66. Summer Routines for School Counselors

In this episode of Counselor Chat, I’m diving into the importance of establishing a balanced summer routine for school counselors.

I should forewarn you—this episode might stir some debate about summer routines for school counselors, but it’s important to talk about.

Key Takeaways:

Rest and Relaxation:

  • Importance of taking time to rest and rejuvenate
  • Enjoying quality moments with family and friends

Reflect and Plan:

  • Reflecting on the past school year
  • Setting goals for the upcoming school year

Professional Development:

  • Engaging in workshops and online courses
  • Highlights of the Summer Counselor Conference

Organization:

  • Tips for decluttering and organizing personal and professional spaces

Connect and Collaborate:

  • Building and maintaining a professional network

Self-Care:

  • Focusing on overall wellness, including physical and mental health

Resources Mentioned:

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Transcript

Carol: You're listening to the counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy. I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students. If you're looking for a little inspiration to help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place because we're better together. Ready to chat? Let's dive in.

Carol: I am so excited. The 2024 summer Counselor Conference registration page is open, so consider this your official invitation to join us this summer. The conference happens on July 26 through 28th. This virtual conference conference offers over 40 sessions and two amazing keynote sessions, and the sessions cover topics so helpful to school counselors, including sessions on group and individual counseling, organization, working with students with adhd or anxiety, grief, autism, data collection.

Carol: And so much more.

Carol: All sessions are pre recorded and available for viewing until June 2025. We also have live q and a speaker channels, networking events, tons of free resources, and the opportunity to earn three graduate credits through the University of the Pacific. If you are looking for relevant pd that's super affordable, this is it. So why don't you join us? Just go to www.summercounselerconference.com to register. We'll see you inside the conference.

