How To Become a School Counselor

The job of a school counselor is not an easy task.  You should have the honest desire to help children and inspire confidence along with trust and respect.  As a counselor you will work with a lot of diverse individuals and families.   Children with handicaps or special needs, families with abuse, or children whose family has multiple needs are just a few examples of how you will help.  You will provide students with life skills that will enable them to deal with problems before they get worse.  You need to be physically and emotionally able to handle yourself.

Every state has different requirements for becoming a school counselor.  However, you will need a master’s degree in order to gain employment in this field.  Some states even require you to hold not only a counseling certificate but a teaching certificate as well.  You will be required to get a license to practice.  Individual schools may require you to have interned or had clinical experience before hiring you.  And some schools may give ongoing training to a school counselor.

You can bet on having at least 60 course hours to gain a degree in counseling.  And depending on what your field of study may be will determine what classes you need to take.  Some will group the core subjects together.  Examples of this would be elementary and secondary counseling, marriage and family counseling, and addictions counseling.  Once you have received your master’s, you may be required to participate in ongoing studies to maintain your license.

Counseling Can Help Your Special Needs Family

Any family who has a special needs child will inevitably have hurtles and mountains that will need to be climbed.  Odds that most “normal” families will not need to endure.  Marriages where there is a special needs child involved will often become strained to the point of separation or divorce.  A special need counselor can help a family deal with day-to-day issues and also prepare the handicapped child for an adult life with independence.

If a parent is concerned about a child growing up with a disability or handicap counseling can help figure out a plan for your family.  A counselor helps the family with daily issues as well as giving your special needs child someone to talk to besides parents and peers.  With a disability there is often depression and isolation and a counselor can help with this.  A counselor can also help the family with any adjustments they need to make in regards to a handicapped child.

When a parent feels overwhelmed by social, behavioral and learning challenges that are associated with a special needs child a counselor can also find ways for the family to deal with that as well.  Your school may find that a special need child will benefit from a counselor but if your family struggles with the disability seek counseling before the school advises it.

Independence comes naturally to normal children and they have no problem as adults functioning in a normal society.  Special needs children and their families can be counseled so that the child becomes an independent adult who can function without the help of a caregiver or a parent.  You want your child to succeed in life and extra help is always appreciated.

Understanding The ESE Student

When parents are first dealing with what has recently been diagnosed as an ESE student they can feels somewhat adrift. They do not really know what the next step is in getting their child help and they don’t really understand what having an ESE child really means. First thing is first. ESE stands for Exceptional Student Education and any child who special education or any sort of related services who is also enrolled in a public school system. At times it can be hard for a family to accept that their child might need some extra attention or a separate lesson plan than the other kids in his or her class.

What parents of an ESE student need to understand is that being labeled as such does not mean a lifetime of agony and sadness for their child. In actuality there is a chance that in the long run an ESE student could actually have a happier life because their learning problems have been diagnosed and can be treated.

It is important to note that ESE students do not want to be treated as though there is something wrong with them or that they are in some way radioactive. This diagnosis is not a time to make it worse by acting as though they cannot still do things that other kids are able to do simply because they need different accommodations in the classroom. Parents of ESE students need to fight the urge to over indulge the draw to somehow drastically change the home life in a negative way because of a new diagnosis that can be uncomfortable to deal with in the beginning. Families of ESE students should make sure that while their children are undergoing a different type of education they are going through some counseling or therapy of their own as a way to make the transition easier for everyone.

Coping With A Learning Disability

When a student is first diagnosed with a learning disability there are two ways the reaction can usually go. The first is complete and total shock by the family (this is usually couple with denial), and the second is relief and complete acceptance. How the family reacts may seem to be a way to tell just how involved a certain family group is but that is not always the case either. Some families are just better equipped to handle the news that their child has a learning disability than others. Sometimes this is because of the fact that the child may not have been as adversely affected as others and therefore was able to still turn in good grades and modulate his outward behavior enough that no one was really onto him or her. There are of course instances where the learning disability was totally obvious and the family knew there had to be something more wrong than a simple bad attitude.

Once the news of a learning disability has settled in and is no longer brand new the next step is to decide what to do about it. For most families it is helpful to realize that children, to a large degree are incredibly resilient. This means that children, even more than adults are built to overcome challenges like this. Resiliency is the top trait to have if the child truly wants to deal with and overcome the problem. There are treatments out there for almost any type of learning disability but the only way any of the treatments will work is if the child and its parents practice resiliency. There is no quick, automatic fix to this particular set of problems but with hard work and a keen focus there is a long term solution to the problem.