Dad On Duty #44

Pretty exhausting day.

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The first graders had a field trip today. 100+ kids…little kids….on busses headed into town. Pretty much like invading Okinawa.

Two other Dads came in to help. I had prepped them with a brief talk about their priority; stay focused on making sure every kid gets safely to and from the event. Nothing else matters to us. We don’t even need to know what the event is…just make absolutely sure every kid is safe the entire time.

They helped herd the cats on the busses, which was surprisingly difficult. After they were (finally) sure they had everybody, they called me on the radio. “Are we clear to go?”   I replied “If the teachers are good and you’re good, yes. Y’all make the decisions, don’t ask us”.

When they returned, one of the Dads transmits: “Ms Guzman, every child is back in the building”. Perfectly done. That’s the priority here, and he internalized it.

One of these Dads is a true natural for this job. He related to me after his return that when they arrived, as two busses full of little kids approached the designated parking area, they discovered the street was closed. The driver was a bit flummoxed as to what to do. The Dad said “park there, at the bank”. It was a safe place to unload and cross the street. The driver lamented “it says ‘customer parking only'”. The Dad assured her “I’ll take care of that. Park there”. She did, he did and it worked quite well.

After he related that story, he said “I know I have no authority to do that, and I probably overstepped my bounds. But the kids needed to get off the bus, that was a safe place to do it, and I knew I could manage the situation. A decision needed to be made”. This Dad is a cop too, and comfortable being decisive and jumping out front.

I told him he did great, and to keep doing that. If you over-reach, staff will tell you. For the most part, that’s what their counting on from us; use our experience and “dadness” to solve a problem in the best interest of the kids.

In the middle of my pep talk, we hear a kid crying in the cafeteria behind us. Without blinking, in the middle of my sentence, he turns and quickly heads in there to help as best he can, whatever the problem may be.

Yep, you’re going to do really well here. We’re glad to have you.

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We had a bit of an emotional crisis with one scholar, and worked much of the morning trying to figure out what the real problem was, what we should do and how to best help the parents get the kid some help.

It was personal, palpable and emotionally draining. And it wasn’t even 11 O’clock.

They really should serve Scotch in the cafeteria.

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I spent a big part of my day with one kid in particular. I saw a teacher talking with him at recess, very intently. I went over to see if I could help, and she said “maybe you will talk with Mr Phillips?”   I corralled him up and said “sure he will. Come with me”. I tried to get him to tell me what was going on, but he wouldn’t reply at all. He was chewing…darn near eating….his jacket in a compulsive way.

This is a kid I’ve worked with a fair amount before, but never seen him like this. I just kept bantering at him and had him accompany me on a variety of tasks, handing him things and asking his opinion on how to fix a jammed door, and then a stuck gate. Eventually he started talking, then smiling and chatting and finally was fully engaged. As we were working side by side on one project, I asked him what had made him so upset earlier.

He replied “I really don’t know. Sometimes I get really sad or scared and I don’t know why. And sometimes I get really happy, and I don’t know why. I don’t know”.

A wave of sadness washes over me, but I know exactly why.

We talk about it some more and, I think, made some progress.   As you can imagine, it was a very involved conversation that can’t be shared here.

I spent the rest of the afternoon helping him finish some tests and assignments. Two hours of it. He did fine, but it took a *lot* of coaching and engagement. My brain was pudding.

His case, and many like it, really speak to the issue of choice in regards to behavior. This boy struggles with following directions and staying inside the lines. But is he choosing to ignore the rest of his assignment, or does he really have control over it at that moment?   How do we know for certain, and how do we all, as the team that is trying to help him, respond correctly and uniformly to it? I’m not sure we know.

Human beings don’t come with instructions.

There are hints and partial manuals, mostly written in some other language, scribbled haphazardly across the people with which we interact. And most challenging, each of us reflects our shortcomings and problems in our interpretation of those fragments of guidance, almost always to the detriment of finding the right answer.

I’m going to do better with this boy. I’ve just got to.