Drew*

I'm in my 5th year working with some of the same kids at the same school. Of course many of them have aged out of the program and the school, but I still have five or so of the original group. We have younger siblings of some of the kids who have moved on, too.

It's really strange to me to think that the 5th graders I had my first year there are 9th graders now.

Drew* was in the program my first year. He was five years old then. He had some speech problems, and was very loud when things did not go his way.

One of the things we did every day was spend 20 minutes reading. Due to his specific differences (Autism and a mix of other things) he tends to obsess.

Every day when we announced reading time, he ran for the bookcase so he could get to his favorite dinosaur book, not to be confused with the other dinosaur books. Those ones didn't have a green dinosaur on the cover.

We told him he could read that book any time during the afternoons, that it didn't have to be reading time, but he didn't. I found it interesting that he didn't want anything to do with reading or books until reading time.

Once in awhile, one of the other younger boys got the dinosaur book before he did.

This caused a complete meltdown. He sat down and screamed, cried and kicked his feet on the floor. "I want my dinosaur book!! I want my dinosaur book!!" He sat and cried while we read. There was no reasoning with him, and telling him to stop was pointless.

He liked to tell jokes, but didn't really understand how to do it.

"Knock knock" he'd say.
"Who's there?"
"Moocha Boocha."
"Moocha Boocha who?"
"Moocha Boocha ate your eyes."

"Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"Sponge Bob."
"Sponge Bob who?"
"Sponge Bob ate your eyes."

He made a loud, strange hooting noise rather than laughing.

We only had Drew in our program for that year. Mom's job situation changed so he didn't need after school care.

This summer, he joined us two days a week at the summer site. He's done a lot of growing in that time, and really developed some excellent coping skills. He still obsesses, but it's easier to explain things to him and have him get it. We have him two days a week now in our regular program.

He does things to calm himself when he starts to become agitated. He strokes his knee and sometimes gives himself a hug and rocks back and forth. He speaks to himself in a harsh tone at times, and then tells himself to 'focus and calm, focus and calm.'

Sometimes he does things we have to remind him not to do, such as slapping himself in the head or biting himself on the hand.

He is not good at interaction with the other kids, and usually ends up playing by himself. He likes things that stack, snap together, and move. So he loves K'nex, Legos and blocks. He likes playground balls, but has a hard time understanding the rules of the games we play. He's not well-coordinated, and often drops a ball if it's thrown to him. He doesn't aim well when he throws.

Most of the kids are very tolerant of him and his differences. They'll join him when he's building and help around the edges. He gets angry when they don't do things the way he wants them to, and immediately it escalates into him throwing his body at people. It's hard to have him there at times. We monitor things carefully, but there are times we miss things.

On Friday, we played outside for an hour after snack time. The weather is getting colder and it won't be long until it's raining all the time again and we're stuck indoors until June or July.

Some of the boys were out on the field tossing a football. Drew was with them. I hung out fairly close to them, but I was watching other kids, too.

Sunshine wasn't there Friday afternoon, so I had only our site assistant to help. She has a physical handicap and is unable to open the gate and escort people to the door to let them into the building to pick up backpacks etc, so I had to leave the playground a few times to do that as parents arrived to pick up their children.

While I was letting someone in, there was a fight among the football players, and Drew was in the middle of it. I came back at the end of it, in time to catch Drew in tears and angry. I questioned him, and Sam*(the boy he hit) had been making funny noises at him. He had asked him to stop, and he didn't. We have a rule that if someone asks you to stop, you need to respect that and stop the annoying thing you're doing. It works surprisingly well, but not if we're not monitoring it and not if it's Drew involved.

::sigh::

So I questioned the boys individually, trying to get to the bottom of it. As I got more information, I found that Sam's older brother, Jack* had been saying things to Drew like, "You can't catch. You're no good. You couldn't even catch an ACORN."

I asked Jack about it. He looked me in the eye. He did not blush or cry or act defiant. He said, "I never said that!" Even though I know he lies, I believed him.

The parents came to pick Sam and Jack up right after that, and I got the rest of the story from Bob*.

Yeah, Jack said those things to Drew. Jack was not very nice, actually. It's not the first time he's been a jerk to someone, but the scorn and meanness to Drew, who can't help being different, has me soo angry.

Now I know that Jack is only 10 years old. And that Drew will probably run into all kinds of people in his life who will treat him disrespectfully because he's different and people can be real assholes. But it really pisses me off, and it's NOT over.

I'm not sure what will happen when I tell Sunshine about the situation. Times like this, it's nice that Sunshine is in charge, because she really does handle things well, and I learn a lot from watching as she deals with the kids. Yeah, she's kind of schooly, but she really has a heart for the kids and treats them all with the utmost respect. I'll let you know what happens.

And in the meantime, on the two days a week we have Drew, I'll be hovering a little closer to him. I do not want his feelings hurt by another kid on my watch.