School for School Counselors Podcast

How to Tell If You're a "Good Enough" School Counselor

• School for School Counselors • Episode 118

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Can trying to solve every student problem actually hold them back? Join us as we explore this provocative question, inspired by Donald Winnicott's concept of the "good enough parent.” We'll dissect the instinct to "fix" and consider how stepping back can empower students, helping them build resilience, self-advocacy, and problem-solving skills, ultimately fostering their independence and emotional strength while lightening your workload.

We'll also challenge the unrealistic standards set by the ASCA National Model, questioning whether the relentless pursuit of perfection is truly beneficial. With only 1.1% of schools achieving RAMP status, it's clear that these high bars can create an unsustainable work environment. Instead, we advocate for "good enough school counseling," embracing imperfection and focusing on meaningful, manageable impacts. 

00:00 Introduction: The Well-Meaning Instinct of School Counselors

00:41 Empowering Students by Doing Less

01:06 Listener Reviews and Feedback

02:55 The Urge to Fix: A Common Challenge

04:25 The Concept of 'Good Enough' Counseling

07:54 Statistics and Realities of School Counseling

10:45 Sustainable Practices for School Counselors

21:54 The Importance of Empowering Students

22:42 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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References/Resources:

Clemens, E. V., & Milsom, A. (2008). The school counselor’s role in addressing the mental health needs of students: A model for prevention, intervention, and crisis intervention. Journal of School Counseling, 6(23).

Winnicott, D. W. (1953). Transitional objects and transitional phenomena: A study of the first not-me possession. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 34, 89–97.

Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment. London: Hogarth Press.

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Speaker 1:

What if I told you that, as school counselors, our very well-meaning instinct to step in and fix student problems could actually be hurting them? Imagine a student comes to you and they're super frustrated because they're having some sort of a conflict with their friends, and every fiber of your training and your knowledge pushes you to step in, to mediate and to maybe even act as the peacemaker. But what if, when we do that, we're actually preventing that student from developing the skills they desperately need? Today we're going to be talking about how to do less for our students to actually give them more. We're going to give them more resilience, more self-advocacy and the confidence to tackle their own challenges. We're going to talk about how empowering students to meet their own challenges might be the most powerful thing we do. But before we jump into that, I want to read some more of the amazing reviews that we received as part of our recent School for School Counselors pod party. Before I read these, I want to remind you you don't have to wait for a pod party to submit a review. We love them all the days of the week, anytime you want to send one in with some shiny gold stars, we would love and be delighted to receive those. Our first review comes from the primary counselor, and their review said the best professional development consists of what you put in your mind on a regular basis. In the ever-evolving world of the school counselor, this entertaining and educational podcast is a must. Thank you so much, primary counselor. And our second review comes from Jess Loves Tigers. I just love that name, and the review is titled Great Resource with five shiny gold stars. It goes on to say this this podcast has helped me so much. I listen on my way to work. I've been a school counselor for over 20 years. Listening to this and being part of the Facebook group has reminded me of why I wanted to be a school counselor. Oh my goodness, so powerful. Thank you, just Loves Tigers, thank you, the primary counselor, and thanks to anyone else who feels led to submit a podcast review. That's how people get shown our podcast. That's how they decide whether or not they wanna give it a spin, and so your help with that is so greatly appreciated, and I would love to read your review on a future episode.

Speaker 1:

All right, so back to the topic of this week. We are looking at something that we've probably all felt at some point, and that is the urge to fix things for students. That feeling is so compelling that sometimes we don't even realize that we're doing it right. We talk all the time in the school for school counselors world about being helpers, not fixers. But what if, despite our very best intentions, that urge was exactly what's preventing some of our students from growing? We have to really talk about how we can help students develop self-advocacy and problem-solving skills and really recognize the fact that resilience is built through ownership of challenges and when students can really navigate their own difficulties, we start cooking with gas a little bit. We're also going to talk today about some practical strategies for how to know when do you step in, when do you stay to the side, and how this approach can also lighten your load as a school counselor. So get ready to have your mind blown, because I think sometimes the best thing that we can do for students is actually to do less.

