Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hey there,
school counselor, Welcome back
to the School for SchoolCounselors podcast.
I'm Steph Johnson, your host, afull-time school counselor just
like you, on a mission to makeschool counseling more
sustainable and more enjoyable.
We want to be able to love ourjobs, to feel like we can stick
(00:21):
with them and to feel like weare capable, competent and
empowered, and that's my wishfor you.
It feels great to be backtalking with you again this week
.
I took a little hiatus lastweek for the Christmas holiday,
just needed a little bit of timeto reset right, and I thought
(00:43):
I'd better put my money where mymouth is and I'd better follow
my own advice, because it feltlike we slid into the Christmas
break throwing gravel in theparking lot and it was time to
slow down a little bit.
I hope you've had a wonderfulholiday season, no matter what
you celebrate in your home.
I hope you're having somerejuvenating rest, that you're
(01:07):
feeling a little bit morecentered, and I hope that you've
been able to be surrounded byfriends and family and lots of
good food, good company, laughsand love.
That's my wish for every singleschool counselor I know as well
as, frankly, every single humanbeing.
It's one of the things that Ilove most about this time of
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year.
I wish we could aspire to belike this all year long.
And it makes me think ofsomething I heard today,
actually, as I heard of thepassing of former President
Jimmy Carter, and one of thethings he said was he thought
that the United States could bea fundamental leader in caring
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for one another, in human rightsand love and compassion.
And one of the things he saidwas just imagine if everyone in
the United States could have abest friend.
How transformative that wouldbe.
And I think he was a thousandpercent right.
And this time of year is thetime I think we feel that the
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most.
Don't we, and it's somethingthat I wish we could carry
forward longer than just a fewweeks or a month out of the year
.
But anyway, I digress.
I'm so glad to be back herewith you, even though I had kind
of a hard time choosing a topicfor the podcast this week, I
was anxious to speak with youagain.
(02:37):
I didn't want to let anotherweek go by without a visit.
But at the same time I know youmay not be ready to think about
going back to work just yet.
Some of my masterminders havetold me that they are headed
back to work later this week thefirst week in January and it
(02:58):
feels like happy new year.
Now get back to work, right,but it's a reality for so many
of us.
Personally, I'll be going backnext week, but I'm looking
forward to it.
I'm excited to get back inthere.
I have new goals and objectivesfor the spring semester and I'm
eager to try to start puttingsome of those into place.
(03:19):
Speaking of which, this week,in my daily emails that go out
to everyone on my subscriberlist, I'm going to be walking
you through some components ofwhat I call the new year restart
.
Now I talked about some thingsyou could do to prepare yourself
for the beginning of thesemester.
(03:40):
A couple of episodes agoDecember 9th I believe I talked
about prepping now for astress-less spring semester.
If you haven't caught thatepisode, you might want to go
grab it.
It's really quick only 20minutes but it will give you a
plan for preparing your springsemester for less stress.
(04:03):
And following that, this week,I'm going to be providing my New
Year Restart email series.
It's gonna be going out toeveryone who has subscribed to
my daily emails and if you'renot on that list, yet you need
to get on it.
So lots of things going on, eventhough we're not quite ready to
(04:25):
give up the lazy mornings, thecoffee and the blankets on the
couch all those wonderful thingsthat come with the winter break
.
And, like I said, I struggledwith what I wanted to chat with
you about this week.
I have some really big plansand some really hard-hitting
(04:46):
outlines, I think, for youcoming up, but I wanted to keep
it light this week.
I know so many of us are justkind of coming out of this
holiday hangover, if you will,not only with the merriment and
the joy and the festivities, butalso just with regard to our
energy, right, it was so much,so fast.
(05:06):
Some of us are experiencing alittle bit of a financial
hangover as well, right.
So we need to keep things light, we need to keep things upbeat,
and I thought I would walkthrough with you a series of
photographs, actually and I knowthat sounds weird for a podcast
, but a series of photographs Itook my last day on duty in
(05:28):
December, of some of my mostused and most favorite supplies
in my counseling office, and thereason I took these photos was
to share them with my Mastermindmembers.
