(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.
No comments:
Post a Comment