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This list is not describing anyone in particular. It also does not mean one person possesses all these traits or behaviors. It's a list of things I think of when wanting a great counselor and what they might miss. I've done some of these, and grew with experience and humility. I think everyone starts somewhere and time and practice are always a good thing. I wrote this thinking about elementary school counselors.Hide away in their office, neglecting the relationship with the school and student population. (Offering workshops to the school can help reduce the need for counseling. It creates a community of compassion and prevention.)Confuse school counseling for therapy.Ignore building relationships with parents and teachers.Not understand diversity and its impact on learning and access to resources.Unfamiliar with suicide protocol. (This is something I don't expect most new counselors to know. It's just comes with experience and consultation.)Lack of knowledge on learning disabilities, giftedness and neurodiversity.Not having awareness of community resources to refer out effectively.Spending too much of your own money on counseling tools and games.Buying too many supplies and only using the same ones again and again. If a pack of cards, paper and crayons work for you, there’s no need to spend hundreds on fancy “counseling interventions".Working for agencies for free, indirectly draining yourself and taking away energy from being more effective at your work.Being overconfident and not asking for consultation or receiving feedback poorly. There is so much you do not know, and being open to perspective will help you become a better counselor.Procrastinating with documentation. To be fair, I think this lasts a while lol not just first year counselors.Not understanding nonverbal communication and making kids do worksheets all the time.Not understanding the importance of play and metaphor in children's lives. Not using play as an intervention or any of connecting with students.Acting arrogant and “smarter" than people you speak with. Not learning how to speak the language and value the culture of your students and school.Not observing on the playground and classroom to gather information about social emotional settings and daily interactions.Asking nonstop questions without giving students tangible skills to use at home and in school.

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.The way I see it there are 2 really disastrous things going on at the same time that are conspiring to create more dangerous young men.Disaster #1: Family breakdownDr. Warren Farrell is a UCLA and NYU educated political scientist. He’s a PhD in Political Science served on the board of directors the NYC chapter of the National Organization for Women, so that will tell you a lot about where he’s coming from.According to Dr. Farrell, all recent mass shooters have something in common.Boy raised without father in the home.Lack of father involvement due to divorce.In the rare cases when a mass shooter has a father in the picture, that father tends to assume a less traditionally masculine role with regards to discipline.Example 1:Todd gets caught tagging the boy’s restrooms in school. The school wants to give Todd a week of detentions, during which he has to clean the school restrooms. Todd’s mother thinks that punishment is too severe and doesn’t want her son cleaning dirty restrooms. Todd’s father wants Todd to face the consequences of his behavior.Example 2:Todd gets caught tagging the boy’s restrooms in school. The school wants to give Todd a week of detentions, during which he has to clean the school restrooms. Todd’s mother thinks that punishment is too severe and doesn’t want her son cleaning dirty restrooms. Todd’s father also thinks the punishment is too severe and worries that cleaning restrooms will hurt his son’s self esteem.Fathers serve an important role in boundary setting, especially in male children. When a father is absent from the picture, or when the father is more indulgent as in Example 2, the child grows up to have far less impulse control. Additionally, Dr. Farrell documents, in his book The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, that boys actually learn empathy through roughhousing with their fathers.Father deprived boys are far more likely to grow up without developing empathy and impulse control, a dangerous combination. These days somewhere around of 40% of children are born outside of marriage.Additionally, about half of marriages end in divorce, and 47% of those divorces involve children.That’s a lot of dad deprived boys out there. Not all of them go on to be mass murderers. But, the huge increase in fatherless boys has created a lot of disaffected young men, many of which feed directly into America’s gangs.So for boys, there is an absolute correlation between absent fathers and higher propensity for violence.Disaster #2: Breakdown of School DisciplineThere’s been a left-of-center driven war on school discipline since well before I started teaching 20+ years ago. Over the last decade the so called “school-to-prison pipeline” has become the buzzword du-jour of those who think teachers need to put up with bullying and defiance. Some how holding kids accountable for their behavior is pushing them towards prison. My personal belief is that the pipeline to prison runs through uncorrected poor impulse control, and nothing we’re doing in schools today helps with that.If you have