June 6, 2001
Melanie’s kid sister was in our school for six years and
very few people knew her first name.
Most of the staff addressed her as Melanie’s kid sister. Everybody knew Melanie’s first name. She was the oldest child in the family and
was very outgoing and very assertive.
And Melanie took it upon herself to take care of her kid sister in our
school.
I remember seeing the sisters in the hallway walking to the
bus or to the classrooms. Melanie would
be holding on to her kid sister and pretty much dragging her around. And the kid sister would be in a struggle
trying to keep up with Melanie.
Melanie’s kid sister always wore very stylish clothing. But no matter how attractive her clothes
were, she always managed to look like a waif. Melanie’s kid sister always seemed to be stooped over when she
walked and she reminded me of a rag doll.
I had to remind myself that
Melanie’s kid sister had a first name.
Her name was Ellen. And I made
it a point to always address her by her first name. When I would meet with teachers about their students I always
heard the same description of Ellen.
She was kind of a flat kid. She
was kind of blah. She didn’t cause trouble. She kind of kept to herself. She didn’t have many friends. She never made
eye contact. The staff really didn’t
know much about her. And she was the kind
of student who is very quickly forgotten by her teachers.
I remember when Ellen was in the 5th
grade, her older sister had moved on to the middle school so Ellen was finally on
her own in our school. I don’t remember
the reason she was referred to me for counseling but I began to work with Ellen
and her mother in the 5th grade.
The mother was not very
concerned about Ellen because she had four or five kids in her family and Ellen
was no real problem at home.
I spent most of the counseling time working with Ellen one-on one or with Ellen and her friend. Ellen was very comfortable in the counseling room because we had it filled with recycled materials the kids used. Ellen was very creative and very artsy. Ellen was also very bright. But she never let people know her talents until she trusted them. And Ellen didn’t trust many people.
After just a few sessions, Ellen became very open with
me. She talked a lot about being
invisible to so many people. She said
she had accepted her role in the family as the quiet kid sister and that’s who
she was. But she had so much more
inside her.
I remember her 5th grade teacher complaining
about her poor math skills. He said she
was functioning at about a 3rd grade level in math. And she just didn’t seem to care about improving
her skills.
A few weeks after I talked with the math teacher, Ellen came
down to my room with her friend. Ellen
announced that she and her friend were going to have a pizza party and boys
were going to be invited. This was big
news. And the girls were sky high.
I asked about the specifics of the party and they had some
general plans but they hadn’t figured out the details yet. They had the names of the kids and they were
trying to figure out how much pizza to buy.
They also were buying drinks and chips to top off the party. I decided to go with their energy and asked
them if they wanted to use the counseling hour to plan their party.
They got right into it and began to get the party
ready. I let them use our phone so they
called the local pizza place and began checking on prices. They wanted to get the most for their money
so they began comparing prices. They
figured out that they would be better off buying the 2 liter bottles of soda
after they got the prices of the 12 ounce cans. They also compared the
best way to buy chips and got the bargain size bag.
The girls were really using their math skills. They were dividing the pizza slices. They were figuring out the amount of soda
and chips they needed. The
girls told me that the party was going to be sponsored by the five girls with
the boys as the invited guests. Now
they had to use their math skills again to figure how much to assess each girl
to pay for the party.
By the end of the counseling hour the girls had completed
the planning of the party and they were so happy. And it’s just amazing how many kids can utilize math skills when the
skills become relevant to their own needs.
I noticed how different Ellen looked as she masterminded the
planning. Her chin was up. Her voice was very direct and
confident. Her shoulders were back and
she didn’t look anything like a rag doll.
A few years later I did some counseling in our middle school
and I bumped into Ellen. She was in the
ninth grade. And she was out of her
sister’s shadow. She was her own person
and she was feeling just fine.
And it reminded me again of how many kids I saw come into
our school in such bad shape. And then
something would happen in their lives and they would just take off.
I’ve learned never to give up on
kids. Because kids are so resilient.