because he said that his tummy feels funny when he's been crying. J's drawing also had balled up fists and a big "yelling mouth." Most of the boys also drew a happy picture on the back. When they were finished drawing, we went back to the carpet to present our pictures. Each boy had a turn to be the presenter, where he described his picture and read each of the lines at the bottom. It gave us a good opportunity to talk about good listening behaviors and how to be a good presenter, as an added bonus!

Next week... relaxation and calming down, in which I will attempt to do a relaxation script with my squirmy friends. Wish me oodles of luck.

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We Feel... AWESOME!

Today for our group, I grabbed the wonderful Skillstreaming in Early Childhood book and taught Skill 21: Knowing Your Feelings. This was a great little lesson to practice identifying feelings in a variety of settings and talking about the situations in which we feel certain emotions.

We started by reading Feelings, by Aliki, which is a wonderful book and covers a ton of different feelings. The boys had a hard time getting past "mad, sad, happy," so the book gave us the chance to talk about "nervous, shy, excited" etc. We went page by page, reading each little snippet, pointing out characters and talking about what they're feeling and why. We also discussed times that they felt the same emotion.

After we finished examining the book (and they wanted to go through EVERY character), I had pictures printed off of people and animals showing different emotions. We went through each picture and I had the kiddos make up a little story about why each person or animal was feeling that way, and tell about a time that they felt that way too. It also gave us the opportunity to talk about different synonyms for each feeling (mad: angry, upset, frustrated, etc). Lots of repetition and praising, to the point that their teacher must've thought that we were accomplishing nothing!

My favorite animal photo from group today.

This was a good group today, the boys were on-task with minimal fidgeting. I find that it works really well with such a small group of students to just call them out individually if they're not raising their hands. If they are, then they get chosen and get verbal reinforcement ("D, I love how you raised your hand, thank you"). Next time, we're going to talk about how our body feels when we feel certain emotions, and how we can tell by looking at other people.


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Hot Potato, Hot Potato!

Today was the kick-off of my newest counseling group, hooray!! For this group, I'm going to be focusing on identifying feelings and the way the body feels when we have certain emotions, and ways that we can cope and problem-solve when we get upset. These boys have a lot of anger management issues, and when they get upset, they resort to screaming, crying, hiding under tables, hitting, and throwing things. It's especially hard for the little ones with significant emotional problems to express themselves properly, so that's what we're going to work on.

Today's group was just an introduction, laying of ground rules, and team building. I started the group by talking about what behaviors are safe and unsafe for us to use in group and reviewed the classroom rules. The kiddos were super rambunctious because they had just come back from speech. After some calming and reinforcing of the little things they were doing correctly ("I like how G's voice is on 0," "J, thank you for sitting criss-cross," "N is showing me ready behavior because his hands are in his lap," etc), we got on track and the boys chose their group name to be The Footballs.

The activity we did today was all about communication and working together. I blew up a balloon and the boys stood in a circle. The objective was to keep the balloon in the air. We brainstormed ways to hit the balloon (with our hands, knees, heads, elbows, etc) and how we have to hit it (gently, up, not across the room, not at another person). Each took their spot on the carpet and up the balloon went. As we went through the first very exciteable round, I got to point out a lot of skills:

• Assertiveness - making sure they "called" the balloon by saying "I got it" if they planned on hitting it. It kept them all from running into each other and gave each boy ownership over that hit.
• Turn-taking - one of the boys, J, got a little too riled up and kept hogging the balloon. I had the opportunity to redirect him to include the other boys, and had him sit out when he needed a break from the excitement to give the others a chance.
• Apologizing - as expected, a few bumps occurred. We practiced saying a good apology when this happened (i.e. looking at the person in the eye, saying you're sorry, and why) and also accepting the apology with a "thank you, it's okay."

For the second round, I had the boys put their hands in their pockets or under their arms, and they had to keep the balloon in the air without using their hands. Obviously, this was much more challenging for kiddos with impulse control! Every time someone used their hands instead of another body part, I had to stop the game and remind them. D was excellent in this round and helped direct the boys to play appropriately as well (i.e. telling them to spread out so they wouldn't kick each other, reminding them about "no hands").

In retrospect, this game was probably a little above the kiddos level, but we made the best of it. Once we were done, I got the kiddos calmed down (a rather big task after jumping all over whacking a balloon around), and we processed a bit. We talked about what was easy, what was hard, and what we learned about working together and talking it out. They pooped out and lost attention pretty quickly, so processing was kept at a minimum.

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All About Emotions and Social Skills!

