Dad On Duty #38 – I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying

Next to the last one for the year.

I apologize in advance; this one will be a lot longer than usual. Never had a day like this.

Never.

Tori’s teacher had the best anecdote for the situation at this stage of the game: “these kids have been in the car too long; it’s time to get out”. Bingo.

Today was the first time I’ve cried at this job. And it’s been a long time since work made me cry. In fact, I couldn’t even retell the story to Amy tonight without locking up.

We’ll get to that story in a bit. Bear with me.

**First, something really fun. Our school has a really cool program called read dogs, where the kids read to a therapy dog. http://www.dogsoncall.org/r-e-a-d/. It makes reading fun and safe and comforting. Today, all the read dogs came in just for affection, and to remind the kids that they really like reading….and should keep it up over the summer.

So all the dogs came in and were staged in the library. Every kid rotates through over the course of the day. On the days I’m there, I’m in charge of safety, security and logistics. And moving nearly 20 dogs and owners in (and out…several times…big shock, the dogs gotta go out) was a bit challenging.

But the dogs were fantastic. Super sweet and affectionate. The kids loved it.

**One kid in particular occupied most of my day. He’s got behavior control, and especially anger, issues. He’s on the young end of our age spectrum, and is assigned to a teacher with special training and skills in dealing with high maintenance kids.

And he was mad as hell today.

One of the (many) challenging things about public education is that we can’t pick and choose. If you live here, you can go to school here. And whatever baggage you bring, we just gotta deal with it.

So we have this enormous spectrum of affect, capacity and social situation. And in the face of that, we must provide the most level playing field we can.

So back to this kid that occupied most of my day, whom we’ll call “Louie”. Louie’s home situation is very difficult and tumultuous. His brain isn’t the same as yours and mine, and he has trouble processing and controlling things.

By happenstance, I am walking by his hallway and see his teacher throwing a backpack and lunchbox out in the hall, while apparently holding something (turns out it was Louie) back in the classroom with the other hand. (He was using the backpack and lunchbox as weapons, so she made a smart move to disarm him). This strikes me as a “situation”, so I move that way. She looks up and says “help”.

I am now fully engaged.

When I get there, he is punching and kicking with everything he has. He’s little, but it still hurts.

I pick him up and head to the office. He’s beating the crap out of me. I turn it into a game….slide him on his booty around in the hall, pick him up high in the air and kinda toss him. Tell him “we shouldn’t be doing this; if Tyra Alexander Rasberry catches us, we’re in trouble..”

He responds.

Laughing and smiling.

I hand him over to Mary. He really connects to and loves her. But even she can’t get him back on track today.

At one point, I had a genuine scare; Mary has Louie restrained as best she can and is trying to move back toward Tyra’s office with him. He has kicked over the heavy ceramic pineapple that Mary uses to hold her office door open…it’s lying near his feet now. Mary is looking down the hall to her right, away from him, with Louie grasped in her left hand. I am 25 feet away, headed toward them because it doesn’t seem to be going well.

He reaches down and grabs the heavy door stop and raises it.

I sprint to them and grab his arm and knock the doorstop away.

Holy *%^#.

I’ve knocked enough weapons out of people’s hands to know what just happened, but I don’t think anyone else really understood.

I spent the next two hours, on and off, with Louie one-on-one. We played outside by ourselves. He helped me check the doors on the school and walked the grounds.

He held my hand, a lot.

I talked with him a bunch about how he *did* have some control over his affect, and how being mad and saying the words “hate” and “stupid” so much was leaving little bruises on his heart. And how, instead, if he would embrace the good stuff, the happy stuff, it would heal those bruises. I hope that resonated, if not today….

But that’s not even the kid that made me cry. We’ll get to that story in a bit.

**Another funny story. We had a summer reading pep rally today. All the kids attended. Spike, http://www.milb.com/content/page.jsp…. the mascot for the local minor league baseball team, came to help.

He’s wearing a typical mascot outfit, like I do every Friday morning too…including today (for about an hour).

30 minutes into the pep rally, he bails. Louie, who’s still glued to me at this point, asks about him. So me and a couple of the 5th graders who are helping ask Spike’s handler if Louie can meet him. She says he got too hot, and is out in the car. She confides in me that he barfed in the car.

I am sorry to say…I laughed inside.

Woos. He barfed.

This dude is a professional mascot, and lost it after 35 minutes. I did an hour in a suit at least as furry, and I’m standing right here.

Weenie.

Now, I have to admit, I did have a near-barf episode a couple weeks ago at a pre-STARR test pep rally. I was in the Bobby suit, dancing and getting my funkadelic on, and suddenly everything went kinda grey and quiet. I gave Tori the “oh %#^*” signal (3 quick hand squeezes) and she did a great job, went into emergency evac mode and got me to the bathroom.

But, dammit, I went back to the pep rally a few minutes later. (Spike is a wimp).

**Later in the day, I’m standing at the main crossroads in the school and hear what can only be described as a blood curdling scream come out of the gym. I start that way, and Coach Nick emerges with two 4th graders and a dodge ball, headed to the office. One kid is crying and yelling, the other kid is covered in dirt, disheveled and bleeding.

