And Now For Our Guest Entertainer. . . David Hasselhoff!! (Just Kidding)

Working third shift, I don't get as much face time with the kids as I'd like sometimes.  Of course, I also have more neutral time to reflect on the kids' positive attributes than people on other shifts because I have longer interludes between getting called all sorts of names, hit, kicked, etc., by them.

So when I do see the kids I try to do what I can to encourage and affirm them.  Every kid needs to be encouraged in a different way.  Some are more visual, others, more audial, while still others more tactile--or any combination of other things.

There's one boy I work with who had the same name as another boy on the dorm when he arrived, so we mostly refer to him by his last name. And because his first initial and last name combined was the name of a particular animal, his nickname became that animal name.  He never seemed to mind much, but one night while bored I thought up a few lines using his name, beginning with "His name is (his last name), he's not a (his nickname), and then the last couple lines really represented one of his favorite activities.  So a few days later I was working an extra day shift on his dorm and sang this little jingle to him out of the blue.  He really got a kick out of that. I had no idea just how appropriate this was until I mentioned it to one of the day staff, who told me this boy really likes making up little songs like that, and said "next time you see him he'll probably make one up for you."  He hasn't yet, but I filed that information away for further use and I've made up a few rhymes for him since that have elicited his big, goofy grin.

I have another boy who occasionally wets the bed and so has to take a shower sometimes at night.  He's a chatty little guy and would stay up forever as long as I would listen and have a conversation with him. And so I make sure to chat with him for a few minutes, giving verbal encouragement when I can before sending him back to bed after giving him a hug or sometimes just a pat on the back.  I should mention that just because a kid is chatty at night doesn’t mean I will necessarily have a conversation with him, but this little guy always does well at accepting the limit when I decide our short chat is over. 

I had another boy a while back who would wake at least once almost every night and sit up in bed for a minute or two.  He'd usually wave at me, and I'd make sure to ask him how he was doing.  Most nights he'd have little to say before laying back down to sleep, but anytime he had good news or had been excited about an activity he'd participated in, he'd make sure to update me before laying down to sleep.  This brings to mind another boy from a while back.  I got used to seeing him look out his room door in the middle of the night, flash a big smile, and wave. All he needed was a smile and wave back.

Just recently I had two boys who were having birthdays. Since I knew both would probably still be asleep when I left, I left each a little note on his dresser just wishing them a happy birthday.  I stopped by the dorm a couple days later while on break from an overtime day shift on another dorm just so I could say hi to all the guys. The one boy thanked me for the birthday note, while I heard that the other boy (who was on home pass) enjoyed his note via his little roommate.

Recently I found a new, yet somewhat generic way to give the kids encouragement. On my shift I’m responsible for folding the kids’ clothes and putting them in their rooms. I also make sure to get new clothing marked with their names/initials when I know who the owner is, and refresh their names/initials on clothing where the ink is fading.  One night I was in a particularly fun mood and began adding things after their initials like  (initials) “is awesome” or (initials) “rocks. When I can think of encouraging things to make of their initials I do so, for example “J.M.= Just Magnificent.”  It’s fun for me and fun for them when they find what I’ve written.

I can't think of a greater joy than seeing a child's face when you give them encouragement. The kids I work with have gotten so many negative messages about themselves it's almost like they can't believe it when they receive the positive.

How To Get The Beatdown From Mr. Al

(In order to simplify things, I will give kids fictitious names rather than just describe them in each blog. I’ll keep the same names to identify them and link to other posts involving them, just to make things more interesting for you, the reader.)

If you’re a kid, you do NOT want to be a bully when I'm working on your dorm. Really, try it sometime, if you want to.  I promise it won’t end well for you.

“Elijah,” I’ll call him, and his friend—I’ll call him “Ronald” for this blog, sure found this out one day.

If you know me very well at all, you know that I’m usually pretty gentle, playful, and nurturing with the kids I work with. But with a bully I’m purposefully aggressive because, as everyone knows, that’s the only language a bully understands.

One morning I ended up working a day shift after having worked all night, thanks to several people calling off.  And I was NOT happy about it. So in addition to my normal intolerance for bullying, I was NOT having it at ALL that day.

The day was already going badly toward the beginning. All but a few of the boys were continually antagonizing each other and fighting.  And Ronald (the biggest and oldest)  in particular was bullying all the little kids. At least Elijah (who is actually somewhat small) will square off with anyone and everyone, including staff. But Ronald (who is taller than me by a couple inches) will only go after the little ones—except, of course, Elijah, who he knows can whip him.