I thought it might be fun totake a week or two and talk
through all of these suppliesand all of the different things
I do with them.
(05:49):
Because if you've known me long, you know that I don't believe
in two things.
I do not believe that you needa million materials in your
school counseling office to beeffective, and I also don't
believe in using a lot ofteachers, pay teachers materials
, and so people ask me oftenwhat's in your office and what
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are you using?
So I took some photographs ofthe things that were closest to
me, as I said, at my desk,because those were the ones I
reach for most often, andthought I would share them with
the mastermind.
But I know, as you're planningon going back for the spring
semester, you may be sort ofthinking about some things you
want to do differently, butyou're not ready to get really
(06:33):
intense about it, right?
Maybe you've got a few Amazongift cards laying around.
I know we sent many out to ourmastermind members.
We had a huge holidaycelebration in our School for
School Counselors, mastermind,and so I know lots of them have
some really nice Amazon giftcards we sent out.
So if you are in that positiontoo.
(06:54):
I wanted to share with you someof the things that I love most
in my school counseling office.
All right, so here we go.
These are not in any particularorder necessarily.
They were just things I sort ofgrabbed as I was sitting at my
desk and looking at mybookshelves.
One of my newest and mostfavorite resources is something
(07:20):
you won't see availablecommercially, something you
won't see available commercially.
They're called greatness cardsand they are smaller than a deck
of playing cards they're squareshaped, but about the width of
a playing card, if that makesany sense to you and they were
created by a registered playtherapist named Tammy Van
(07:40):
Hollander and I'll tell youright now I get nothing for
recommending this.
She doesn't even know I'mrecommending this, but I've been
a follower and a fan of hersfor a long time.
These greatness cards are justa simple deck of cards with
wonderful adjectives written onthem and some really compelling
artwork.
The picture of the first cardsthat I pulled out of the deck
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were joyful, fun and smart, andthere are tons of things that
you can do with these cards.
But I find often I get studentsin my school counseling office
that are so far removed fromtheir own self-identity.
They haven't even stopped tothink about what makes them
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amazing, right?
They're either constantly beingtold that they're not enough,
they're not doing the rightthings, they're not a good kid,
or they're telling themselvesthat.
And so these neat little cardsare a nice way to do some fun
activities to really bring outsome additional vocabulary.
Fun activities to really bringout some additional vocabulary.
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Just like we have to buildstudents emotional vocabulary
and give them words for thingsbeyond happy, mad and sad, we
also need to be giving them somevocabulary for what makes them
great.
And so this deck of greatnesscards right now is at the top of
my list of my favoritematerials, and if you're
interested in checking them out,I would love to support and
(09:10):
promote Tammy.
I'm going to put a link tothese cards in the show notes,
so go, click that link and giveher some love, all right?
So secondly, I would say andthis is probably no surprise,
but my collection of board gameshands down are some of the most
utilized materials in my schoolcounseling office.
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I don't have a ton in there.
I don't find that I need a lot.
I rely on three.
I rely on Sorry, candyland andUno, and a lot of what I do with
these games.
I know that you can adapt themand have different conversations
and talk about differentfeelings and all of those things
(09:53):
.
But I think one thing that wemiss, as we're talking about
playing games with students, arethe opportunities for
connection, for aperson-centered, child-centered
connection to be made, with noagendas, no demands being placed
(10:13):
and no requests needing to bemet, and in students' lives and
worlds, playing an analog gamenumber one is huge for them,
right?
I've had several students overthe past couple of years that
had no idea how to play Uno andthat just broke my heart.
Right, because that used to bea rite of passage for kiddos at
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home is to learn how to play Unowith their families.
That's not happening as muchanymore.
But two, just the opportunityto connect.
But two, just the opportunityto connect, the opportunity to
let students know that you'rethere with them, that you enjoy
being with them, that they'reworthy of your time.
That sets the stage for somereally important and compelling
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work later on.
And then, if we can take that astep further and really sort of
ascribe to some general kind ofplay therapy principles of not
making judgment-based statements, not giving value-based
statements, those kinds ofthings.
