I had to work a break program several years ago when Caustic had just taken over our programs.
There were five children attending, all boys. Two of them were boys I have in my regular program. Two of them were boys I've cared for during summer and school break programs.
So four of the five were known to me. All of them are good kids, meaning no more trouble than usual.
If I see something that needs to stop, I merely have to suggest to them that 'we don't do that here' and they will stop the behavior immediately.
Since they are children, I occasionally have to offer a reminder, but that's to be expected.
The fifth child was Zippy, a cute little guy with some cognitive disabilities.
As I walked in, Stephanie*, the person who worked the shift before mine, was pulling Zippy off the middle of a game the other kids were playing. He'd ruined their game. They were protesting loudly.
As she set him on his feet, he ran around me and headed for the door. She caught him and brought him back to our area, after allowing him into the (off limits to everyone but adults) custodian's area for a squirt of hand sanitizer.
(Note... some of the other site directors allow special privileges to kids with issues. This does NO ONE any favors.)
Between repeatedly running after him to bring him back to our room and pulling him off the other kids and/or their activities, she filled me in on where to lock up the computer and telephone at the end of the day and talked briefly about Zippy's special needs ("He runs away a lot," she said, matter of factly.)
Jerry's* stepmom came to pick him up as Stephanie was getting her purse and jacket.
After she left, I learned that Zippy does not respond to verbal commands. One must physically go to him and remove him from the situation. I learned that simultaneously with the fact that he is a whirlwind of destruction, taking other children's toys and projects and hitting or pushing them out of the way if they protest.
And when he's heading for an exit, if one says, "Zippy, stop." it has absolutely no effect.
It didn't take too much time to figure out another thing.
He.
Never.
Stops.
Moving.
NEVER.
Until that day, I had not encountered anything remotely like this, even with children who have severe ADD/ADHD.
I learned as we were folding paper airplanes to take to the gym that he is just fine destroying other people's work, in fact delights in it. He had to be physically removed from the table where the other boys were still working.
Zippy spent a great deal of time singling Adam* out.
He was like a little piranha, darting up and both figuratively and literally taking chunks out of Adam. Tore up his airplane. Took his toys. If Adam tried to stand up for himself, Zippy would pinch him. Or scratch him. Or hit him. Or call him 'poop poop' and wiggle his butt at him and laugh and run away.
I was always two steps behind him. He's fast, fast, fast. And although I'd mostly healed from the latest knee surgery, I wasn't anywhere near 100%
In between my chasing Zippy back into the room, pulling him off the other boys repeatedly, physically moving his hands away from the papers as we worked, we finally managed to fold an airplane for each child, Zippy included. He promptly took his, unfolded some of it and started licking it, grimacing at me when I took it from him, explaining, "If it's not food, it doesn't go in your mouth." I gave it back after telling him to keep it out of his mouth, planning to take it from him again if I had to.
As we headed to the gym, he took off, trying to run out the exit doors to go outside. I had to run and grab his arm to stop him from getting outdoors. He already had the door partially open by the time I reached him.
Had the outer door not been so heavy he would have been out and gone before I could catch him.
And had he run out the door, of course I'd have to go get him, even though it's against protocol.
Protocol says that you let the kid run and you call the police. There's no way for me to win in a situation like that, you know. Can't you visualize the headlines?
"Daycare worker allows child to wander into street." "Child hit by car while daycare worker watched him run away."
Or... "Daycare worker abandons three children, film at 11."
I doubt that anyone would want to back me up either way.
Not a safe or good situation.
We made it to the gym.
Zippy ran away three times during the walk down the hallway, each time I told the three other boys, "Wait right here," as I took off to catch him and they did.
Stopped right where they were and waited for me.
I'm grateful the other kids I had that day were good kids. Kids I knew well.
In the gym was my first experience hearing Zippy say, "Fuck." He said it repeatedly. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," all in a rush.
