My Problem Child

I meant to share all this earlier, not sure why I didn't.
Guess with all the time off over the last couple weeks (ahhhhh, relaxation) I didn't remember to do it.

Louis is making a real, visible effort to control his impulsive behaviors.
There have been no huge meltdowns. No swearing, no angry hitting or screaming, no self-harm.

He isn't behaving perfectly, but there isn't a child in the program who does that 100% of the time, not even Colin who is seriously one of the nicest kids I've ever had in one of my programs.

I can see him actually trying to self-regulate.
I don't know if his father told him that he only has one more chance.
Hard for me to say whether that would be a good idea or not.

Having him delivered to program 20 minutes after school gets out has been very helpful to him with his sensory issues, too.
Until we decided this was a good idea for him, he had been coming into the cafeteria while the parents were there to pick up their children after school. It was loud, crowded and crazy. Hell, *I* don't like being there for that!!

When Louis arrives, our program area is calm, the kids have ditched the coats and backpacks, managed to get their hands washed for snack and are usually gathered at the art table, chatting about what they're going to make/create. The activity level in the room is low and quiet. A much better place for him to go after he gets out of the chaotic classroom he's in.

The special needs class isn't necessarily a great place for a kid like Louis, but he wasn't able to manage in his regular classroom, it was simply too hard for him to maintain.

A couple weeks ago his mom came to get him. He and Amelia had been building vehicles out of LEGO. He had built two cars, one in hand and one on the rug in front of him. When I let his mom in, Amelia instantly got a snotty look on her face, reached over, snagged the car from in front of him, and said, "Your mom's here. This is mine."

She does stuff like that to people from time to time. If I am not careful to monitor her behavior she can be a little overbearing. She's a sweet kid for the most part, but she has a little mean gremlin inside now and then.

He reached out and smacked her on the upper arm. Not trying to hurt her. He just reacted like a child. Most of the kids I have in my program have done similar things. She acted horribly wounded.

"Louis HIT me!!!"

I was over next to them immediately, and said to Louis, "Louis, when I don't like something you do, do I come over and smack you?"

He blinked at me.
"But she took my..."
I interrupted him.
"Dude. I didn't ask you what she did. I asked you if I come solve problems by hitting you."

He looked sheepish.
"No, I guess not. But she took my car!"

"I know. If you had come to me and said that Amelia took your car, I would have gotten it back for you. And we wouldn't be having this discussion. Next time, please ask for my help. It's part of the reason I'm here, Buddy. We don't fix problems by hitting others."

Then I turned to Amelia.
"Amelia, it isn't polite for you to grab the things that someone is playing with while they're still playing. When Louis leaves, you can have whatever he was playing with. But there is no reason for you to just reach out and take things. It's not very nice. And you wouldn't like it if someone did it to you, would you?"

She looked embarrassed.
A little defiant.
When I continued looking at her expectantly, she caved.

She turned to Louis and said, "I'm sorry I took the car."

He considered a moment, then held out his hand. "I'm sorry I got mad at you."

They shook hands.
It was over.
He didn't wind up, he didn't swear, he didn't use the incident as an excuse to start running around the room or yelling.

Now I could have used the little smack on the arm as the final excuse to dump him from the program. But there is a difference between a kid who gets aggravated and hits someone and a kid who goes nuts and hurts another person. I am quite capable of recognizing the difference between them. If I were able to remove a child from a program for such a mild incident, I would have exactly zero kids in my program.

He does start to wind himself up during some afternoons.
It's visible.
But he seems to be really trying to keep that part of himself a little less crazy.

One of his issues is that he doesn't eat for a good deal of the day. He is taking some medication that causes his appetite to be non-existent until the medication wears off about 4:15 or so. His dad has been coming to get him about 3:30 most days, he has arranged his schedule at work so that Louis is spending less time with me and more time at home with him.

His mom has custody, but he lives with his dad. There's a lot going on that I won't talk about, it's not stuff I need to be sharing. He does get to see his mom, spends the night with her a couple times a week.

On Friday afternoons his mom doesn't show up until much, much later. I don't want to say anything derogatory about her, but it seems that getting there early to get her son isn't high on her list of priorities.

She knows what's been going on with him. She knows that he is on his last warning. I happen to know that her time is her own, so she could be there earlier if she chose to.

So on the Friday before the break, his class watched a movie. They had popcorn.
He was brought to me while there were still children being picked up in the cafeteria. His teacher had missed work that day, she was heading to a different state to be with family for the holidays. So one of the aides brought him to me, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't worried about the whole 'keep him until things calm down' system we've been using.

