AboutPatricia Ireland-Williams Expertise I am a retired K-12 Public School Principal (8 years as a teacher and counselor) and 23 years as an administrator. I can help parents with questions about how the system works, provide ideas on how to solve school issues or assist teachers in coping with the plethera of stressors they face.
Experience I am currently an educational consultant and have served on the State of Arizona Solutions Team.
Question Hi, I'm a university student, psych major, who is planning to become either a child psychologist or a special education teacher. I'm hoping to specialize in developmental disabilities and particularly in kids with both developmental disabilities and trauma issues, such as the majority of FAS kids.
I was reading a book by Torey Hayden, a former special education teacher who's written a bunch of books about the various kids she taught. I think she's an excellent teacher, and I'd really like to be as good at this stuff someday as she was. Anyway, at one point in this book, an emotionally disturbed boy threatened her with a pair of shears, and she talked him down. And after that, they felt a lot closer because he knew nothing he could do would make her reject him.
The problem is, I couldn't do that. I'd be too scared. I might deal with the crisis situation OK, but after that I'd be scared of him and we'd never really get over the damage that episode did to the relationship. I know this because I volunteered a bunch with a program for disabled kids and I've also worked as a respite caregiver, and two kids I dealt with who gave me bruises, I was always scared of them after that. I could deal with this one boy who pulled my hair, because I know how to keep hair-pulling from being painful, but the other two were a girl who bit me on the wrist and another girl who squeezed my arms enough to bruise, and I just couldn't deal with that. I was scared of them afterwards and stopped working with those kids.
Do you have any idea on how to make myself less afraid of physical violence? One problem is that I was sexually abused, so people doing things to my body against my will sets off a lot of unpleasant feelings. I was wondering if maybe taking self-defence classes, such as karate, would help to desensitize me. Would that work? And do you have any other advice?
Answer I am not a psychologist so I feel unqualified to give you suggestions in how to over come fear. Having dealt with numerous very dangerous situations in my career as a Principal, I will tell you that you cannot be effective if you are afraid of children's behavior whether it be verbal or physical. I always continued to work with kids who hurt me (or my staff) and never rejected them. Believe me, I disciplined them (zero tolerance policy called for suspension from school) but I welcomed them back with open arms. As a result, these kids often became close to me in that they knew my boundaries but also realized that I believed in their ability to modify their behavior.
If kids know you are afraid of them, they sometimes will take advantage of you. I would suggest that you talk to a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist who can walk you through your fears. I totally understand your fear as the result of sexual abuse but your fear of touch and contact tells me that you need to deal with the abuse of the past as well. A qualified person can help you so that this fear is in the past and does not affect contact in the future.