The other kids looked at me, aghast, I told him, "That's not nice, we don't say that here," as he ran, grabbed Adam's airplane and tore it in half.
Adam collapsed to the floor and immediately began to cry, Zippy gleefully said, "poop poop poop," wiggled his butt in Adam's face and ran away. I didn't even have time to address Adam's tears, since Zippy ran up onto the stage, clawed his way through the heavy curtains and disappeared backstage. I had to leave a crying child and two other children ALONE in the gym to catch up with Zippy to ensure his safety.
We played ball for a bit in the gym. Zippy participated, but had difficulty knowing whose turn it was, and wasn't willing to give up the bat or the ball without my repeated intervention.
He ran away several times, bursting into the office of the PE teacher, telling me, "No. No." when I tried to take his hand or his arm to lead him back into the gym.
He repeatedly used the word fuck for no reason I could discern.
Each time I tried to react calmly, as a shocked demeanor would have made it worse, I think. The other kids were subjected to his filthy language and butt wiggling and a new twist, crotch rubbing. His...and theirs. He began trying to grope them between the legs whenever one of them got close enough. If one came to get the ball or the bat, he grabbed for them, connecting at least four times as I came and physically removed him from their vicinity.
On the way back to the cafeteria he got away from me. (He didn't want to leave the gym, folding his arms and saying, "No. No. Fuck. No. Fuck," when I told him it was time to go back.)
Telling him that it was snack time got him moving, but he moved immediately past the other kids lined up and RAN out the exit doors and outside.
As I ran after him, I told the other boys, "STAY HERE, Adam, hold the door open!" They immediately froze in place, Adam holding the door open as I took off after Zippy. (There is no electronic window to wave my badge in front of to get back in on that side of the building.)
He ran into the open doors of a nearby classroom. In retrospect, I'm glad he wanted to go into the classroom, because if he'd made a direct run and gone out into the street, I would not have been able to catch him.
The teacher in the classroom was familiar with him, said, "Hi Zippy," as I ran in and grabbed him by the arm to escort him back into the building. He walked out of the classroom with me willingly enough, but yanked away and ran into another classroom, where I once again caught up with him.
We (finally) made it back to our doors, and as he ran in, he socked Adam in the stomach and kept on running. I had to continue to chase him, not even having time to make sure Adam was okay because he was headed for another exit door not too far down the hallway.
I had to ignore a crying child who'd been gut punched. A child who may have been hurt so I could run after Zippy.
He ran back into our cafeteria, ran to the snack cabinet, pulled out jello, ripped off the lid and started cramming handfuls into his mouth, baring his teeth and growling at me when I physically moved him to the snack table, telling him, "We sit at the table to eat our snack." He deliberately smeared jello all over the table, I gave him a napkin to wipe it up, and he said, "You fuck you fuck you fuck," to me as he spit jello into the mess already there, jumped up and ran past Liam*, shoving him out of the way as he did.
He ran past Adam, grabbing the airplane I'd folded for him to replace the other one, and hid under a table and started to eat the airplane. I went to one side of the table, he dodged to the other side. I went to the other side, he dodged again. So I shoved the table up against the wall, got on my knees and crawled under there to get him.
I grabbed a leg to pull him out while he tried valiantly to kick me in the face with the other foot.
He was not successful.
I pulled him out, picked him up, and carried him to a cafeteria bench where I sat down with him, encircling him with one arm and gently rubbing his back with the other hand.
The paper airplane, missing a few bites, ended up in the trash on the way to our seat.
I tried talking to him, knowing that reasoning with him would be a joke. So I talked about pets, asking him if he had a puppy or a kitty. Or fish. He turned his head, made a fish face at me, and I made one back at him.
He laughed.
A connection at last!
We sat on the bench for a few minutes, taking a breather. Incidentally, this gave the other three boys an opportunity to have a normal conversation. A moment without a predator.
