June 10th, 2019

        Before moving on, I would like to emphasize that often the resources we have at our disposal to work with students are limited, in the sense that sometimes we don’t find that appropriate one, or that due to the work load or excessive protocol, the processes tend to be way longer or work slowly. Evidently, there aren’t resources that fit for everybody, and we have to start from patience, because sometimes with students things can happen overnight. The advantage, however, is that when the situation reaches the top, as professionals, we have to have already detected warning signs, and somehow have already acted on it.

Some of the warning signs that something is not right with a student at school could be: absence, unmotivation, low academic performance, being defiant with the teachers or uninhibited with his/her classmates, disruptive behavior, being disturbed often, getting into fights, criticising other people’s work or school projects, not going out during breaks, isolation from the group, provoking unpleasant situations over text messages, etc. That is, the warning signs can be to the extreme of being unnoticed or isolated to the more exaggerated and flamboyant.

(…) Here’s an example of a disruptive student in the classroom. (…) We decided to make a follow-up sheet with (…) a fixed rule: if there’s a physical aggression towards a teacher or student,

we notify his mom to come and pick him up, and he should stay home for the rest of the day. This is the final strategy that we agreed to use with him and his family, after many attempts of reducing his impulsivity. Everything went fine until one day (…) he punched a teacher due to anxiety and immaturity. As this is an aggression, we had to call his mom to pick him up. When he saw his mom (…), he started crying, saying that he didn’t want to go home. His mom said that everything was going to be fine, but as soon as they got home he would be punished and “his dad would beat him!”

I expose this situation because in this case, the family doesn’t help us. When we explain the situation to the family, we tell them that we solve his actions here (we make him say sorry, go home, etc.),

but often families tell us that at home they should also face consequences, and even though we cannot oppose, we can guide them to make things better. Our intention is not to make the student afraid of coming to school or do something that’s wrong or go home to get beaten. We don’t want him to tell us “alright, you’re calling my mom so I get beaten” with a threatening after a bad behavior. For us, our objective is to inform the families, and that they can help us improving their children’s wellbeing together, but not through fear.

The first step is to talk to the families about what we expect from them when we let them know about the things going on at school, and why we let them know (…), but sometimes families —maybe because they also have their share of

problems— don’t respond the way we expected, and it makes it harder for us to work with the students.

In this case, we decided to take it to social services. Our town’s social services has a program called Psicodona which works with women (abuse, few resources, lack of parental skills, etc). We presented his case to them, so we could ask them if we could offer this service to his mom because we believe it’s necessary that someone can work on the conflict that arises at home when these things happen. Being able to give them the tools to get closer to their children in an assertive and non-aggressive way, being able to explain to them how to understand their children and their needs, etc. At the end, we are the ones that suggest these things to the

family and inform them about this service, but it’s the family who makes the last call. We have to know very well the resources available and how they work, as well as the students and their families, so that we know in which way we can help each other.

I think that everything I express here should not be mistaken by a lack of responsibility on the student nor with his autonomy. When we say at high-school that they are “grown-ups”, independent, and responsible, that doesn’t mean that they don’t need guidance or coordination. They have to learn to be responsible and independent, but with guidance and understanding, having in mind that we are in a controversial stage in their lives: teenagehood.