Matthew is an eight-year-old boy whose teacher expressed delight when
she said, "Oh, you know M! He does his own thing. He's not like anyone
else!" He recently provided humorous entertainment for his classmates with
his characterization of Zephyr the Zebra in his class's version of A
Different Stripe from the Getting Along series of stories and
songs. He reveled in the experience and expressed much interest in finding
additional opportunities for drama.
Several times during the past two years, he has visited the school
counselor to talk over problems related to his family situation. He lives
with his mother and several sisters, all of whom are outstanding students.
Matthew has no memory of his father, who left the family when he was a
baby. His need to know about his father has been much on his mind; however,
his mother is not ready to provide him with the information he requests.
Matthew is a second grader who is uniquely himself, gets along well
with his classmates, and is an excellent student. His classroom performance
and standardized test scores are more than adequate to qualify him for
the gifted class. He loves to read, especially books about people who have
problems to overcome, and he gets so engrossed in reading that he loses
track of time and everything else. Matthew becomes quite animated when
discussing books that he likes.
Sometimes Matthew's vivid imagination gives birth to stories of his
own creation. Sometimes his stories occur right in the middle of ordinary
conversation, when the listener becomes aware that, quite without warning,
we have entered the world of Mathew's imagination,where he has the autonomy
he wants so much.
There are several issues that Matthew and his counselor need to address,
and the Individual Scope and Sequence to follow is the plan for
his third grade year of counseling and guidance. The choice of sequence
was made so that Matthew's strengths, sense of belonging, and communication
and behavioral skills might be increased before working on the area of
great pain for him. That major problem is his sense of loss over the absence
of his father, the total lack of communication with him, the necessity
of grieving that significant loss, the difficulty of achieving his own
identity as a male person at this particular developmental stage without
a father with whom to identify, and the challenge of creating a suitable
place of significance for himself in his family. We will be able to end
the year with more of the kind of projects that Matthew loves and performs
well, that increase his status, and, therefore, his sense of belonging,
in the school and in his home, and that provide a valuable service for
others.