Speaker 1:

Now, I started thinking about this as I was reflecting on my master's education and the professional development I've done since then, both with regard to true therapy and also to school counseling, and my mind has gone back to Donald Winnicott over the last couple of years, thinking about the idea of the good enough parent. Do you remember Winnicott and the good enough parent? He asserted that a parent doesn't have to be perfect, they just need to be good enough. And when they are, that's actually what supports a child's emotional development and their resilience. What supports a child's emotional development and their resilience? The main idea of all that was that parents should meet their children's needs most of the time, but that those slight imperfections that we experience, those moments where we're not immediately on top of things or we're not able to respond in the way that we want to, are actually necessary for children to begin to develop autonomy and resilience. That's how they begin to understand I am separate from the person caring for me. I can handle some problems.

Speaker 1:

And then Winnicott's assertions went on to say avoid trying to be the perfect parent. Now tell this to some of the folks that are on social media these days, right, where perfect parenting is all the rage and people will do anything to appear as though they're the perfect parent. But according to Winnicott, the pursuit of being the perfect parent leads to exhaustion. It can even lead to resentment, and we have to be able to recognize that small failures on our part are part of the process that helps children grow. That way, they can grow emotionally, they can develop independence, they can develop problem solving all of the things we've talked about before. They also learn to develop coping mechanisms, which is why I find it so interesting that we have all of these social media addicted parents and so many children in schools who seem to have no coping mechanisms. Have you noticed this? I'm waiting for someone to put a study out about this, but at the end of the day, the point is that parents should be able to set personal boundaries, that parents need to have space to rest and recharge, not only for their own well-being but for the ultimate well-being of their family.

Speaker 1:

So with our little review of Winnicott, you can now maybe kind of see where I'm going with good enough school counseling. The idea of good enough school counseling was adapted from Winnicott's good enough parenting, and I think it's a pretty good comparison, because, as we're working in the school counselor capacity, we have a lot of things coming at us at once, don't we? We're balancing student needs, we're managing our campus demands, time constraints, we're trying to slip a little bit of good self-care in there, and we know that the feasibility of the models that we've been given is subpar, right? I mean, let's just be real. As I was thinking through this, I went and pulled some statistics just to make sure that I wasn't misspeaking.

Speaker 1:

But I will tell you that this past year, 101 schools were awarded ramp status from ASCA, the American School Counselor Association. That seems pretty impressive until you realize that there are over 115,000 schools in the United States. So when you do the math on that, that's less than nine, one hundredth of one percent of all schools. This is not to talk trash on ASCA and its ramp status. I think both ideas are wonderful, but I do think it goes to show the difficulty in attaining those standards those standards right. When less than nine one-hundredths of one percent are able to attain that distinction, that might mean that the bar has been set a little high, right, and you know that because you feel it every day. If we look at the all-time ramp status 20 years we've only managed to attain ramp status in 1.1% of US schools. I think it goes to show that the ASCA national model is a perfectionistic model. It's an ideal. It's great because we need standards to aspire to.

Speaker 1:

But that ideal has become such a normative consensus in our work, right? Everybody just feels like that should be what we're all aiming for, and it's driving a lot of maladaptive professional beliefs. It's changing the way we see our work into something that is perhaps not very healthy. We need to be able to try to help students with their future planning, their goals, their emotional and social well-being all of the things that we know are so important to us but we also have to accept the limits of our control and of our resources. We have to be looking toward practices that are going to be sustainable for us and that don't sacrifice our personal well-being or our professional boundaries Y'all. I have lots and lots of episodes about that very thing on the podcast, so I won't belabor the point here, but I will say that these imperfections in our program setups are maybe not the Achilles heel that we've always been taught to believe. Maybe some of these concerns, while we hope they don't last forever, are actually catalyzing our growth and our students' growth on our campuses. Let me tell you what I mean by that our campuses. Let me tell you what I mean by that.