Carol: Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Counselor chat. I'm Carol and I am so excited that you are here with me today. I thought a lot about this episode and the fact that after it airs, I might get some pushback, some resistance, some why in the world would you tell counselors that type of comments? So I'm forewarning you about what's ahead, but it's also, I think, really important to talk about, and that is the whole summer routines for school counselors. And you might be thinking, well, Carol, what is a summer routine for a school counselor other than sleeping in, not having to wake up or drive into the office at like some ungodly hour in the morning, being able to actually drink my coffee, either hot or ice, depending on how you like it, and actually have it at the temperature it's supposed to be, having breakfast, eating lunch, actually taking some time to use the restroom when you want to. Or let's just call it bathroom because we're at home. But those are the things that we should be doing during our summer. We should be really resting and having fun with our families or our loved ones hanging with some friends. Those are the things that we should do. But there's an awful lot of other things to do, too. And I really think it's important to try to set yourself up with a summer routine. And a summer routine, in case you're wondering, is really. Well, it's that balance between relaxation and really prepping for the upcoming school year. It's about taking time for yourself to recharge, but also setting aside some time to reflect, learn and plan. And I say that because, let's face it, most of us really want to do the best job that we simply can do. And sometimes we need to think about our work when we're not at work. And I know that sounds kind of weird, but let's face it, during the school year, we're so busy, we're always on the go. We're doing all these things. We're running around in a million directions that it's sometimes hard to really think about and reflect and to really consider, what do I need to change? What do I need to do differently? How can I do a better job of advocating for myself or maybe shifting things around to make my life as school easier? Because when we're in the thick of it, it's hard to process those things. Sometimes we don't have the look back that we do or that hindsight. My mom always used to tell me, you know, hindsight is 2020, and there's a lot of truth to that. Because once we look back on a situation, we can see it more clearly. I think during the summer, while we are relaxed, while we are refreshed, it's a really good time to set some time apart, to really reflect, to learn and to plan. And so here are some things, my friends, that I really hope that you will spend some time doing this summer. Yes. First of all, rest, relax, enjoy your time off, go on a vacation, spend your time with family, indulge in a new hobby, or do absolutely nothing. Maybe you even want to pick up a second job just for something different so that you aren't thinking about school counseling all the time. And that's fine. But you also want to make sure that you get back in the hobby or the habit of eating well and taking care of yourself, exercising and focusing. I think on you because so many times we forget about ourselves. And I know if you are a school counselor mom, and you have little kids at home, let's face it, even in the summer, our time isn't about. It's about our kids and what they need and what they have to do at any given moment, but there's a little bit more time in the day, I think, during the summer to maybe try to carve some time for yourself. Please, my friends, please be sure to do that. But although self care is great, self care is more than just taking care of our bodies and eating well and getting the exercise in and resting. It's also about nurturing our wellness in so many other ways. There are eight dimensions of wellness, and our physical wellness, our mental wellness, is they're just a part or they're just pieces of those eight dimensions. But there's also. There's the financial, there's social, here's intellectual, there's environmental, there's all these other things to think about. I think it's important to go outside and enjoy nature and to really become familiar with your surroundings, enjoy what's around you. Reflect on that as well. Find the joy where you are. You have to find that inner peace somehow. But it's also about that intellectual wellness. You need to do things that are going to put your mind so that you're learning, because as school counselors, we need to learn all the time. And I think the more we learn, the more refreshed we feel, the better equipped we feel to deal with different situations, the more knowledge we have going into a situation. So attend some professional development, if you can. There is Asca, and I've talked about Asca a lot. We also have our own summer counselor conference. And I think if you can't go to ASCA, our conference is super affordable and such high quality. I mean, we have great presenters who actually, for the most part, have all presented it at ASCA or their national conference as well. Because not all our presenters are school counselors. I mean, we have presenters that are afterschool program directors or psychologists or social workers, but they're all involved in counseling in some way, shape or form. So it's a really great PD option. There's also online courses that you can enroll into. Maybe you want to take a class on trauma informed practices or a webinar on the latest sel strategies, but it's time to really indulge yourself and spend some money on yourself and invest in yourself in terms of this knowledge. Because, like I said, it will, my friends, enhance your work greatly later on. Sometimes we have to slow down and take it all in before we can move faster later on and get things done quicker and know what we're doing. So sometimes you have to slow down so that you can speed up. Also, do some reading or some research. I know that there are counselors that are putting together book clubs. I've seen it online. I can't mention them off the top of my head, but I have seen different people doing some book shares or book clubs and things like that. You can do some research, look at some school counseling magazines, read them, see what they have to say. What's the latest research on, on trauma? Or what's the latest research on the FAFSA? So how is that changing? What do you need to know? So do some of that, that reading and that research. The summer as well. Summer is also a really great time, my friends, to get yourself organized. And it doesn't matter what area of your life you need some organization in, but you might need to get yourself organized a little bit. I always like to use the summer to really organize my household, because just little things like the Tupperware and the storage containers are not where I like them all kept so that they're easily found. Because right now, we have one week of school left at the recording of this podcast episode. And I went to make lunch for myself the other day with some leftovers, and I couldn't find one single lid to go on any of the containers that I had to put the lunch and to bring to school. So it's just little things like that, getting that organization together so that during the school year, you can find the things that you need when you need them. And that could even be organizing your kids on, getting their stuff ready so that your mornings go easier. But putting a routine together also means that during the summer, you do some things so that once one school starts back up, you