#spread too thin

Sometimes you need to step back for a little while and stop spreading yourself too thin trying to cater to everyone else’s needs. Focus on showing up for yourself too.

So..... I was very close to that mental breakdown Thursday. We have enrolled a student from Honduras into our program and things were going fine because I was able to place her with a bilingual staff member. During regular day, I believe mostly due to the language barrier, the student is destructive, throwing chairs, pushing desks, or runs away outside and hides in bushes refusing to communicate to anyone. It’s had because I know the student is frustrated and scared because this is a completely new environment but then we discovered this is the same behavior she had while in school in Honduras. One day she absolutely refused to come into our program and refused to communicate with any staff member including the school proncipal and staff. This went on from 1:20 pm until 3:00 pm (meaning that a staff member or myself had to keep an eye on her) when my supervisor was able to get her to at least come to our office. My supervisor then called the mom and stated that this is a serious safety concern and if it happened again, we would need to remove her from program. Then this happened again Thursday. When the students mother started ignoring our calls, my staff left a message that she needed to pick up her student or she was dropped from program. No response, no call back, no pick up. My supervisor then went back on her word and said well, she probably won’t be dropped from program. Ummm what? You expect me, who is short staffed, to continue to do this song and dance of supervising this one student and forget all the other responsibilities I have during program hours to run program??? Come again?? This day I was being pulled in so many directions as I have MANY students with social emotional needs and only really having myself to do EVERYTHING for the students and staff with no other resources. I felt a panic attack coming on. I felt weak. I felt like leaving. I felt like crying. I had alll these emotions inside me and I had to maintain my composure because what other option did I have? My supervisor did not come to help me. At the end of the day I text my admin stating me need to talk at some point because I’m struggling and just probably need to vent. Come the next day, Friday, my supervisor then called me asking me what I wanted to do about the student. Not ONCE before this did she ask how I was feeling or try to get a general understand of how absolutely burnt out I am. So I told her. She then stated if it happened again she would need to be dropped. Again, once school let out, the same thing. At least she went with the principal after school but even then, the principal has other things to do so a teacher then took her, on her OWN time, to help us monitor her and eventually got her into the classroom. The mom again ignored my supervisors calls. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg of the concerns I need to discuss. Typically my admin thinks that I contacted him only about this situation, which helped trigger my conversation with him but does not fully cover my concerns or feelings. I hope he doesn’t think this is the end because it’s not.