Resiliency or Bust

This week in class I really enjoyed meeting my group. I enjoyed the group activity in which we listed our perceived strengths and then (in my group anyways) each person took a turn assessing that persons personal strengths from their point of view. I loved this activity because even though I’ve only known my group for two weeks and in some instances this was my first time directly talking to certain group members, we all got to share what potential or good we see or perceive from each individual. I believe we all really enjoyed hearing what everyone had to say about us. I know I was definitely caught off guard by some of my group mates’ perception of me (in a good way i.e. being a moral compass). However, the very next night in my study of the child in the family class I realized that their perceptions were in fact very correct about me; I’d just never seen myself in that light before. I guess I am so focused on my negative qualities and self-correcting and monitoring those that I don’t really take a full assessment of all of my positive qualities so this was a very nice change of pace.

I thoroughly enjoyed our web article this week. I found it quite interesting (and practical) to believe that the reason I keep seeing pregnant 7^th and 8^th graders at my school (along with a plethora of other negative suspected issues that are just harder to prove, like drug and alcohol abuse) is because these students are going through puberty at a younger age but their social-emotional reasoning skills haven’t caught up to their puberty hormones. As an emotional support teacher, this also makes a lot of sense in terms of my students. When you talk to one individually they know (generally speaking) how to behave and act appropriately, but given the right circumstances and an audience and any number of risk-taking things could happen.

Chapter 2 of our text was also very interesting for me to read. I had a very rough, negative childhood so for me the word resiliency doesn’t even begin to cover it. In some circumstances (like I discussed in group about my teacher Mr. Moyer) I know exactly why I became resilient. However, in other circumstances I don’t know why or how my defense mechanisms were able to maintain or hold out so well until circumstances changed, but I do know that I’m thankful for the way things worked out for me. This isn’t a mental health example (although I have many examples of mental health resiliency as well), but this is an example of resiliency none the less. I was privileged enough to know a deaf/blind student last year fairly well. And one day while speaking to the deaf/blind teacher about some questions I had about her students I learned that this particular student was born perfectly normal like you or me, however, at 6 months of age he contracted spinal meningitis which rendered him deaf and blind. And I thought/shared, WOW! I had spinal meningitis when I was 25 days old and (at least according to medical standards) I survived unscathed. I had heard previously of all the terrible things up to and including death that can result from spinal meningitis but I’d never taken them seriously until meeting this student and hearing his story. Knowing that we both contracted the disease after being relatively healthy, normal babies; but both ending up with two very different outcomes to me is just one example of resilience in my life. It’s a very powerful and important concept. Unfortunately, not everyone, like the boy in my example, can have the same level of resiliency to the same situations. Knowing this is why its so important to realize that each day when we’re working with children may be the day when we say something, help them through a situation, or make them realize that someone cares and without knowing it we may have just saved their lives by creating that extra layer of resiliency that they needed from whatever ailed them. This is why I love working with children and why I want to become a school counselor so that I may continue having the chance to be someone’s blanket of protection from harm (or resiliency).

References:

Corey, G. & Corey, M. S. (2010). Reviewing Your Childhood and Adolescence. In Brooks/Cole (9^th edition), I Never Knew I Had a Choice (38-67). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28, 78-106.