Speaker 1:

When we talk about good enough counseling and sustainable practices for our work. We have to reject the idea that we're expected to be a perfect counselor who meets everybody's needs whenever they need something right. Instead, we have to focus on what's realistically achievable. Our goal, then, has to be to create meaningful impacts for academic, social, emotional development of students, without expecting to solve every problem or meet every need perfectly, and that as soon as a student expresses a concern or a problem, we don't have to turn on the emergency light and go running to the rescue Y'all. It's just not sustainable, and you know this and I know this.

Speaker 1:

But for some reason, when we're talking about school counseling in social media, when we're talking about it in articles or journal publications, the conversation always seems to bend back toward the Ask, a National model and attaining the perfect ideal. And when we have only 1.1% of schools in the last 20 years that have been able to prove that they've attained that ideal, that doesn't really seem right or fair, does it? Overworking to pursue those ideals serves nobody. It doesn't serve you and it does not serve your students. There are ways to look at your work to determine where you have room to grow. Certainly, there's nothing wrong with trying to grow and improve what you're doing. We've developed an assessment to help you along that way. If you're interested, you can go to smartschoolcounselingcom to access the Smart School Counseling Assessment.

Speaker 1:

But if we are looking at being the good enough counselor, not only does it take away the expectation of perfection, but it reminds us that if students are left to navigate their own concerns to an acceptable extent, they could develop their own coping mechanisms. They could develop their own solutions to some of the things that we've been running to the rescue about. Does that make sense? We don't want to be the over-functioning school counselor. We don't want to be the one that everybody calls when somebody sneezes the wrong direction and oh my goodness, that didn't sound right. Can you talk to them and make sure that they're okay? Now, you may chuckle a little bit when you hear that, but you know, and I know, that we've been called to things just like that, haven't we? I know I have to tell my staff often.

Speaker 1:

Hey, I just want to remind you that everybody gets sad sometimes. It's okay. We all have days where we're in a bad mood or we're sad or we're tired. All of that is okay, as long as it doesn't persist right, and it's not affecting our ability to go about our day-to-day business. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel frustrated. I'm not here to magically cure everyone's feelings. That's not my job. My job is to help students cope and develop strategies and skills.

Speaker 1:

When things are a little bit longer lasting, when it's not just a bad day Maybe it's been a couple of bad weeks or bad months and it's starting to interfere with their ability to perform academically or to maintain relationships with the people around them. That's when I come in, not just when someone is sad the people around them. That's when I come in, not just when someone is sad. But we do have a lot of school counselors who have built this belief in their mind that if they are that hypervigilant, over-functioning school counselor, that actually means that they're more worthy. And I'm here to tell you I think those people are probably struggling a lot. They're probably struggling with the demands of their work I mean, can you imagine running to every little thing all day long? That just sounds completely exhausting to me. But also they're teaching their staff and their students to over-rely on them, and that definitely is a problem.

Speaker 1:

Think, too, about peer conflict. So many people rush to intervention. When we're talking about peer conflict, we immediately start talking about restorative conversations and mediation and all of these other things that take a lot of time and bandwidth and between you and me, I don't see a lot of people posting about how amazing their restorative conversations have been. Have you Like it's trendy? People love to throw the word out. I think it makes them feel like they sound really smart.

Speaker 1:

But of the people who are attempting restorative conversations, number one restorative conversations aren't what they think they are, so there's problem number one. Restorative conversations aren't what they think they are, so there's problem number one. But problem number two is they don't really have the immediate impact that people envision. Sometimes we need to give kids a little bit of time just to work it out. Now you might be thinking, as you're listening to me talk through this. I mean, you know it sounds okay, maybe being a good enough school counselor, but I feel like that means I'm going to be slacking. People are going to think that I'm just being lazy. I already get questioned enough about what I do already. I certainly don't want to give anybody any more ammunition to question my role on campus, but to that I would say I think we have to look at this through a broader perspective and realize that once we are okay with being a good enough school counselor, it is going to take such a tremendous load off of our shoulders that, almost immediately, once we come to the point that we feel okay with it, it's going to restore a lot of bandwidth. We're going to regain a lot of clarity in our work and potentially regain a lot of energy for the things that we do, because we're not constantly running from fire to fire, to fire, to fire to fire. We are being more intentional with our work. We're waiting and watching to see if students can resolve their own concerns, and if they can't, or if it's not a developmentally appropriate approach to take, then we go in and assist students with what they need.

