Put On Your Oxygen Mask Before Helping Another and Other thoughts From the Week

After a week of connecting with folks in several different “venues”, including “presenting” to three different audiences, I had a couple of ideas to share.
1. When we connecthrulove in relationships, whether that be with our children, our colleagues, our “constituents”, or our “customers”, it is important to first tend to ourselves. We need make sure that we are regulated (i.e. calm and in control of our emotions).
2. If consequences for inappropriate behaviors are punitive and not used to help a child/teen see how different behaviors could change an outcome, the punitive behaviors will continue in some form. Modeling appropriate behaviors is effective, imposing negative consequences and not connecting through relationship will destroy not build relationship.
3. My third takeaway after talking with school folks about trauma-informed/trauma responsive care is this: what if instead of advertising how successful a school system is because we have raised test scores, increased attendance, increased graduation rate, we highlighted how we connect with students? An example would be: In our school district, students safety matters, students voices matter, their choices matter, their needs matter, our students matter.

About Author

Elaine Spicer

I have been a social worker for 31 years. My work has been with families and children first in the area of Child Protective Services and then as a therapist working with the same population. I have worked with divorcing and divorced parents teaching co-parenting techniques, supervised therapists and have been a social worker for emotionally challenged children and adolescents in an inner city school system. About 7 years ago I was introduced to the work of Bryan Post and, as a friend and colleague said at the time…I went Post-al. All of my previous assumptions and indeed my work using behavioral interventions, got pushed aside. And along came the realization that none of the interventions, meant to change behaviors, had anything in common with helping children heal from the trauma they had experienced. My best work these days is as a coach/consultant for parents, other caregivers, and teachers. The services I provide are parent education, coaching, consulting and supervising. I am the mother of five adult children and grandmother to five. I am both a bio mom and an adoptive mom.

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