So, I had just posted about what I used to do for work before I became a stay-at-home mom and how I felt like I was pretty successful at that job. That is a funny word, success. How do you know if you are successful at something? Truth is, on a day-to-day basis, I probably didn't feel all that successful at my job. If you ask my husband, many tears were shed over this job and often times my cry was something like, "I just don't feel like I'm making any difference!"
There is a difference between motherhood and other occupations (college student, HI therapist, elementary school teacher, etc). In my job as an HI therapist, I had a kind of checklist to follow- called a job description, of course. My duties were laid out pretty clear, I think. And I had my data to look at to tell if the child really was making progress. I also had monthly employee reviews, like I mentioned, and comments from coworkers, parents, and my supervisor. When you are a college student, you have a syllabus that tells you what you are required to do and you earn a grade. There is no job description typed up for the position of motherhood. There is no syllabus for motherhood. No one is grading my mothering. No one is giving me an employee review on my job as a mother. (Well, my four-year-old has given me many informal reviews, but I don't know if I would call her a reliable source when she tells me I am a good mom one day when I let her eat ice cream for lunch and then the next day I am a bad mom because I won't let her watch her favorite movie for the third time that day.) And data? Ha! Who has time to take data? (You may be thinking, "or who cares about taking data?" I am a bit of a nerd, so I like things like that. But, we will talk about data later.)
My point is, there is no real sure way to tell if you are a good mom. (I kinda used to think I was a good mom and then my daughter reached the terrible -but terrific- threes and I realized that her goodness at age 2 could not be completely credited to me.) I also used to think I was doing a pretty good job as a mom, and then I became a mom of 2 and a stay-at-home mom. Just when I start to feel like, "I got this," I am given another challenge. I guess that is the Lord's way of keeping me humble so I will always ask for His help. :)
When I was pregnant with my first, and working as an HI therapist, I remember attending a staff meeting where we were discussing how remaining neutral or emotionally stable in a tense situation with a client is so crucial. I jokingly, but kinda truthfully and naively commented, "Now that I know all this, I am going to be an amazing mom, right?" Several of my coworkers who have children of their own laughed and assured me that it is completely different with your own kids.
While it is true that we treat our own children different from others' children, I believe that the techniques, and psychology behind the techniques, are helpful to any parent and applicable to all children. The more knowledge the better.
That is what I want to focus on in this blog. This will be my little - no, big- experiment. To see if I can approach parenting situations with my own kids in a similar manner in which I would approach situations at work with my clients. I will present the problem or situation I am most currently dealing with, share the techniques and ideas I have learned in my training and study as an HI therapist that are related to that topic, and take action with the technique I think will be most effective, record progress, and report back the success. Does it sound like I am turning my own children into their own case studies? Haha...a little bit, yeah, but it will be more parent-friendly I am hoping, and more of an easier read than the books I had to read for certification. And like, I said earlier, parenting is much different from being a therapist, but that is also a strength.
Wish me luck!
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Thursday, January 15, 2015
My Former Life
Growing up, I loved playing with dolls. I always wanted to be a mommy. I loved babysitting and I taught dance lessons and cheer camps to younger kids and worked as a cabin counselor at a youth camp right after high school. And I worked at a daycare after high school, too. It was a daycare that catered to parents who worked the late shift so I would be there until midnight, putting kids "to bed" until their parents came to pick them up. How sad for parents to not be able to put their own kids to bed, huh? But, I enjoyed caring for, playing with, feeding, and putting kids to bed. It was the grown up way of playing with dolls, haha! I really enjoyed working at the daycare.
In college, I wasn't sure what to major in but my roommate was majoring in child development and that sounded fun so I took Child Development 110 and loved it so I chose the same major. I loved my classes. It was fascinating to me to learn how children learn and grow and how to be a good teacher to them. While in college, I taught dance lessons for a studio in town and I worked as a developmental therapist for a developmental disability agency, where I worked one on one with children and adults with developmental disabilities and I really enjoyed it.
After I graduated, I was hired by The Learning Center in Idaho Falls as - what was then called- an Intensive Behavioral Intervention therapist or IBI therapist. After the medicaid changes, the job title was changed to Habilitative Intervention. Basically, I was a behavioral therapist, who works one-on-one with children with a developmnetal disability (such as autism, cerebral-palsy, downs syndrome) ages 3-18 years. Therapy sessions can take place in the home, community, school, and facility. Therapy involved doing a functional analysis to find out what problem behaviors were occurring, what was triggering them, writing an implementation plan, teaching replacement behaviors, rewarding desired behaviors, and extinguishing target behaviors, and training important people in the child's life to allow for generalization across settings, people, and situations. Therapy also involved teaching life skills that will help the child be more successful in any environment. It required training and classes in Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) and Child Development and Learning Theories. To certify, I was required to complete those courses and to have 3000 hours experience working with kids with developmental disabilities and I needed to complete a Student Project, where I conducted a functional analysis, wrote an implementation plan, carried out that implementation plan, made a video of my work with the client, and tracked his progress. Oh, did I mention the test I had to take? I had to take a big test to show my knowledge in the IBI program. It involved multiple choice questions and two essay questions, where I explained how I would apply my knowledge in various situations. I think the test took me 2 hours to complete!