Speaker 1:

Another argument that some people may have is that good enough school counseling could lead counselors feeling justified in disengaging from advocacy, meaning, when we're good enough, we feel like we shouldn't push anymore. We shouldn't be pushing for national models, we shouldn't be pushing for a respectable school counselor to student ratio, which are not the numbers that we have in place on most campuses, and that if we're not doing that, we're going to continue to be under-resourced, our needs are going to be neglected, our programs aren't going to be able to grow in the way that they should, and so the only way to counteract this bad outcome is to remain in that hustle culture that we talked about in the last episode and grind away trying to make a difference. But research on perfectionistic mindsets tells us that the more we do that, the less effective we become. That the more we do that, the less effective we become. And third, I think some counselors are going to take issue with letting go.

Speaker 1:

We have a lot of folks out there that have appointed themselves the lone saviors. Have you heard me talk about the lone savior complex before me? Talk about the loan savior complex before? These folks feel responsible for rescuing every student or fixing every systemic issue, and I think these people are great because they are on fire. Right, there is probably no one more invested in their work than these loan saviors. But the problem is they burn themselves out in two to three years. That's what the research tells us. So we've got to look toward a more sustainable and healthy trajectory. Think about it this way how much change and impact can you affect in your first one to two years on a campus, versus the change in impact you can affect when you're on that campus eight, nine or even 10 years? 10 years is going to have it beat by a mile, right, but that's the marathon, not the sprint. And so when we come in as a lone savior, we are sprinting, we are hustling as hard as we can toward that finish line.

Speaker 1:

When we come in as a good enough school counselor, we're coming in with a marathon mindset. We don't have to attack everything all at once, we don't have to fix everything. We can give it our best towards the goals we see as being most impactful in the moment and continue working on. And while we do that, we have to remember that we're always prioritizing student well-being. Being good enough doesn't mean, you know, let's just let's let them figure it out. I'm going to sit in my office and watch some YouTube videos, have a snack, live the sweet life in here until somebody really needs me.

Speaker 1:

That's not what that means. We're not going to abandon our core responsibilities. We're not going to let go of all of our advocacy efforts, but we are going to keep a realistic pace. We are going to remember that there are other people who can be helpers on our campus in addition to us, and I think, at the end of the day, that's one of the most important things we are part of larger teams We've got to be looking at our teachers, our administrators, maybe mental health professionals on campus and make sure that we're not carrying the full burden of responsibility for all the issues on our campuses. Those folks can come in and help. We also need to remember that student outcomes are not completely in our control, especially when we're looking at things like under-resourced schools, especially when our caseloads are egregious. Right, we are not going to be able to do all the things, so let's focus on small, meaningful successes. Let's collaborate with those other folks we have on our campuses and beyond, instead of feeling that pressure like we have to solve every issue personally.

Speaker 1:

As we wrap up, I want you to take away this one message that empowering students doesn't mean solving their problems for them. Empowering students is giving them the tools to solve those problems themselves after they've taken ownership of the challenges. We can help them build self-advocacy, strengthen their problem-solving skills and develop resilience. That will serve them far beyond their time with us as their school counselor if we can let them toe the line just a little bit, if we have the ability to step back, watch them work and coach them through instead of running to the rescue. Hey, if you enjoy conversations like this, just remember.

Speaker 1:

We talk about these kinds of things each and every week in our School for School Counselors Mastermind. We host support and consultation chats where folks bring case consultations to the table, specific issues or concerns that they have, and we talk through them. And a lot of those concerns are not student-based, they're program-based or they are systems-based, and we're walking through the best approaches for that school counselor based on their resources, their expertise and their personality. So if that's something that interests you, you might want to go check it out. Schoolforschoolcounselorscom. Slash mastermind Y'all. It's not always easy to step back, but remember that sometimes less intervention leads to more growth. So as you go about your work this week, think about where can you offer guidance without over-functioning, because it's not about trying to do less for our kids, it's about helping them do more for themselves. Y'all. I'll be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. In the meantime, I hope you have the best week, keep being amazing and take care.