To Whom It May Concern

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is to inform you that it is not appropriate to turn into a monster because of graduation. Why is it that when graduation comes around you allow your child to yell at me when you're sitting right there? Why are you allowed to tell me I am the worst counselor ever? To threaten me? With suicide? Really?!? When did graduation become solely my responsibility?

Remember how you are the parent? How you are able to check grades and graduation requirements all day everyday if you wanted to? Remember the letters I sent home each quarter letting you know your student was still not on track to graduate? Oh and that meeting where we had the same conversation? Plus all those times I pulled that child of yours in to talk to them about getting packets done or passing classes? Remember that? I sure do. Oh and I have it all documented if you want more information.

Remember how your student is the one who does the work? Remember how your student is the one graduating? Well I do.

Why all year did you not care until the last 2 weeks of school, or even the morning of graduation? When did it become the responsibility of everyone else to graduate your child? I thought that responsibility would fall on you, the parent, and your child. I am so confused.

The 2 most important parts of my job are the mental health of your child and getting them graduated because it improves their mental health. All year I work hard to help your child get to where they need to be and still I am at fault? Really?

You're child, your responsibility.

Sincerely yours,

A wonderful, talented, caring counselor who ALWAYS does everything she can to help your child make it through their depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, etc PLUS get them to graduation.

I had to write this out. Not to give any of these parents power but to get it out of my head so that I can move on. Thankfully in these few situations I am able to have my 30 minutes of being upset, crying, venting, what ever it takes, but then moving on. The hard part for me is that I feel like the 2 or 3 parents that get upset overshadow all the other good I do.  I have hundreds of students I help each year. Even the students who didn't graduate on time got plenty of help from me whether or not their parents believe it. It is something I have to be okay with, but it's hard.  I am invested in each of these children and love them so much so when their parent argues that I don't care, it hurts.

I also wonder how anyone can feel good about treating someone the way I get treated.

When I was in school, if I didn't do what I needed to, I was in trouble, not everyone else. When did things change? And how is this healthy for the child? What happens when this child gets to college? Who saves them then? When they get a professional job? I can just imagine my mom going in to my boss if something goes wrong and blaming him.  I would be humiliated and I am pretty sure it wouldn't go over well. I'm a grown up. I have to deal with it. Everyone makes mistakes and guess what? The mistakes I've made have helped me grow. A LOT. There are things I've done in my career that have been mistakes and guess what? After that mistake? I never did it again. I learned way more from that then from my mom saving me.

If I do something wrong no one is there to blame other people, but I handle it pretty well. Wanna know why? Because I was allowed to fail. If I left a big project until the last minute and had a meltdown, I still had to get it done. No one saved me and I'm so thankful. My parents did it right. They supported me and helped me when I needed it but they didn't save me from situations I created myself. Thank you for that.

Here's my last thought and then I'm done.

What if your child needs this experience to learn something? What if instead of teaching your child to blame others, you taught them to learn from their mistakes? So they have to graduate late? Make it a learning experience. Yes it breaks my heart that your child didn't get to walk but teach them to learn from it. What could they have done differently? In the future how can they make sure something like this doesn't happen again?

Happy people don't fail
Happy people just learn
Little Big Town- From my current favorite song! At first I wasn't sure I liked those lyrics but seriously failure is the best way to learn.