I should probably head down there, I think.

Coach drops the combatants in the office lobby and then heads upstairs to engage the Boss and the AP, who are trying to finally eat lunch in the teachers lounge. The kids migrate apart spontaneously; one stays upfront and the other goes to the desk in the back.

I plop down with each of them in turn. Why are you so mad? What he says doesn’t change your life. None of that really matters. That’s your choice to let him in your head; choose something else right now, and every minute from now.

There was crying and anger and frustration. And of course, most of the conflict wasn’t really here at school….it was at home, with other people and other problems.

These kids bring all that conflict, angst and dysfunction from home to school, and their peers…and us….bear the brunt of it.

It took every bit of an hour to talk through all of this with these two boys. It was emotionally exhausting. But it did seem to help, both of them.

But that’s not even the case that made me cry.

**Another funny case from today.

For the kids, there is a real downside to the fact that I’m embedded in their neighborhood and their lives, and then at their school.

One of our friends’ kids is acting up a bit. He’s headed upstairs with his class, but he’s dancing around on the stairs. His teacher, at the bottom of the stairs, is telling him to stop.

By Friday, especially at the end of the year, the kids get really selective hearing. I imagine that the teachers all start to sound like the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons…

Interestingly, my voice sounds very different for some reason.

Back to our friend…he’s dancing around and clowning it up on the stairs. He is facing backwards, looking down the stairs.

I am approaching him from upstairs.

He literally runs into me, and I firmly grab his shoulders. “Straighten up, <name>”. This is ten times worse for him because I am pretty good friends with his parents, and see him (and them) all the time outside of school.

He flies pretty straight after that.

** The pep rally is really loud. I already had to take Louie out of there and entertain him separately. Toward the end a teacher points to me from inside and signals “I’m sending this kid out to you”. It’s a kindergartener who’s overwhelmed. He comes out, pretty shaken. I chat with him a bit and then sit down on the foyer couch to talk more, expecting him to sit next to me.

Instead, he jumps on my lap and clings to me.

By the time his teacher comes out, he’s doing fine. He gives me one more hug and hops in line, to return to class. Louie, who’s still with me, declares “I think he’s ok now”. Yeah.

But that’s still not the kid who made me cry.

**By now, I’m pretty emotionally wrung. As I’m sure you know, I’ve skimmed over these stories…it’s a lot more involved than I describe here, even in this long diatribe.

Early in the day, Tori tells me about a second grader who displayed a really inappropriate behavior to another student (Tori’s classmate). Tori’s classmate implores Tori to “tell your dad to do something”, so she does.

I catch the counselor later and she tells me that the student in question is having a really hard time and is literally living in a motel right now. We both talk to the student about the behavior, and she totally owns it and recognizes it was wrong.

Later, she comes to the office because she’s worried that the food assistance we deliver on Fridays wasn’t handled correctly; I chase the situation down and figure out the problem is they have a sub and it’s not flowing in the usual manner. At the same time, Mary catches me and says that she has some clothes to send home with our student too, please make sure she knows.

And suddenly it hits me like a truck.

This second grader is really worried about food and clothes.

She is having to work the logistics of making sure the grownups around her are getting that stuff done. She’s not sure about it, and she’s apparently learned she needs to be concerned.

Wow.

I go to her classroom and interrupt the lesson, and call her out into the hall. I kneel down to be face to face with her.

I tell her we’ve got the food delivered, but that we need her to take charge and make sure it’s distributed to the right kids (which is her and another student…but I don’t point that out..) since they have a sub today. She’s in charge of that. Also, Mary has some other stuff for her before she leaves.

Ok?

Yes, ok.

If you have any hiccups, come find me and I’ll help you, I promise.

Ok, yes sir.

It’s an intense connection; we’re inches apart, and she’s very engaged. We’re talking about two of Maslow’s three components of the base of the hierchy.

I send her back into class and head back to traffic control in the hall in preparation for the pep rally. (All of this occurred pre-pep rally)

A few minutes later, here comes her class, headed to the pep rally. As she approaches me, she steps out of line and hugs me, hard.

I lost it.

I didn’t expect that reaction from myself. She clung to me, and then moved on to the assembly. I’m surrounded by 150 students and staff, standing near the front entrance. Like my near fainting episode in the Bobby suit, everything went kinda quiet. I watched her walking in, and couldn’t see anyone or anything to either side of her.

Just her.

Someone was talking to me, but I couldn’t answer. A few seconds later, I snapped to Mary asking “David….David….do you know where Louie is?”

Mentally, I slap myself across the face. Get it together, and get back to work.

On her way out of the assembly, my girl hugged me again. And again when leaving for the day.

And I kinda lost it then, again.

I don’t know what to do for her….or for so many like her. It is not her choices that bring such trouble to her life, but rather the choices of others.

I can only hope and pray that what we did for her today helped, and that we will have the opportunity….and will make the right choices ourselves…to help her more.