Teenagers: X-boxed, X-rated but Wii still need to Kinect 360 with them

1. Teenagers:  X-boxed, X-rated but Wii still need to Kinect 360 with them Guidance Counselling @ the 4front of rescuing a generation? www.patrickryan.ie

2. Guidance Counselling – looking back • Clear identity as a profession • Stronger connection between social, emotional, behavioural and vocational • Full on exposure to ‘clinical’ world of learners • Gate-keeping / triage / • Experts in guidance and counselling

3. X Boxed Suicide rate Car crash rate Self-harm rate Mental health stats Child Abuse stats X Rated Alcohol stats TV watching stats Sex & Sexual Health stats Drug Misuse stats Generation X

4. Epidemic • The occurrence of more cases of a disease than would be expected in a community or region during a given time period. • We are living in the midst of an Epidemic of Dysregulation • It is Social, Emotional, Cognitive, Vocational and Spiritual • It is Intrapersonal and Interpersonal

5. Dysregulation? • At the core is FEAR • Compounded by coping resources that are being repeatedly overwhelmed • Developmental compromise • Suspended between Flight and Fight • Time of chaos - anything can and will fill the void

6. Context • Ideology of Individualism • Economic meltdown • Family structure reconfiguration • Spiritual void • Less vision – more of it visionless • Displacement of Responsibility for Care

7. The Vaccine? • Holistic development of learners is the most positive way of equipping them to deal with whatever may come their way in the future • Allowing the individual to “make good” with the world he lives in? • Model complete connections

8. Guidance • The science of direction and the art of influence  • Nurture the enquiring mind / curiosity capture • Using what we know we know e.g., power of the relationship, testing • Building from science – understanding memory, connection, elasticity • Deliberately mediating between regulation and dysregualtion

9. GC @ the 4front – the next decade • Coping with a generation who will not have the capacity to mentalise on the basis of overstimulation in early childhood • Emotional dysregulation on the basis of a cohort of adult parents, themselves raised by those unable for affective processing • Cognitive dysregulation due to parents who cannot think beyond concrete operations • Bringing to problem-solving the discourse of critical thinking and reflective appraisal • Managing the trauma of being let down by a society with a confusion of valueless values • Balancing btw testing for the sake of categorisation, unhelpful parental expectation and our need to feel helpful

10. U 2 the Rescu! • Examine relating capacity and Respond • Examine the ecology of the relationships of the individual and Guide towards potential for influence • Examine the connections between the individual and his current world and Make Sense of them • Examine care-seeking and care-giving and Counsel balance • Examine how the individual is allowed to “make good” with the world he lives in and Facilitate processes for this