are ready to go, you are ready to walk in and feel comfortable. It might be you don't sleep till noon every day, because if you do that all summer long and the day before school, now you have to get up at 530 in the morning, that's not gonna probably work out very well for you. So keep yourself in some habits with your routine as well. You also want to think about your organization of your counseling program. Once again, this can just look like what went well and what could be improved and just creating a little list. This doesn't even have to be or take up the majority of your time. It can just be a little portion, a day, an hour, not even a whole day, but an hour of your summer just to simply sit and reflect. My husband, I know that every summer we would. I would always start in my little panic mode. I'd be like, oh, my gosh, I have all this work to do, and I don't have any time to do it and I got to get ready for school and I have all this stuff for school and I'm just not ready for the school year to start. And he would always just look at me and he would say, what means more to you in the long run? Is it going to be giving up some of your free time to go in and take care of what you need to take care of for like a day and get that all done? And even if you have to do it for free, is that going to make you feel more relaxed or is it going to make you feel more relaxed to. No, keep that summer day to yourself. Do whatever you want, have some fun and then go into work and not be ready. Which feeling is going to hurt you the most or feel best? So you have to weigh those out sometimes. And sometimes, I hate to admit it, but sometimes he's right. And I would have to say, I'm going to suck it up. I'm going to take the day, I'm going to go into work even though I'm not going to get paid because I want to set up my office and I want things a certain way before I walk in. And I want to make sure that these lists are ready or this schedule is done or this part of my program is taken care of so that when I walk in and the first thing I say is ten kids in my face the first day of school, I'm ready to greet them with a smile without stressing out about all that other stuff that isn't done yet. So think about the painful, the pain and these choices that you might have to make. I always like to tell even kids like what's more painful for you. Is it this option or is it that option? Because we want to maybe both options stink, but which one really kind of stinks the least? Was it option a or is it option b? So pick the one that's really the least painful you to do and just do it. But you also really want to think about during your summer maybe connecting and collaborating and having some sort of network. Because if you also are going into the school year with a network of colleagues or professional network or forum that you've joined, you have a collection or community of people who are batting for you all the time. So whether you join your state association or you join ASCA and you start going to maybe some of the affinity groups or some of the online webinar, webinar things that they have or the little meetups that they do do that there are some Twitter chats that happen. I don't know how much they go on during the summer, but it might be participating in a Twitter chat. It might also be joining one of my Facebook groups and getting together with the people in there just so that you have that community, that place where you can go to ask questions, look at maybe what other people have asked, read some things and just to get ideas. But having those relationships is important. Having those relationships in your own community is important, too. So if you have a local counseling association, join it. I know I've always been a part of my, and I always have tried to make it a point to go to the meetings, no matter how busy that I was, because those connections that I made really served me well time and time again. It's also great to start looking around and get involved in your community. Meet or go to different organizations. That way you're also familiar with the stakeholders that might be a part of your campus, your school community, and that way, hey, if I need something, this is maybe somebody that I can reach out to. So it's important to get involved in your community as well. Visit your local library, take your kids there for a book or two, grab one for yourself. See what organizations you can join. Because you never know. You might find something cool that you want to be a part of that brings you a little joy in your life as well. And then make sure that you also reach out to some families, whether it's your family or your families at school. Include a little section on what they can do in the summer as well. Because I think sometimes as we put things together for our school families, we stop and say, oh, wow, I can do this with my family as well. This might be a really cool event for me. I know when I put together summer newsletters, I used to love putting together, like, hey, did you know that the libraries are having these events or the local grocery store is having cook with the kids or different things like that. And sometimes I found myself saying, hmm, just me gathering this information for my school families is really helpful just for my own. So do something like that as well. But my friends, once again, I don't want you to think that you have to take your whole summer and focus it around school counseling. I really am not saying that at all. It is so important to really feel rested and rejuvenated, but you also really need to feel that you're recharged and you're prepared. I think feeling prepared brings down our stress. And when our stress is down, of course, we feel so much better. So take that time for yourself, but also spend some time doing the things that you need to do to make sure that your work when you start is streamlined, that you're being able to maximize your program, that you have the knowledge that you need to really feel like you know how to do your job and you can do it well. Do that because those things, they're so important. Anyway, my friends, I hope that you listen to some of this advice that you remember. I'm not pushing, do I? Everything, school counseling, but to take everything with a little moderation, but really to keep a routine so that you are ready for the new school year. Anyway, there are some things coming up this summer, once again, our summer counselor conference. So I would love if you could make that a part of your summer. It's three days, but you don't have to participate in the conference the whole three days over the summer. We have plenty of counselors who use it during for their pd days during the school year. But even if you just come and you connect with the other counselors, I mean, it's like 2000 counselors from across the world and they're a pretty energized group. Our facebook group for the conference is right now. It's going pretty strong right now with just people introducing themselves and saying where they're from and just getting into the I'm, I'm ready for a little excitement here to beef up my knowledge and do all the things. But I hope you do join us. Anyway, enjoy your summer, relax, rest, feel rejuvenated, and until next week, have a great week.

Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and@counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit, follow, or subscribe.

Carol: On your favorite podcast player.

Carol: And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or instagramounselingessentials until next time. Can't wait till we chat.

Carol: Bye for now.