It became particularly bad when the ringleader, Elijah, began leading the rest of the kids in running up on one particular kid (let’s call him “Arnold”), hitting him, and then running off before staff could catch them.  When staff began keeping “Arnold” close for his safety, they all began calling him a name making fun of his prominent physical feature. 

I really wanted to stop it, but my co-worker seemed to be throwing up her hands. “At least they’re just being verbal now.”  She also pointed out that the two ringleaders are used to getting away with everything and so what can we do?  That was not acceptable to me in the least. Verbal bullying is even more cruel and hurtful than physical.

I knew what I had to do.  Elijah was the major leader on the dorm, so I had to take him out.  But he’s also quick as a rabbit. Finally I was able to catch him unaware, and that’s when I lunged at him and caught him.  Escorting him to his room was brutal. For a scrawny 11-year-old he’s tough as nails. 

Once I got him to his room, I had to stand in his doorway and block him from coming out and going after his peers.  He pushed, lunged at me, and eventually began kicking and punching me, which made it necessary for me to restrain him. I still had bruises a week after trying to get that kid in a hold.

Meanwhile, with the other kids seeing me take Elijah out and dealing with him, the harassment of Arnold tapered off and stopped, as I knew it would.

After a while my co-worker came and offered to switch out hoping her prior relationship with him would help calm him down. It really wasn’t successful, but we eventually told him we would give him a chance to redeem himself by returning to the other kids, but if he stepped out of line once he would come right back to the room.

He began to go back to the couches, when suddenly my co-worker lunged and grabbed him again because she was sure she heard him cursing one of the kids out.  Elijah denied it, saying he was just asking the kid to move from his assigned seat. After she struggled with him for a bit, I suggested she go ask the other kid if Elijah was telling the truth. I then stayed with him.

My co-worker then told me it was up to me. “I still think I heard him say ‘fuck you’”   Apparently the other kid had verified his story.

I’ll never know if she did it on purpose or not, but the amazing effect of what my co-worker did was to transform herself into the “bad guy” and the target and me into the rescuer.  At that point I was able to assure Elijah that I didn’t hear him say anything bad to his peer and since it seemed his peer had verified his story I had no problem believing him.

Elijah and I stayed in his room a few more minutes. He didn’t want to talk, but he was willing to listen as I reminded him of how I had seen him be a positive leader in the past. And he did give minimal responses committing to try to be that positive leader for the rest of the day.  I then told him he could go back when he thought he was ready. Elijah, being the sensible young man he is, did take a few minutes to himself to calm down before he came out of his room.

I wish I could say Elijah kept his hands off the other kids the rest of the day, but there was one incident. Fortunately it was provoked instead of bullying and he stopped when I told him to. He did overall keep his commitment to be a positive leader.

As for Ronald, he didn’t get the message and I had to continue escorting him away from the smaller kids when he began bullying.  But at least most of the boys got the message that bullying was NOT going to keep going on when I was there.

By the end of the day I was exhausted, but with a sense of accomplishment.  And the next time I worked with Elijah, he was the responsible young man I’ve come to expect from him most of the time.

Poor Robbie Can't Sleep

(In order to simplify things, I will give kids fictitious names rather than just describe them in each blog. I’ll keep the same names to identify them and link to other posts involving them, just to make things more interesting for you, the reader.)

Sometimes my job just throws the most unlikely situations at me. I’ll walk in and it looks quiet and like the night is going to go without a hitch.  And then something flips it on its side, just like that.

So it was one night when I arrived to a quiet, fairly clean dorm.  Everything was shaping up to be a great and quiet night—and it was, except for one poor little guy. For the sake of this blog, I’ll call him “Robbie.”

Robbie had gotten woken up shortly after I arrived, and for a medical reason beyond his or my control, he could not get back to sleep. If you knew Robbie, you’d understand that he loves his sleep. Getting him out of bed in the morning is a chore in itself, and so I had no problem trusting that he wasn’t making any effort to stay up. Neither was I worried that he would become a behavior problem during the night.

And of course I was right.  Robbie lay in bed, clearly bored, tossing and turning, but clearly hoping for sleep to overtake him.  After a while I went into his room to encourage him. He was almost in tears. “I don’t think I’m ever gettin’ to sleep tonight.”  I stayed with him a couple minutes, patted him on the back and said “I think you’ll get there eventually, buddy.”

Occasionally while doing my room checks I would make up little rhymes with his name and recite them when I got to his door.  I just had to walk a few steps into his room and get a peek at his face to see his big, goofy grin. Robby gets a kick out of stuff like that.

I had figured out by this time what had happened to make him so wide awake and discussed it with him. He seemed to understand and it helped settle him a bit, but he was still not happy about still being awake.