At one of our last bi-weekly meetings, my principal asked that my colleagues and I plan to do counseling groups in our 6:1+1 Special Classes to teach appropriate social skills that the kiddos may be lacking. I immediately jumped all over the idea, because it meant I could do a group in my new squish G's classroom! He's a "squish" because I want to hug and squish him... obvi.

As with the 5th grade social skills/anger management group that I ran a few years ago in a 6:1+1 classroom, I will outline and recap my lessons on this post as they are completed. And here we goooo!

• Session 1: Hot Potato, Hot Potato!
• Session 2: We Feel... AWESOME!
• Session 3: This is How My Body Feels When I'm ANGRY
• Session 4: Progressive Muscle Relaxation? Relax THIS, Lady!
• Session 5: Putting the Group Pieces Together
• Session 6: A Day Without Accomplishing a Thing in Group is a Day Wasted
• Session 7: The Tale of Peter Rabbit
• Session 8: Popcorn-y Goodbyes

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"Marvel"ing at the Positive

One of the new classrooms that we acquired for the 2012-2013 school year is a 1st grade 6:1+1 Special Class. It's all boys and they are becoming my new precious snowflakes. I have such a soft spot for behaviorally challenged young men and have been visiting their classroom often. Here's one reason why:

One of the boys, G, is very sensitive to noise over-stimulation. Another of his classmates was having a minor meltdown and G became very overwhelmed and started crying. G's teacher took him for a walk to calm down and have some quiet, so they came to visit me. As soon as G walked in, his adorable little face crumpled and he started crying again, so I took him in my lap and hugged him for a bit while I talked to his teacher. When he had calmed down, I dug into my prize box to see if there was something he might like.

One of my awesome Target $1 bin finds this year were Batman and Avengers erasers and tattoos. I was pathetically giddy to find these, and had to restrain myself from giving myself a sleeve with temporary Hulk tattoos. I asked G if he liked Batman and his eyes lit up. We picked out a tattoo of Batman punching the Joker and I helped him put it on.

It was spectacular. I love days where a quick moment with a kid at 2:00pm makes up for anything that happened earlier that was less than spectacular.

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Welcome Back, Mrs. Sh*t!

Well hello friends, it's been a while! My apologies for the long hiatus in exciting blog posts--I pretty much turned my brain off once summer hit, and I'm still in the slow process of rebooting (I feel like I'm stuck on the Blue Screen of Death). Too much sun and wedding planning!

However, I can share some stories from today, the first day back to school!

1. I got to play "QUIP" with the 6th grade 6:1+1 classroom. QUIP is a math game where you are given 3 numbers and can use only those numbers to equal values 1 to 10. For example, when given the numbers 4, 5, and 8, you do "8+5-4-4" to equal 5.

2. I'm starting the school year using my married name, so that the kiddos have extra time to adjust (wedding isn't until October). Now, my maiden name was no peach to say (one of those names that doesn't look like it's pronounced) and my married name will also be a little mouth-fumbly, and sounds like a curse word. I went into the 8th grade 15:1 class and introduced myself to a new student in the class as "Mrs. NewLastName," and the boys who helped with my Veteran's Day fundraising project giggled and replied, "Mrs. Sh*t?" Yes, you're hilarious.

3. When visiting our new 1st grade 6:1+1, one of the kiddos yelled, "Hey miss, I got a cigarette burn on my belly, look!" and lifted his shirt up. Enter conversation about how to appropriately wear our clothing in school.

4. Totally geeking out with a 4th grade boy over The Avengers. I casually mentioned to his teacher that I had some Batman and Avengers tattoos, erasers, and pencils if she wanted to send someone down for good behavior, and the young man's eyes bugged out--"WHAT? Why didn't I know about this earlier? I have an Avengers BACKPACK!" I think I have a new friend.

Day one down... days 180+ to go.

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A Committee on Special Education Year In Review... aka, I Am A Machine

Add glasses and this is surprisingly accurate.

As I bask in the glory of summer, I remember that this year was not all Zumba classes, bike rides, wedding planning, and watching TLC. As you may remember, this year was totally nutty-- my Committee on Special Education (CSE) chairperson was out for 9 months receiving chemo and I spent the year working with a district representative (which was fantastic); I single-handedly underwent a state ed. review; attempted to run Positive Behavior Intervention Supports like Check-in, Check-out; and of course, dealt with every day chaos and crisis. I'd be a big fat liar if I said I'm not enjoying the time off, that's fo sho.

Before school ended, I sat down and totaled up all of the stats for the Committee on Special Education meetings I've done during '11-'12. The results were all together staggering, nauseating, tiring, and awe-inspiring. Here are some fun facts...

