I got disinvited from my kids’ career fair and I’m still sad about it

I thought I was clear in my application to join my kids’ elementary school career fair, that I’d be demonstrating some exposure therapy techniques, relevant to children. I thought of the tamest subjects we tackle in exposure therapy for anxiety and I came up with things kids encounter in everyday life: Bugs, snakes, blood, and shots! My vision was not to actually DO exposure therapy with these kids, but to explain to them that you can have a job essentially getting paid to carefully do “pranks” on people, to help them get over their anxiety. And that in doing this, you’re actually really, really helping them. Here was my kit of materials. I was going to bring bugs and the pens and let kids take what they want.

Parents. Went. Mad. Not all parents but a few decided that the concept of mental health and the materials in exposure therapy were ENTIRELY inappropriate for 10 year olds.

That green syringe is a BALL POINT PEN.

I really had no idea that this would be extremely controversial. Bugs, snakes, fake blood, and a ballpoint pen that LOOKS like a syringe, are not threatening items. I’m not a police officer, answering questions about my service weapon or whether I’d ever killed someone (real life questions at my career fairs as a kid). I’m not a firefighter answering questions on whether I’d saved people with 3rd degree burns. I’m not a doctor who actually cuts people open and performs surgery on them.

I’m guessing that the objectors were:

1. People who may be against vaccines, thinking I was indoctrinating their children with pro-vax propaganda (totally wasn’t going to talk about vaccines),

2. Folks who have misconceptions about mental illness or mental health,

3. Parents who underestimate 10 year olds’ maturity and ability to take charge of their own health.

But I’ll never know because rather than talking with me personally, they went directly to the administration, who passed down a “how dare you” message to me, as though I was trying to sneak something past them. I forget sometimes that mental illness still has a heavy stigma and there are many people who think that those with mental health challenges and those of us who treat those folks are weird.

For those of you in education, socioemoitonal learning (SEL) is NOT a substitute for mental health education. They’re different and you have not covered your bases with SEL alone. When you ice out people who work in mental health from having contact with your kids because “some parents object,” you’re really doing a disservice, especially since anxiety disorders often present themselves in kids from 8-12 years old.

And for parents, 10 year olds are not the innocent little cherubs you think them to be. They’re all talking about sex amongst themselves and making up stories if they haven’t been armed with real information from you, as their parents. People providing them fact based information on difficult subjects aren’t indoctrinating them - they’re simply trading out stories the kids have already made up with FACTS about how things work.

Finally, to all of you suffering with severe anxiety and OCD, I don’t think you’re weird and neither do any of my colleagues or friends. We get it. In therapy, we can talk about your incredibly vivid intrusive thoughts of harm to self or others, all of the various ways your OCD has told you that you must be a monster, and we can use props in therapy that are FAR AND ABOVE anything I was going to show 4th grade, if that’s what is torturing you and fueling your anxiety. In fact, this is what makes OCD therapy fun (eventually… it’s also very hard). We are there to get really silly, awkward, uncomfortable, and weird, in the service of improving your mental health. Don’t listen to the stigma. You are NOT broken for having OCD or anxiety. We can teach you how to live better with this. You are a good person.