Establishing Boundaries

 

I have been in education for 21 years. Being educator is not only a job, but it is part of your persona, it is ingrained within your soul. The connections that you make with students, families and your colleagues are bonds that you keep with you forever. But being an educator can be extremely draining on you physically and emotionally. You have to develop a balance between your school life and your personal. The balance will never be 50/50 every day, but to keep yourself sane, it is important to Establish Boundaries. 

There have been many instances during my career that I did not have great boundaries and my health and family suffered. As a new teacher, I didn't know how to say No. I volunteered for every committee, sponsored half a dozen clubs, while also having a case load over twenty and getting my masters at the same time. I thought I needed to do all those things to be considered a good employee, to show my dedication to my job. But I didn't really have a social life, I wasn't taking care of my health and I was not able to settle my brain and thoughts, which is a very hard habit to break. 

As educators we also take everything to heart. If a parent is unhappy with us, or if a student didn't make the growth we expected, or our observation didn't go as planned. But sometimes things are out of our control and we don't have to please everyone constantly. We need to recognize that mistakes happen, people are not going to like us, we are able to start new the next day. 

Being an administrator has compounded the added responsibility and stress. Also, a different understanding of boundaries and how to keep my time and my families time sacred. Its difficult when students are in pain, have traumatic lives to want to jump in and help. As a principal in a high need building, I got close with several families and frequently visited students at their home to drop off family necessities, picked up kids from their parents work to make sure they could get to school and for a month, I accepted temporary guardianship of two of my students. 

I worked with a family, where a single mom was taking care of four of her children ages ranging from high school to 2nd grade. The two brothers attended my school, they were in 4th and 2nd grade at the time. The mom frequently had difficulty providing for her family, along with my social worker, we found resources for food, clothing, shoes and I even worked with the mom to fill out job applications to get a better life for her family. However, at one point in time, the mom got arrested for drug charges and was going to be incarcerated for 30days. The older siblings were able to stay with their grandmother, but the grandmother wasn't able to care for the two younger siblings, due to the youngest brothers special needs and the required supervision needed for young children. 

As I stood on the front porch of this mothers home, she was crying, not knowing what was going to happen to her children the next day because she needed to make her court date and then be placed in prison for 30 days. I did what I would expect any caring human to do, I said I would take her boys. I didn't know what it was going to entail, or how my family was going to feel about this sudden shift, but I knew I needed to do it for those boys and to put this mothers mind at ease while she couldn't be there. 

I immediately called my supervisor to let them know what I was planning, she was completely supportive of my choice, but directed me to Safe Families for more legal information regarding emergency guardianship. I was able to get some guidance in the appropriate forms to fill out and what the mother needed to complete and I accepted Temporary Guardianship of two of my students for 30 days while their mother was incarcerated. 

I went home and told my family what was going to be a huge shift in their routine and that we needed to be caring and supportive of these boys who were going to be scared, even though they knew me, they had some cognitive difficulty and would possibly not understand what was truly happening to them, let alone be in a new home, interacting with new kids, understanding the routines of our household, while also worrying about their mother. Needless to say, my husband was understanding, but not too happy with me. My daughter was apprehensive and my son was excited to have other boys in the house. 

The boys came to school that day with some extra clothes, but not anywhere close to enough for an entire month. Their mother dropped them off, hugged them and made sure they knew that she would be back, but that Mrs. Marzullo would be taking care of them for a while and they would be staying at my house. I would drive them to school each day and visit with their older brother, sister and grandmother on the weekends. I think they were in shock, they didn't say much at all. 

At the end of the day, the hopped into my car. I had to remind them to put on seat belts, and they were very quiet on the ride back to my home. We have two spare bedrooms at my home I showed them both, that were ready to go for them, but they decided that they wanted to stay together in the same room. I made some pasta, meatballs and salad for dinner and they picked at their food. That was our families typical meal, but it was different for them; and it was strange for them to eat a table as a family. Things that I thought would be little changes, happened to be really huge for them. 

This transition was extremely difficult for my daughter. At the time she was in 4th grade, 9 years old. She didn't understand why I was giving these kids more attention then her, why I was taking them to get a bunch of new clothes, why we went grocery shopping and cooking the foods that they liked, instead of doing that for her. These feelings are totally understandable for a young child that was thrusted into this situation without a say so. 

During that month, I was able to get prescription glasses for the younger brother with the help of Lions Club, take the boys with my family to the library, museums and even a fishing and camping expo. I think the boys had a fun time, but they were so very excited when their mother was finished with their sentence and were able to go home. However, my family was relieved when they left. My husband felt like he could act like himself again, my son and daughter didn't have to share attention from me and to be truthful, our house was calmer. 

Now when we reminisce about having our visitors for a month, my daughter feels bad that she wasn't nicer to the boys and had tantrums because she did just have a hard time dealing with the general situation. I question if I truly helped this family or if enabled the mom further, as there was more issues in the future with the family. Ultimately, this situation was a test of boundaries. My boundaries and my families boundaries were compromised. Even though we were helping these boys, I could have gone another route and caused less turmoil in my home. 

When reflecting on heightened events in your life or determining your boundaries before a big blow up, its essential to take many factors into account, but a great place to start is with your feelings and your values. Using a feelings wheel and identifying your specific feelings for a certain event or situation can assist you in pinpointing how you truly feel about a a moment of heightened emotions. Then utilizing adjectives that describe your values and picking your top 5 meaningful beliefs that motivate the way you live, can then establish what you feel are your essential boundaries to ensure your happiness and protect your piece of mind for you and others. 

For more support with Establishing Boundaries - please download this workbook that will take you through identifying your feelings, identifying your values and Establishing Boundaries that you can communicate to your family, friends, colleagues or even your boss. 

Establishing Boundaries - Workbook