Whew...that was a lot of work to certify. But I enjoyed it, it was fascinating to me. Staff trainings every month were my favorite night because I would learn some amazing techniques that I was excited to use with my clients. I often would call my mom on the drive home and tell her what I had learned that night. She is a school teacher and so she was interested in it, too. I would share what I learned with the parents of the kids I worked with. This was called consultation and it was required that I do about 2 hours a month of consultation with the parent, where I use a hands-on approach to teach parents the skills and techniques we use with their children. I worked for The Learning Center for 6 years, 2 years full time and 4 years part time after my first daughter was born. I worked with a dozen or so kids over the course of that time. I worked with some amazing, really cute, fun, smart kids. It was such a learning and growing experience. I was very passionate about my work, and loved to learn more about that type of work. I received exceptional employee reviews from my supervisor and also great reviews and comments from the parents of the kids I worked with - and even some requests for me specifically to be their child's therapist. I kind of got the reputation at work as "the one with all the creative ideas." (Yes, I am tooting my own horn here, but a little horn tooting once in a while is healthy, isn't it?) Plus, I am just stating the facts, and I have the documents to prove it. Seriously, I can scan my employee reviews right now if you want.
So, I think I was pretty successful at what I did. And then I became a stay-at-home mom.
In college, I wasn't sure what to major in but my roommate was majoring in child development and that sounded fun so I took Child Development 110 and loved it so I chose the same major. I loved my classes. It was fascinating to me to learn how children learn and grow and how to be a good teacher to them. While in college, I taught dance lessons for a studio in town and I worked as a developmental therapist for a developmental disability agency, where I worked one on one with children and adults with developmental disabilities and I really enjoyed it.
After I graduated, I was hired by The Learning Center in Idaho Falls as - what was then called- an Intensive Behavioral Intervention therapist or IBI therapist. After the medicaid changes, the job title was changed to Habilitative Intervention. Basically, I was a behavioral therapist, who works one-on-one with children with a developmnetal disability (such as autism, cerebral-palsy, downs syndrome) ages 3-18 years. Therapy sessions can take place in the home, community, school, and facility. Therapy involved doing a functional analysis to find out what problem behaviors were occurring, what was triggering them, writing an implementation plan, teaching replacement behaviors, rewarding desired behaviors, and extinguishing target behaviors, and training important people in the child's life to allow for generalization across settings, people, and situations. Therapy also involved teaching life skills that will help the child be more successful in any environment. It required training and classes in Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) and Child Development and Learning Theories. To certify, I was required to complete those courses and to have 3000 hours experience working with kids with developmental disabilities and I needed to complete a Student Project, where I conducted a functional analysis, wrote an implementation plan, carried out that implementation plan, made a video of my work with the client, and tracked his progress. Oh, did I mention the test I had to take? I had to take a big test to show my knowledge in the IBI program. It involved multiple choice questions and two essay questions, where I explained how I would apply my knowledge in various situations. I think the test took me 2 hours to complete!
Whew...that was a lot of work to certify. But I enjoyed it, it was fascinating to me. Staff trainings every month were my favorite night because I would learn some amazing techniques that I was excited to use with my clients. I often would call my mom on the drive home and tell her what I had learned that night. She is a school teacher and so she was interested in it, too. I would share what I learned with the parents of the kids I worked with. This was called consultation and it was required that I do about 2 hours a month of consultation with the parent, where I use a hands-on approach to teach parents the skills and techniques we use with their children. I worked for The Learning Center for 6 years, 2 years full time and 4 years part time after my first daughter was born. I worked with a dozen or so kids over the course of that time. I worked with some amazing, really cute, fun, smart kids. It was such a learning and growing experience. I was very passionate about my work, and loved to learn more about that type of work. I received exceptional employee reviews from my supervisor and also great reviews and comments from the parents of the kids I worked with - and even some requests for me specifically to be their child's therapist. I kind of got the reputation at work as "the one with all the creative ideas." (Yes, I am tooting my own horn here, but a little horn tooting once in a while is healthy, isn't it?) Plus, I am just stating the facts, and I have the documents to prove it. Seriously, I can scan my employee reviews right now if you want.
So, I think I was pretty successful at what I did. And then I became a stay-at-home mom.
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