• The meetings held for male vs. female students was 73 vs. 42. Our special education population at our building (and in the district) is disproportionately male and African American.
• We held 30 initial CSE meetings. Many of these meetings were kiddos that were being referred for services due to severe behavioral problems, and the students were recommended for more restrictive settings where their needs could be met, such as a Special Class. Five of these initial referrals did not qualify for services. 
• In a similar vein, we held 28 reevaluation meetings where a more restrictive setting was recommended. Many of these were for a Special Class, but others were a recommendation where a student moved from receiving only related services, like speech, to Integrated Co-Teaching services.
• We held 21 reevaluation meetings where changes were made to programming (adding or removing a related service, etc) or as part of a three-year reevaluation, in accordance with legal mandates.
• We declassified 8 students from special education services this year. One of them was due to chronic lack of attendance in school, thus not accessing special education services nor receiving appropriate instruction (he came to school four days all year).
• Although I had three full days of CSE meetings in March (on top of helping teachers with the Annual Review process for their caseloads), the biggest volume of CSE meetings came late fall, during the state ed. review. In November and December, I had a total of four meetings days, but they covered 30 kiddos. I'm getting hives just remembering... ugh.
• My building has a small population of preschoolers receiving special education services via the Committee on Preschool Education (CPSE). When they turn school age in kindergarten, we have to reevaluate their programs to see if they will transition into CSE services. We completed 4 CPSE to CSE reevaluations this year, two at the beginning of the year for '11-'12, and two at the end for '12-'13 (we got ahead of the game). 
• We amended 24 students' IEPs, making minor changes that don't overly affect their service levels. These included changing goals, fixing/cleaning up parts of the Present Levels of Educational Performance (PLEP), altering time durations for programming, and adjusting program modifications and testing accommodations. 

So, for those playing at home, that brings my Committee on Special Education meetings for the 2011-2012 school year to a whopping 115.

I am psychologist. Hear me roar.

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Analyzing Your Friends: A Fun Party Trick

I'm sure that many of you, when telling others that you're a school psychologist, have encountered those folks who get nervous that you're analyzing them or are eager to tell you their problems (or they ask if you're a school counselor, whatevs). Sure, we joke and laugh, but maybe you are psychoanalyzing or evaluating them in some way unintentionally (or on purpose, I won't judge). Honestly, as psychologists, we have more insight into human behavior than the average Joe, and maybe we're scrutinizing those we meet just a little more.

For me, this means seeing dysfunction where it doesn't actually exist.

Fiance and his college roommates went as the Channel 4 News Team one year
for Halloween. He was Brian Fantana, at left, with a legit dirty mustache.

Fiance went to high school with a group of guys who are still all very close and are very happy to revert to Frat Pack silliness when they're together (think The Hangover and Anchorman bromances). One of the guys, Chewy, is a little younger than the rest and therefore often the butt of silliness. I'll begin by stating that Chewy has no mental health concerns or developmental disabilities... but that doesn't stop me from very jokingly and in no way seriously finding them (in his defense, I tease him about this often and he takes it in stride and without offense).

Thus, I bring you, Why I Think Chewy May Have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (as substantiated by NY State Part 200 educational regulations and DSM-IV diagnostic criteria):

• Use of repetitive phrases, especially movie quotes (i.e. Anchorman, I Love You, Man, Superbad, Wedding Crashers, etc). Also, echoing statements of friends and peers for days and weeks after it was first stated (i.e. "adorable," "cupcake," "it's not not hot out," "chicks chicks chicks," "so good! so good!,") Meets Part 200 and DSM-IV criteria B3
• Encompassing preoccupation with women, or "chicks" - looking at women, chatting up women, trying to pick up women, going on dates with women. Will then work a certain girl into repetitive phrasing (i.e. "omg I love her so much," "love her, need her, Chewy," repeating the girl's name over and over). Meets Part 200 and DSM-IV criteria C1
• Use of repetitive/stereotyped gestures and poses, which often coincide with said repetitive phrases (i.e. pumping his arms in the air above his head while squatting and cheering, "It's free!"; flicking his wrist and fingers while stating, "Obviously.")  Meets Part 200 and DSM-IV criteria C3
• Adheres to routines in most weekend locales, food, and drink (i.e. same group of watering holes, vodka tonics, Bud Light Limes, Raspberry BBQ chicken wings). Meets Part 200 criteria

Actual diagnosis/classification: typical mid-20 something male. But super psychologist me sees a little bit of the Autism spectrum, for amusement's sake.

Please tell me I'm not the only one. :)

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