In the middle of the night when I was getting ready to sweep and mop the floors, Robby came to his door and asked if he could help clean up. Looking back, I wish I would have let him, but instead I thanked him for offering but encouraged him to lay back down.  He complied, but it might have helped him feel better about still being awake.

Finally about 30 minutes before the end of my shift, little Robby finally drifted off to sleep. Over 7 hours of frustration with being tired but unable to sleep, and yet better behavior than I would have expected from most kids in a similar situation who DON’T require being in a locked facility. I was so proud of the little guy.

I was happy to see my relief was a staff member who would be understanding and help the kid out.  I bragged Robby up like crazy, told my relief the whole situation, and suggested they let him sleep pretty late and possibly do something special for him to reward his exemplary behavior in the situation.  Fortunately there was no school that day for in-service, which made that a possibility. We both agreed Robby certainly deserved as much.

A few days later I was working on another dorm and made a point to go greet the Robby and the other boys from his dorm. Robby made a point to tell me that staff let him know how proud I was of him that day, and clearly was proud of himself.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many things that make my job worth it.

Mr. Wayne And The Evil Spiderman.

Halloween.  Working third shift, I usually miss all the fun. Living in an apartment complex, I doubt I'd get trick-or-treaters anyway, but I always have to sleep through trick-or-treat hours. And since my work shift ends before time for the kids to get up, I usually miss the fun there too. And so I didn't hesitate when asked to stay late on Halloween morning to get the kids ready for school. 

I wasn't really sure what to expect Halloween morning.  Fortunately, when we asked, we were told that the kids could indeed put on their costumes for school.  That made for an overall problem-free morning.  The kids were so engrossed in getting their costumes ready and helping each other get them on they forgot most of their hostilities between them. 

I was a little disappointed at first with the lack of creativity of the girls on the co-ed dorm I was working on. It seemed they were all being witches. Different styled witches, but witches nonetheless. Finally the youngest girl changed her mind when she found a Spidergirl outfit.  As for the boys, we had some variety.  We had a very chubby Batman.  And what Halloween would be complete without someone being "Scream?"  A third boy had a very cool ninja costume.  The funniest was the kid who put on dress pants, shirt, tie, and sport coat. He said "I'm Mr. Wayne."  Mr. Wayne is the evening manager, and he does wear a shirt and tie, so it was a great idea. The funny thing is that Mr. Wayne is black and this boy is almost as pasty white as a porcelain doll.

The two other boys on the dorm were very upset, however.  One was worried because his costume wasn't there. His mom had bought a costume and his therapist was supposed to bring it.  He was running out of time when his therapist walked on the dorm with the costume. If I recall correctly it was another ninja costume, but stylistically very different from the other ninja on the dorm.

My last boy had apparently been on home pass the day they picked out costumes, and so he was upset he didn't have a costume.  So we got out the costume bin and started searching. He got very excited about a Spiderman costume that would fit him. Excited, that is, until we couldn't find the mask to go with it.  I kept looking while he kept getting more despondent.  Suddenly, as I was still looking, he said "Yeah. I'll be EVIL Spiderman."  He had found a scary mask with eyes that lit up.  And so with a little 8-year-old imagination, a costume was born.

The fun continued when we got to breakfast.  I had a football player, some kind of scary monster with a basketball for a head, and a vampire/ninja at my breakfast table.  There were some princesses at a near table, a 6-year-old hobo clown, and a 6-year-old Superman.  There were vampires, more ninjas, and some more superheroes.

Two of my favorite costumes showed up (well, in addition to Evil Spiderman) when the boys from another dorm arrived. One adorable little 9-year-old had a complete firefighter outfit.  And of course my favorite costume, for anyone who knows me, was a 10-year-old Darth Vader. Anyone who knows my love of Star Wars, and specifically Star Wars villains, understands that.

It was great to be around at one of those rare times when both staff and kids all share in such fun.  My Halloween wasn't over, however.

When I arrived for work on Halloween night, one of my boys had just gotten back from home pass and was showering, washing all his Halloween makeup off.  "Toby" I'll call him, is one of the boys I see frequently at night and have built a bit of a relationship with.  When he came out of the shower and saw me he said "It's your shift? I didn't know I got back THAT late."  So while we were putting his clothes in the washer and getting his last minute bedtime preparations done, I got to hear about his fun night out.  Once he got in bed, I went and put on my own mask and came to his door. "Hey Toby."  He got a kick out of my scary mask, as I knew he would.

Okay, I know what you're thinking. I'm really just one of the kids. Well, yeah, sometimes I am. And we all like it that way.