any common sense at all it makes sense that a kid who’s gotten in the habit of defying teachers, disrupting class, and damaging school facilities is already heading down the path of self destruction.While I feel sorry for the young delinquents that are allowed to matriculate without developing impulse control, I’m really worried about the potential danger these policies represent for students and school faculty. Andrew Pollack, who lost his daughter at the Parkland High School massacre has done extensive research into how district enabled Nikolas Cruz to repeatedly disrupt and defy teachers and ruin the learning environment for fellow students. Here’s what Mr. Pollack learned about Cruz’s 7th grade behavior:Sept. 3: While reviewing [a] homophones worksheet, when another student mentioned the amendment that talks about ‘the right to bear arms’ Nick [sic] lit up when hearing the word that related to guns and shouted out “you mean like guns!” he was overly excited thinking that we were going to talk about guns. Nick later used his pencil as a gun … shooting around the classroom.Sept. 4: Nick drew naked stick figures (showing body parts, sexual) and drew pictures of people shooting each other with guns.Sept. 11: After discussing and lecturing about the Civil War in America Nick became fixated on the death and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He asked inappropriate questions and was making shooting actions with his pencil. Some questions he asked were “What did it sound like when Lincoln was shot? Did it go pop pop or pop pop pop really fast? Was there blood everywhere? After the war what did they do with all the bodies? Did people eat them?”Sept. 16: When we began to read the Odyssey Nick paid partial attention (in-and-out) until we came up to the gruesome scene when the giant eats Odysseus’ crew members, only then Nick was interested in the lesson and got my 100% attention.Sept. 27: Another student also informed me (once Nick was escorted out of class) that Nick asks him all of the time “How am I still at this school?”Oct. 1: When talking about figurative language and onomatopoeias, Nick shouted out “Like a gun shooting.” Nick will find any excuse to bring up shooting guns or violence … He got frustrated and said “I hate security, I hope they die.” Then he stated to me, “F- -k you.” I called security to pick him up immediately.Oct. 15: Spoke to his mother … We discussed that he should not be playing violent video games and that he should be put in a different school that can help with his behavior and emotional issues. We also discussed his obsession with guns/violence. She stated that he is interested in buying a BB gun from Walmart and was asking his mom, repeatedly, if he could get the gun, promising that he would “just shoot at trees.”Oct. 17: Nick began reading the last couple of pages out to the students, intentionally trying to ruin the book for everyone else. I asked him to stop and he told me that he dislikes the book and then he stated, “I like guns” can we talk about that. Then he continued to read the book out loud again.We can see the pattern of behavior that Nikolas Cruz exhibited. This kind of behavior is not surprising to me. I’ve seen similar behavior as both a middle-school and high school teacher.Now here’s the BIG LIE the anti-discipline “reformers” are telling the public.“We’re just replacing suspension with other tools.”So what tools are they talking about. Let’s go back to how Parkland handled Nikolas Cruz, specifically what were the “tools” they used aside from punishment.On Nov. 4, after two months of gathering “data” for Cruz’s “Functional Behavior Assessment,” teachers were sent his “Positive Behavior Intervention Plan.” The plan included helpful tips, like:If Nikolas destroys property at a lower level,Calmly let him know he has not followed one of the expectations. Remind him what he is working for.Prompt him to use a cool down pass and walk away to diffuse [sic] the situation.If Nikolas engages in major disruption/property destruction:Let Nikolas know, “you’re getting too loud. I need for you to get back into control by using a cool down pass or calming down at your desk. If you get back into control, you can stay in class. If you continue, I’ll need for you leave [sic].”Walk away and do not pay attention to his behavior.Do not argue with Nikolas or engage with him.When class is over, Nikolas needs to go to his next class and behavior plan should re-set with able to [sic] earn reward breaks again.So the “tools” were basically to allow Cruz to be a jerk to the teachers and to the other students, with mild warnings. The teachers were told to ignore his misbehavior and not engage. These are only tools if you consider ignoring your car’s check engine light to be a tool of auto maintenance.We all know how well that worked out.As a teacher working in the system, the only additional “tools” I see being used are processes that allow students to get away with their misbehavior until the problem can be passed on to someone else.Conclusion:The institutions that have traditionally helped instill impulse control in young men have broken down. Absent and weak fathers are failing to instill impulse control. The schools no longer have the power to stop young males from engaging in non-stop defiance and disruption. Because they are shielded from both school discipline and criminal justice prosecution, they enter adulthood with no criminal record. With no criminal record, they can legally purchase a firearm.

