“Those emergencies from a year ago (and a month ago), they’re gone.”
I remember when I was young, everything that seemed to go wrong was a disaster for me. It was the end of the world and I didn’t think I would survive.
Now that I’m older and have more experience, I can look back and see that it wasn’t the end of the world and I did survive.
I either solved the problem by taking some sort of action or I didn’t do anything, and the problem resolved itself.
Sometimes the only solution was time and I didn’t have any control over that.
It is hard to give this advice to my students because they don’t want to hear about how this will be better years from now. If they are hurting, they want relief now and not in the future.
The best thing I can do is to ask students is how can I help them. Sometimes they just want someone to listen to the problem and that is all they need. They might ask for help and I can then offer some suggestions. If I don’t know how to help them, I can help them find a resource who may be able to help them.
The important thing is that solve their own problems and that I don’t solve it for them. If I solve it for them, I’m sending a message that I don’t believe they are capable of solving it themselves.
I also need to accept that they might not solve their problem in a way that I think it is best, but it is still their decision. They will have to live with the consequences of their actions and not me.
Once they solve this problem, there will be other problems. But most importantly, this one is no longer urgent.
It is by solving their own problems that we help students be successful in facing obstacles and finding solutions.
How do you help your students solve their problems? Please share.
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