I believe that the "Ultimate" reward for any guidance counselor would be to see a student succeed in life after having "counseled" and worked with that student to help guide him/her on a better path. Helping to guide students on the right track can also be a challenge. I think the most challenging aspects that counselors face are "jealous and insecure parents" that may feel that the counselor is trying to take their place, and their child away from them. Counselors also have to deal with parents who have unrealistic expectations of them to fix a problem that "the Parent" should have fixed years ago. Counselors also have to relate to and connect on a certain level with students who are several years younger, have different values and different interest than their own. The counselor also has rules to abide by to ensure they do their jobs in a professional manner. If there are ethical concerns, they have to be very careful not to cross the line and making themselves vulnerable. Human nature and the need to want to help someone can cause the counselor to become too emotionally involved with the student and that can lead to trouble. In short, the counselor has a multitude of challenges that he/she may face, how he/she handles these challenges is whats important.
Hello Leonard,
ReplyDeleteCan I credit your line of work in the comments you shared? Looking at your response deals with the meat of the challenges counselors face. I barely scratched the surface in my observation! The emotional involvement can be consuming and lead to poor judgement if one is not careful. The practicum counselors have to go through provides important experience (when talking about learning how to handle challenges). I think you develop professionalism when you can see an experienced counselor at work. I didn't think about parents thinking that counselors are intruding. You are so right. It would do parents good to take some counseling classes aside from parenting their newborn or toddler. In some ways I think counselors do have upper hand knowledge in regard to students in general. However, parents know the tendencies of the child better. Sometimes they behave differently depending on where they are. If the parent and counselor can get on the same page, the student has the best chance at success because there is little room for failure...in which, that small piece would be free will. The hope is that all the intervention leads to the right choices by the student.