She said, "Here's Louis," and turned to leave. Then she stopped and turned back toward me. "He has a popcorn kernel in his ear. Thought you might want to know."

She walked away while I sat there with a surprised face. Great.

The school secretary came down to talk with me. She said that they know it's Mom's day to pick up, so they had called to notify her about the popcorn kernel. She told the secretary that she was, 'really busy' and wouldn't be there to pick him up until around five.

We agreed that I'd notify Dad about what was going on, but he's not able to answer his phone most of the time. I sent him a text.

The kid has all kinds of sensory issues. Having a popcorn kernel in his ear must have been excruciatingly awful. He kept trying to dig at it, I kept requesting that he leave it alone until his mom could come get him. "I'd hate to have you push it down further into your ear, Buddy. Let's leave it alone."

I asked him how the kernel got into his ear, and he said, "Some kid made it go in there."

I didn't believe him, but didn't press the issue. I wasn't going to have to sort out how it happened since it hadn't happened on my watch.

Kids were picked up. I spent a bit of time putting most of my program away so that after the last child was gone I could put the rest of it in our little space in the staff lounge. Floors get waxed during the school breaks and my stuff would have been in the way.

By 3:45, I was down to three kids. Amelia, Juan and Louis.
About four, Louis started winding up. I could see it escalating. Instead of standing by helplessly while he got crazy, I offered him a snack. He thought that was a great idea.

Of course everyone else had already had snacks about 2:30, but I can't very well provide a snack to one child and not offer the same snack to the other kids. So each of the three kids got a cup of Goldfish crackers.

Louis inhaled his in about a minute and a half. Asked for more. I gave him more. With his hunger partially satisfied, he continued to wind up a bit. First he stuck a goldfish in each nostril. When he was sure both Amelia and Juan had noticed, he pulled them out of his nose and ate them. When that got the huge, "Ewwww!" reaction, he did it again.

They'd already seen that one.
So they weren't as impressed. The 'eww' was sorta half-hearted.

I could see the little wheels turning in his brain.
He wanted to perform. He had an audience who'd react to his shenanigans.
So he got down on his knees on the floor and dumped about half a cup of crackers out. He ate them like a dog, licking up the crumbs.

I ignored it. Amelia and Juan both thought it was 'disgusting' and I told them that they did not have to stay at the table with Louis. They both pointedly turned their backs on him as they got up. They walked across the room back to the art table and refused to even look at him as he got louder. He climbed on the bench and announced that he was going to show everyone how to fly.

Both the other kids completely ignored him! I was so proud. :)
I ignored him, too.

He tried one more time to get our attention by doing the original goldfish-up-the-nose trick, but when no one reacted, he gave up. He sat at the table and finished his snack.

He did get up and jump from the second or third step back down into the room, but I merely reminded him, "Dude, we're not supposed to be on the stairs."
I turned to Amelia and asked her if she needed more glue. Asked Juan if he'd like me to staple his project. We all ignored Louis.

Deprived of his audience, he wound down instead of escalating.
I couldn't let my face show how happy I was about it, so I just focused on the little art projects the kids were making with fun foam.

Louis went back to the LEGO.

I learned that when he's deprived of an audience, it helps him slow down and regulate his behavior. I learned that he *can* be distracted from a bad course by offering him a snack. But that one won't work unless it's after his afternoon medication wears off, 'cause that's when he gets hungry.

When his mom showed up, he was at the end of his endurance, though. I think if she'd waited much longer, he would have been unable to maintain. I was very happy to see her.

She asked him about the popcorn kernel. "How did it get in there?"
"Oh a kid threw it in my ear," he told her, wide-eyed and innocent looking.
She looked at him wordlessly for a moment, and he gave her a sheepish grin. "Okay, I put it in there."

She asked him why, but he really didn't have the words. My guess? He was performing for an audience.

So they were heading to urgent care to get the kernel removed when I saw him last.

That will give me something to talk with him about. Might make him a minor celebrity in program.

Anyway, I'm pleased with his progress and with my growing ability to follow his cues and try to help him remain at a certain level instead of having his behavior deteriorate into crazy.

I really want him to be able to stay in our little program. I know it's a good place for him. He has a friend there, too. Will thinks Louis is the coolest thing ever. Louis isn't always nice to Will, but Will doesn't put up with a ton of shit, either. He's very good at standing up for himself.

I do have to work harder with Louis. He takes more of my time than the other kids. But I think it's worth the investment.