As promised, we will begin with the brief history lesson. There were no school psychologists and only a few counselors in the entire school district then. There were no other testing or mental health services available in the entire county available to service referrals from schools or physicians. The psychiatrist and psychiatric social worker who came were from the Arkansas State Mental Health Hospital staff. The psychologist was quite an interesting character. He was well over six feet tall and weighed over three hundred pounds. He worked at the Arkansas State Hospital during the week as well but also worked at the federal prison in Springfield, Missouri with convicts on the Saturdays that he was not with us.
I spent eight enjoyable years there learning far more than I had learned in over five years of school! I had been taught a lot of complicated learning and counseling theories and techniques but what I learned during those years was that the most important action is having empathy, genuinely caring for them, and finding ways to improve their self-esteem by proving to them that have value and are “worth” caring about. It was an extraordinary experience!
However, by this time I was nine years into marriage with small children and the job and the hours just did not fit the role of motherhood and family. I no longer felt this was the place that I was supposed to be. For eight years I had witnessed the result of poor parenting – abuse, simple and serious neglect, etc. and in many cases simply the result of having little or no interest in their children at all. Everything was just about them and their own wants and needs. God impressed upon me that it was time for me to make drastic career changes if I wanted to prevent my own children from someday needing services I had been providing for others for eight years.
Consequently, I spent the next three years obtaining a real estate salesman license and managing a real estate office where I kept my children with me constantly other than the few hours they spent each week in a local church daycare.
I hope you aren’t too bored and have not given up on me. Hang with me please and next time we will move on to teaching!
Biblical Inspiration: Proverbs 22:6 – Train up a child in the way that he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it
Lesson in a nutshell: Good parenting involves putting your children’s needs above your own.
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