This answer may contain sensitive images. Click on an image to unblur it.The way I see it there are 2 really disastrous things going on at the same time that are conspiring to create more dangerous young men.Disaster #1: Family breakdownDr. Warren Farrell is a UCLA and NYU educated political scientist. He’s a PhD in Political Science served on the board of directors the NYC chapter of the National Organization for Women, so that will tell you a lot about where he’s coming from.According to Dr. Farrell, all recent mass shooters have something in common.Boy raised without father in the home.Lack of father involvement due to divorce.In the rare cases when a mass shooter has a father in the picture, that father tends to assume a less traditionally masculine role with regards to discipline.Example 1:Todd gets caught tagging the boy’s restrooms in school. The school wants to give Todd a week of detentions, during which he has to clean the school restrooms. Todd’s mother thinks that punishment is too severe and doesn’t want her son cleaning dirty restrooms. Todd’s father wants Todd to face the consequences of his behavior.Example 2:Todd gets caught tagging the boy’s restrooms in school. The school wants to give Todd a week of detentions, during which he has to clean the school restrooms. Todd’s mother thinks that punishment is too severe and doesn’t want her son cleaning dirty restrooms. Todd’s father also thinks the punishment is to severe and worries that cleaning restrooms will hurt his son’s self-esteem.Fathers serve an important role in boundary setting, especially with boys. When a father is absent from the picture, or when the father is more indulgent as in Example 2, the child grows up to have far less impulse control. Additionally, Dr. Farrell documents, in his book The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, that boys actually learn empathy through roughhousing with their fathers.Father-deprived boys are far more likely to grow up without developing empathy and impulse control, a dangerous combination. These days somewhere around of 40% of children are born outside of marriage.Additionally, about half of marriages end in divorce, and 47% of those divorces involve children.That’s a lot of dad-deprived boys out there. Not all of them go on to be mass murderers. But, the huge increase in fatherless boys has created a lot of disaffected young men, many of which feed directly into America’s gangs.So for boys, there is an absolute correlation between absent fathers and higher propensity for violence.Disaster #2: Breakdown of School DisciplineThere’s been a left-of-center driven war on school discipline since well before I started teaching 20+ years ago. Over the last decade the so called “school-to-prison pipeline” has become the buzzword du jour of those who think teachers need to put up with bullying and defiance. Some how holding kids accountable for their behavior is pushing them towards prison. My personal belief is that the pipeline to prison runs through uncorrected poor impulse control, and nothing we’re doing in schools today helps with that.If you have any common sense at all it makes sense that a kid who’s gotten in the habit of defying teachers, disrupting class, and damaging school facilities is already heading down the path of self destruction.While I feel sorry for the young delinquents that are allowed to matriculate without developing impulse control, I’m really worried about the potential danger these policies represent for students and school faculty. Andrew Pollack, who lost his daughter at the Parkland High School massacre has done extensive research into how district enabled Nikolas Cruz to repeatedly disrupt and defy teachers and ruin the learning environment for fellow students. Here’s what Mr. Pollack learned about Cruz’s 7th grade behavior:Sept. 3: While reviewing [a] homophones worksheet, when another student mentioned the amendment that talks about ‘the right to bear arms’ Nick [sic] lit up when hearing the word that related to guns and shouted out “you mean like guns!” he was overly excited thinking that we were going to talk about guns. Nick later used his pencil as a gun … shooting around the classroom.Sept. 4: Nick drew naked stick figures (showing body parts, sexual) and drew pictures of people shooting each other with