This week at the San Marcos Treatment Center, I was placed with a group of young boys. I had heard many things about this group due to their problems with the way they express their aggression. I even had a peer from the week prior state how the boys around this age group frightened him due to a fight breaking out when he was with them. Although I have heard many things that could have led me to fear and distance myself from this group, and not try to socialize with them, today I felt my greatest accomplishment was not letting prior knowledge about the boys around this age group impair my interaction with them.
I was glad that I did not let my prior knowledge impair my interaction with the boys, because my open mindedness and willingness to get to know the children allowed me to interact with them more than I’ve interacted with other groups. However, I went in telling myself to still be more aware of my surroundings in case a fight did break out. Immediately as walking into their classroom, a boy stormed out with his mental health associate and teacher. Once the teacher walked back towards the room, she agreed to having us in there but just warned us to “not be surprised if things start flying” because the boys are known to throw things across the room if they are angry. At first, sitting in the classroom made me feel very alert because the kids were so riled up. However, looking back to what I have learned from my age span nursing class and my prior experiences of working with children, I saw that most of the children were just acting like normal little boys who yell questions without raising their hand, get frustrated when they aren’t picked on first, etc. Thus, initially at the time, I was just thinking about how these kids seemed like normal little boys and I couldn’t imagine why they would be in this facility. As we went to different classrooms and time went by, I started interacting more with the children in their gym class and lunch time and started to notice different mental health disorders. If it wasn’t for my willingness to not let my prior knowledge and stories of the kids impair my interaction with them, I don’t think I would have learned so much about them just by talking and playing with them. I learned that many of these children seek attention, are very sneaky and manipulative, or cannot cope with their anger and act out. It was interesting to be able to associate their characteristics with potential mental health disorders and then go back to read their charts and see that my interpretation of the characteristics I noticed while interacting with them were correct. In class we has just learned about autism spectrum disorder and personality disorders and it was interesting to pick up on the characteristics that some of these children had that were due to these disorders. I always hear many people say that because most children act up and lash out that it must be normal, or that because children are so young that they can’t experience anxiety and depression and that it’ll go away, but many fail to realize that these children are dealing with real mental health disorders that must be treated and won’t just go away. Allowing myself to go into this facility with an open mind free or assumptions, prejudiced, or biases has really allowed me to learn more about the importance of treating mental health disorders that others may just brush off. I am glad that this nursing program is allowing me to see that these patients are just as important to treat as patient who may be experience other medical problems.
This event has taught me that I must not let prior knowledge affect my interaction with patients in order to not limit my learning about them and in the future perhaps impair the patient’s treatment once I am a nurse caring for them. It is hard not to let prior knowledge affect your expectations or affect your behavior with these children due us discussing so much of our experiences with each other in post conference or throughout lunch. However, I believe that we should just keep what one another says in mind, in this case I kept what my peer had said in mind and just made sure to be more aware of my surroundings with these children, and to not let it affect our willingness to interact and learn from these patients.
I will be using the knowledge gained during this day at the San Marcos Treatment Center to remind myself that I must be open-minded, not let my prior knowledge impact my behavior or actions, and be willing to interact with all patients. I can definitely see myself using this accomplishment as a way to remind myself that I must treat all patients equally and go into their treatment without a clouded mind. This experience will definitely alter my career as a future nurse by ensuring that I don’t treat a certain patient a negative way, or limit my ability to interact and learn from them, just because of negative stories or knowledge that I may have heard from peers or those around me. Ms. Trinidad always tells us that we should leave all biases out the door before walking into the patient’s room because of how it can affect the care we provide them. I now see how true this is and will remember to never go into a facility or patient’s room with negative predisposed thoughts about them that may impair my interaction and care towards them.