I have lost count of the number of times I have said aloud or wondered in silence, "when did we stop being a school?" It would seem that as time goes on, schools are becoming everything to everyone - a place to seek out an educational program, a opportunity to be noticed by scouts, and more often, quasi treatment facilities for kids who are mentally not well. The growing numbers of diagnoses is frightening. The types of medications that our students are on and the dosages prescribed is nothing short of shocking. The demands made by parents on the system to reduce course work, reduce timetables, omit "unacceptable" marks for fear of sending their child spiraling out of control with grief is mind boggling. Our Board has a policy in place that allows schools to facilitate accommodations for such medical needs but it never seems to be enough.
Then there are those wonderfully bogus medical "notes" that are written by professionals with actual education that literally "prescribe" that physics be dropped from a timetable. I would never be so audacious as to tell a medical professional how to run his or her practice, but the opposite doesn't seem to be held in the same regard.
Schools are bound by Ministry guidelines and policies and yes, we can get "creative" in the ways in which we get certain kids through without compromising the validity and integrity of their courses, but this generation of Helicopter Parents aren't satisfied so long as their children are suffering in the slightest. There doesn't seem to be any concern with building resilience in their children in comparison with finding a quick, easy and painless solution that brings instant gratification. Not sure what the experience out there is but I'm finding that kids are all too happy to have their parents fighting the fight for them.
Now, venting aside, there are sick children in our school system who are in not interested in playing games, who would love nothing more than to keep life as normal as possible as they grab on with dear lift to maintain any semblance of stability. I invest countless numbers of hours trying to convince these students that their mental health is more important, that maybe scaling back a course might be helpful, or that home instruction may be a better fit for the time being. Their parents feel so helpless because all they want is to keep their children calm and they yield, knowing full-well that they shouldn't send their children to school. At school, these kids struggle to attend class and often fall to pieces in their Guidance counsellor's offices or seek out various other support staff - which is good, but they can't seem to make it into the classroom without falling apart and they end up going home anyway.
I must have missed that day in Faculty when we were trained how to deal with mental illness. Lord knows that no amount of professional reading and attending workshops can fully prepare us for what to expect when dealing with mental illness and mental health issues. I sit on our Boards central Mental Health Steering Committee because I truly believe that our mandate as educators is changing to include more cooperation with external agencies to support mentally ill students. Currently, we are in the process of preparing for an elementary and secondary symposium that will allow students to participate in a variety of activities to promote awareness and advocacy about mental health and well-being but I'm not so sure it's enough.
Admittedly, this issue saddens me profoundly. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR KIDS? I'm not so naive as to think that this is unique to this generation. Is it environmental? Do we attribute what I can only describe as an epidemic, to significant changes to the traditional family? I don't know... What I do for sure is that kids can't cope and instead of using the problem solving skills we try to teach in school, they resort to meltdowns of epic proportions and no parent wants to see their kid go through that. I get, I do. Something's gotta give...
Then there are those wonderfully bogus medical "notes" that are written by professionals with actual education that literally "prescribe" that physics be dropped from a timetable. I would never be so audacious as to tell a medical professional how to run his or her practice, but the opposite doesn't seem to be held in the same regard.
News flash: just because you went to school doesn't mean you know how to run one.
Schools are bound by Ministry guidelines and policies and yes, we can get "creative" in the ways in which we get certain kids through without compromising the validity and integrity of their courses, but this generation of Helicopter Parents aren't satisfied so long as their children are suffering in the slightest. There doesn't seem to be any concern with building resilience in their children in comparison with finding a quick, easy and painless solution that brings instant gratification. Not sure what the experience out there is but I'm finding that kids are all too happy to have their parents fighting the fight for them.
Now, venting aside, there are sick children in our school system who are in not interested in playing games, who would love nothing more than to keep life as normal as possible as they grab on with dear lift to maintain any semblance of stability. I invest countless numbers of hours trying to convince these students that their mental health is more important, that maybe scaling back a course might be helpful, or that home instruction may be a better fit for the time being. Their parents feel so helpless because all they want is to keep their children calm and they yield, knowing full-well that they shouldn't send their children to school. At school, these kids struggle to attend class and often fall to pieces in their Guidance counsellor's offices or seek out various other support staff - which is good, but they can't seem to make it into the classroom without falling apart and they end up going home anyway.
I must have missed that day in Faculty when we were trained how to deal with mental illness. Lord knows that no amount of professional reading and attending workshops can fully prepare us for what to expect when dealing with mental illness and mental health issues. I sit on our Boards central Mental Health Steering Committee because I truly believe that our mandate as educators is changing to include more cooperation with external agencies to support mentally ill students. Currently, we are in the process of preparing for an elementary and secondary symposium that will allow students to participate in a variety of activities to promote awareness and advocacy about mental health and well-being but I'm not so sure it's enough.
Admittedly, this issue saddens me profoundly. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR KIDS? I'm not so naive as to think that this is unique to this generation. Is it environmental? Do we attribute what I can only describe as an epidemic, to significant changes to the traditional family? I don't know... What I do for sure is that kids can't cope and instead of using the problem solving skills we try to teach in school, they resort to meltdowns of epic proportions and no parent wants to see their kid go through that. I get, I do. Something's gotta give...
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