guns.Sept. 11: After discussing and lecturing about the Civil War in America Nick became fixated on the death and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He asked inappropriate questions and was making shooting actions with his pencil. Some questions he asked were “What did it sound like when Lincoln was shot? Did it go pop pop or pop pop pop really fast? Was there blood everywhere? After the war what did they do with all the bodies? Did people eat them?”Sept. 16: When we began to read the Odyssey Nick paid partial attention (in-and-out) until we came up to the gruesome scene when the giant eats Odysseus’ crew members, only then Nick was interested in the lesson and got my 100% attention.Sept. 27: Another student also informed me (once Nick was escorted out of class) that Nick asks him all of the time “How am I still at this school?”Oct. 1: When talking about figurative language and onomatopoeias, Nick shouted out “Like a gun shooting.” Nick will find any excuse to bring up shooting guns or violence … He got frustrated and said “I hate security, I hope they die.” Then he stated to me, “F- -k you.” I called security to pick him up immediately.Oct. 15: Spoke to his mother … We discussed that he should not be playing violent video games and that he should be put in a different school that can help with his behavior and emotional issues. We also discussed his obsession with guns/violence. She stated that he is interested in buying a BB gun from Walmart and was asking his mom, repeatedly, if he could get the gun, promising that he would “just shoot at trees.”Oct. 17: Nick began reading the last couple of pages out to the students, intentionally trying to ruin the book for everyone else. I asked him to stop and he told me that he dislikes the book and then he stated, “I like guns” can we talk about that. Then he continued to read the book out loud again.We can see the pattern of behavior that Nikolas Cruz exhibited. This kind of behavior is not surprising to me. I’ve seen similar behavior as both a middle-school and high school teacher.Now here’s the BIG LIE the anti-discipline “reformers” are telling the public.“We’re just replacing suspension with other tools.”So what tools are they talking about? Let’s go back to how Parkland handled Nikolas Cruz, specifically what were the “tools” they used aside from punishment.On Nov. 4, after two months of gathering “data” for Cruz’s “Functional Behavior Assessment,” teachers were sent his “Positive Behavior Intervention Plan.” The plan included helpful tips, like:If Nikolas destroys property at a lower level,Calmly let him know he has not followed one of the expectations. Remind him what he is working for.Prompt him to use a cool down pass and walk away to diffuse [sic] the situation.If Nikolas engages in major disruption/property destruction:Let Nikolas know, “you’re getting too loud. I need for you to get back into control by using a cool down pass or calming down at your desk. If you get back into control, you can stay in class. If you continue, I’ll need for you leave [sic].”Walk away and do not pay attention to his behavior.Do not argue with Nikolas or engage with him.When class is over, Nikolas needs to go to his next class and behavior plan should re-set with able to [sic] earn reward breaks again.So the “tools” were basically to allow Cruz to be a jerk to the teachers and to the other students, with mild warnings. The teachers were told to ignore his misbehavior and not engage. These are only tools if you consider ignoring your car’s check engine light to be a tool of auto maintenance.We all know how well that worked out.As a teacher working in the system, the only additional “tools” I see being used are processes that allow students to get away with their misbehavior until the problem can be passed on to someone else.Conclusion:The institutions that have traditionally helped instill impulse control in young men have broken down. Absent and weak fathers are failing to instill impulse control are failing to do so. The schools no longer have the power to stop young males from engaging in non-stop defiance and disruption. Because they are shielded from both school discipline and criminal justice prosecution, they enter adulthood with no criminal record. With no criminal record, they can legally purchase a firearm.