A while ago I started this Night of The Living Brat series to depict rough situations I encountered on third shift with the kids. I can't promise it will continue long as I had only a couple written before leaving that particular job. I'm actually returning to third shift at my new job this week, so who knows. But here is the second installment for your reading pleasure.
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.
I had no idea what I was walking into one Tuesday night when
I arrived at work. As I came down the
hill I saw a head pop up in one of the windows indicating at least one of my
kids was awake. I wasn’t concerned because based on which room it had come from
I assumed it was a particular kid who I was used to seeing awake and having no
trouble with.
When I arrived on the dorm I found out that some kids had
moved to our dorm and that the kid I saw was one of them, a boy I’ll call
Ronald. (More about “Ronald” in my earlier post, How To Get The Beatdown FromMr. Al)
Ronald was now roommate to Juan(featured in my first installment of Night of the Living Brat), who had been on the dorm for quite a
while. I was actually used to seeing
Juan awake at the beginning of my shift, but he is normally not a problem. And as for Ronald, when I had worked weekend
nights on his old dorm I had gotten used to him being awake in his room at
night without a problem. However, put two nightowl 11-year-olds in a room
together and you’ll never get them to sleep.
Had it been a weekend night, I wouldn’t have been concerned
about these two, but as they needed to be up for school in the morning they
were going to need to settle down and sleep at some point.
From ten until eleven, I prompted them a few times to keep
it down. As it approached closer to eleven it became apparent that these two
would need to be separated if sleep was ever to come. So at eleven I told them
I was going to need to have one of them come and bring their mattress out into
the common area. I was going to ask Juan to do so because I was confident I
could trust him to sleep out there without a problem. But Ronald volunteered. I
was skeptical but decided to give him a chance.
Once Ronald brought his mattress out, he proceeded to refuse
to follow any directions and became more loud and disruptive. After a while he decided he wasn’t going to
sleep out in the common area and went back to his room, refusing to come out.
He also refused to bring his mattress back in. So Juan, who had been making a
sincere effort to stay quiet and settle down for the past half hour,
volunteered. Since Ronald wouldn’t go get his mattress, Juan said he would just
sleep on Ronald’s mattress and Ronald could use his.
Ronald was not satisfied and kept running out to mess with
Juan. He tried to keep Juan from lying
down and getting to bed, and was even trying to take the mattress back. At this
point I paged my supervisor because Ronald was trying to start a fight and was
beginning to wake up other residents. When Ronald lunged at Juan again, I got
to him first and had to manhandle him to escort him back to his room (both
Ronald and Juan-both only 11-tower over me by more than an inch).
I did get Ronald to his room and he was trying to push past
me to come out. When my supervisor arrived I was still trying to keep Ronald in
the room. Seeing two staff that were clearly on the same page about what he
needed to do, Ronald finally gave in and stayed in his room.
As for Juan, I made sure to do everything I could to make
sure conditions were ideal for him to get to sleep. And when he awoke in the
middle of the night to use the restroom I helped him move his mattress back to
his bed. Gotta appreciate the kids who show leadership among the others.
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