(11:19):
So uno sorry, candyland I'mgoing to lump those all together
in one.
If you don't have those in youroffice, even if you're working
with older students, uno andSari are going to be great tools
for you.
Along that same line of thought,I also have another card game,
and I'm realizing just now howmuch I rely on cards in my
(11:41):
office.
I have a card game called MadDragon, and Mad Dragon's pretty
cool because it's played likeUno.
So once students know andunderstand how to play that game
, we can play Mad Dragon, whichhas some different prompts and
information in exploring feelingmad, exploring anger and what
(12:03):
those feelings do to us, how wecan utilize coping skills to
manage that and what it does tothe people around us when we
lose our cool.
There's some really greatconversation points in that card
game as well.
And again, I'm going to link toall of this for you.
I have an Amazon storefront allof this for you.
(12:28):
I have an Amazon storefront.
I make literally zero dollarsoff of it because I never hit
the minimum in a year, butthat's not why it's set up there
.
It's set up there to makethings easy for you if you want
to pick up some of the thingsthat we've been talking about,
and so Mad Dragon is definitelylinked in there.
Another big hit in my officeright now that would work for
all ages are my sensory floortiles.
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They're a plastic floor tile.
They have kind of a felt-likebacking on them and they are
filled with goo of all differentcolors.
I have green and yellow and redand orange and black and yellow
and all different colors.
But as you walk on them you cansee the gel kind of squish
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around.
It's a great visual.
But it's also fun.
If you get really really quietand you step on these in just
the right spot, you can hearthem squish and you would be
amazed how much students delightin hearing that noise.
And it also works wonderfullyif you need to help them ground
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a little bit, if you need tohelp them recenter.
That's a way to get them reallyquiet, to be very attentive to
that sensory stimuli and reallysearch for that sound, and
that's one of the things I lovemost about those sensory tiles.
Okay, let's see, I'm going togive you just a couple more.
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Another amazing tool that I havein my office that was gifted to
me by one of the most wonderfulhumans to ever walk the face of
the earth.
One of my best friends, who isa therapist here in town, gifted
me a set of Feeling Buddiesdolls from Conscious Discipline.
They have a really cool holderthat hangs on the wall and all
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of the feelings are identifiedand all the little dolls go
inside the pockets and they'rekind of like little gingerbread
man dolls that's what the kidsalways call them and I just have
them hanging on the wall.
I don't really pick them up, doa lot with them, unless the
students go to them.
But especially my little onesare drawn to these little
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feeling buddies and they'lloften point things out.
This is how I feel right now.
This is what I want to feellike tomorrow.
This is what my mom looks likethis morning when we were
getting ready to come to school,and it opens up a lot of great
conversations.
There are lots more activitiesyou can do with these little
feeling buddies, but a really,really neat tool and that comes
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from conscious discipline.
All right, let me give you twomore.
My next favorite would probablybe my weighted lizard.
He was expensive but, goodnessgracious do.
The kiddos love him and,interestingly enough, our office
staff love him too.
(15:19):
So we get that sensoryexperience of having that weight
on our laps or over ourshoulder when we need it.
The kids like to kind of feelthe beads inside.
The little scales look kind ofshiny and so that captures some
attention.
So there's lots of groundingand centering that can be done.
Students can hold them in theirlaps while we're working on
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other things.
But we have found also and thisis so silly I can't even
believe I'm admitting this, butwe have found, as the adults on
campus, if we put this lizardover our shoulder we can pat it
and it almost feels like pattinga baby's bottom, and if you're
a mama or a daddy you know thereis very little in this world
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that comes close to that feelingand it is just so calming.
So we can always tell when oneof our staff members is having a
rough day and they'll come byand say can I pat the lizard?
And I'm always like, absolutely, you sure can.
They're kind of pricey, they'rea little expensive, but totally
worth the money.
(16:24):
And then last, a new addition tomy office and a solution to a
problem that I've had for a longtime and I think maybe you've
had as well I don't want to haveclosed doors in my office.
I don't want to be completelybehind a closed door with the
student just for safety reasons,but I also don't want everybody
(16:46):
in the world walking past mywindow peeking in to see who I'm
talking to.
