(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.
No comments:
Post a Comment