Lauren Butland

fyi: you'll continue making mistakes, just hopefully they'll be few and far between and mainly inconsequential 🙃

I'm real tired of this facade of SLPs feeling the need to appear or seem perfect. Why are we pretending to be something we're not?

Honestly I feel the majority of our stress comes from the pressure and expectations we put on ourselves that others aren't putting on, or holding us to.

I'm not saying suck at your job but if you miss a deadline, learn from your mistake, and move on. If you're unsure of how to do something (a therapy approach, techniques, paperwork/procedures), realizing using hand-over-hand assistance isn't optimal, whatever, ask for help in the professional community, and then move with the new information you have.

Sometimes, there are past mistakes that I think about I made when I was more fresh out of grad school that come back to haunt me. I just learn to let those memories and feelings pass quicker than before.

Dwelling on the what-ifs will negatively affect you professionally and personally. So, it will behoove you to feel the feelings of messing up, and moving on.

This is too real for me, personally.

My tolerance for undesirable behaviors is exceedingly higher than for my own kids'. I've often thought about and wonder why I experience this.

I think it stems from a couple of factors: them not being my own kids, coming home after a long day and feeling "tapped out", and maybe just expressing my true feelings since I'm in my own "safe space" at home.

Ultimately, this turns into mom guilt. I constantly berate myself for how I respond to my childrens' undesirable behaviors when I demonstrate model behaviors for parents when their children are doing the similar things.

I know I'm not perfect- this is just a recurring theme for me in this season of life having young kids and being an SLP. Anyone else relate?

When I'm supervising students, I feel like I can't just give a simple answer or explanation.

Our field is too expansive and the breadth of information too vast to give oversimplified answers.

As supervising SLPs, we're charged with teaching future SLPs to be and do better than us and for future clients. We have a stake in their education and need to guide them to the best information.

That being said, if anyone has some advice giving more concise information to budding grad students, help an SLP out!

Something I have learned as an SLP in the home health setting: you're not going to be the SLP for every child you encounter who needs services.

This can be a hard pill to swallow because:

1. We're mostly people pleasers and want everyone to like us.

and

2: In our mind, how could we not be the perfect match for all the kids?!

Oh, sweet summer child. There are a million reasons why we may not always be the SLP a child requires, whether it be a certain specialization, personality differences, or even schedule needs.

I know it can sting when a parent or you make the decision to end your professional relationship. It gets better over time and just know you're a great therapist and will be THE therapist a child needs at some point in time.

Mantra for life, especially as an SLP.

We can become such type A people pleasers that we blur the lines of where the boundaries are between our personal and professional lives.

This can unfortunately lead to us become burnt out quickly as we may take on too many tasks that we think we can juggle, but will inevitably drop the ball somewhere.

I'm trying to remember that this mindset isn't a destination, but a journey and that sometimes you may find yourself doing really well with establishing and maintaing those boundaries, and other times you find yourself juggling too many things at once.

Just remember, you're replaceable to most everyone. There will always be someone else to do a task needing to be done. So let that guilt go now that you can't be everything to everyone. Be enough for yourself first.