Have you had this problem too?
I bet you have, and so what Iended up doing this year that
I've really enjoyed is I gotsome lighted vines like faux
leaves that kind of looks likeivy, I guess, with the little
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twinkle lights wound all throughthem, and I got some command
hooks and hung them on my doorover that window so you're still
able to see inside.
We still have a safetycomponent to this.
We're not completely cut offfrom the rest of the campus, but
it's really hard to look inpast those leaves and
(17:27):
immediately see who's sitting inthere.
And then when we have thelights turned on because it's a
little battery pack, right, sowe just use a command strip to
stick that battery pack on thedoor.
When those lights are on, itgives even more of a visual
obstacle, and so I have really,really loved having those on my
door this year, and I think Iwill continue to do that next
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year as well.
All right, well, that was justkind of a little quick tour
through part of my office.
I'm going to be posting thesethroughout the week in our
Facebook group.
So if you aren't in our Schoolfor School Counselors Facebook
group, come join us.
Right now it's a free Facebookgroup.
We'd love to welcome you inthere, and you can find us just
(18:10):
by searching Facebook for Schoolfor School Counselors, where
I'll be sharing all of theseresources.
Again, in case you didn't catchthem all the first time, maybe
you don't want to go siftingthrough the Amazon storefront.
I get that.
You can hang out in theFacebook group and watch them
come through day after day, andwhen you join the Facebook group
(18:31):
we ask for your email addressif you want to give it.
It's not required, but that'sgoing to allow you to receive
the emails that I send out.
I aim for daily.
Sometimes it's every other day,depending on what's going on,
but I try to always give yousome great information in the
emails about things that aregoing on, ideas that I've had,
(18:53):
tips or tricks or motivation.
I put my heart and soul intothose emails and so if you'd
like to be a part of that, youcan get involved with it by
doing the same thing.
Head over to Facebook and joinour free Facebook group and
we'll add you to that email list.
Lickety split, all right.
So we're going to wrap it upthis week.
I hope that that gave you someideas or some inspiration.
(19:16):
I'm going to have someadditional materials running
through the Facebook group aswell as through my Mastermind
Facebook group, and if you'vebeen listening to the podcast
for any amount of time, you knowthat the Mastermind is where
the smartest school counselorshang out.
If you are one of those schoolcounselors that is not content
to be mediocre you don't want tobe like every other school
(19:39):
counselor, just downloadingrandom things and presenting
them and wondering why yourprogram isn't taking off the way
you want it to you need to joinus in the School for School
Counselors, mastermind.
There will be a link in theshow notes here.
I've got lots of greatinformation for you links to
resources, links to great carddecks, links to the mastermind.
I just wanna make sure thatyou're taken care of.
(20:02):
I wanna make sure that you canbe excited and inspired to go
back to work in January to doyour best work for the students
you serve.
We have so many students thatare going to be coming back to
us, who are going to be in astate of agitation, maybe in a
state of sadness, maybe in astate of lack.
(20:24):
Right, they haven't had thethings that they've needed while
they've been away from school,whether that's physiological
needs, whether that's food, heator even just human interaction.
We're going to have a lot ofkiddos coming back that are
going to be eager to see us, whowant to know that we're excited
(20:47):
that they've returned to us,that we're going to pick up
right where we left off, andwe're going to support them and
encourage them and love themthroughout their educational
journey on our campuses.
And so, in order for all thatto happen, you need to be your
best self too, and so all ofthese resources that my team and
(21:07):
I are creating are for you.
If there's one thing that Ibelieve beyond any other, it's
that students deserve access tocompetent, capable and healthy
school counselors, and that isthe core of everything that
we're doing here in School forSchool Counselors.
All right, so grab those Amazongift card codes, head on over,
(21:32):
get some cool stuff for youroffice, and if you choose
something different, let me know.
I would love to hear about it.
I'll be back soon with anotherepisode of the School for School
Counselors podcast.
In the meantime, I hope youhave the best start to your new
year, the best start to yourspring semester, and that you
are excited and ready to go for2025.
(21:55):
Take care, my friend.