We talked a little, or rather I talked and he heard some of what I said. And I asked him if he was ready to be nice. He said, "Be nice." in a firm tone. I sat him on his feet, and he immediately took off and ran into the custodian's area. There's an exit door there, too, but it's hard to open. I was able to get him before he got it open, although he was sure trying.
Once again back to our bench, me holding him with one arm, rubbing his back with the other hand.
Once again a few minutes of quiet talking from me, ("You need to stay here with me, Zippy. We aren't going outside right now. We're going to stay inside, aren't we?") very little response from him.
The other three boys were lying on their respective beanbag chairs, having a little conversation.
And after he once again said, "Be nice." in an agreeable tone, I allowed him to get up.
He ran to the little group of beanbags, jumped on Liam and began hitting him and grabbing for his crotch.
Back to the bench. Another five minutes of my calm voice, another agreement to be nice.
He did not respond to a single verbal command the entire afternoon.
When his father arrived to get him, he ran to the snack cabinet, me right behind him, and tried to get jello again. I told him, "No." and physically removed him, taking him back over to his dad.
His dad asked me how he'd been.
I told him that Zippy had used a lot of inappropriate language, that he'd behaved in a physically inappropriate manner with the other kids and that I'd had to chase him repeatedly to keep him safe.
He said, "Okay. But other than that, he was fine?"
I guess I'd have to call him clueless.
So that evening, I called Caustic. I was very bothered by the safety issue. I only had a few kids that day, but a person responsible for a big group of kids and Zippy was not in a good situation.
I told her that my biggest concern was his acting out sexually. I didn't put that all in this post. It was too much. But scary.
She said airily, "Oh, I've never seen any of that with him."
Of course she hadn't. She only had visited our sites once at this point, and only to find fault. Certainly she hadn't taken the time to get to know any of the kids/situations we were dealing with.
She suggested that I was overreacting and that my 'lack of experience' might have been a factor in his running away behavior. I tried again, wanting her to understand how dangerous the situation was. And she shut me down. Not only didn't want to hear it, but it was all my fault anyway. She hung up on me.
I consulted with Sunshine.
After our conversation, full of good advice, I contacted the person who was responsible for Caustic. That person listened to me very well.
"You know I'll have to call Caustic and tell her that you called me, right?"
"Of course. I'm fine with that. I am very concerned about this child. Whatever we need to do to ensure his safety is fine with me."
Caustic wasn't pleased that I had gone over her head.
A week or two later, I had occasion to do so again.
There were five children attending, all boys. Two of them were boys I have in my regular program. Two of them were boys I've cared for during summer and school break programs.
So four of the five were known to me. All of them are good kids, meaning no more trouble than usual.
If I see something that needs to stop, I merely have to suggest to them that 'we don't do that here' and they will stop the behavior immediately.
Since they are children, I occasionally have to offer a reminder, but that's to be expected.
The fifth child was Zippy, a cute little guy with some cognitive disabilities.
As I walked in, Stephanie*, the person who worked the shift before mine, was pulling Zippy off the middle of a game the other kids were playing. He'd ruined their game. They were protesting loudly.
As she set him on his feet, he ran around me and headed for the door. She caught him and brought him back to our area, after allowing him into the (off limits to everyone but adults) custodian's area for a squirt of hand sanitizer.
(Note... some of the other site directors allow special privileges to kids with issues. This does NO ONE any favors.)
Between repeatedly running after him to bring him back to our room and pulling him off the other kids and/or their activities, she filled me in on where to lock up the computer and telephone at the end of the day and talked briefly about Zippy's special needs ("He runs away a lot," she said, matter of factly.)
Jerry's* stepmom came to pick him up as Stephanie was getting her purse and jacket.
After she left, I learned that Zippy does not respond to verbal commands. One must physically go to him and remove him from the situation. I learned that simultaneously with the fact that he is a whirlwind of destruction, taking other children's toys and projects and hitting or pushing them out of the way if they protest.
And when he's heading for an exit, if one says, "Zippy, stop." it has absolutely no effect.
It didn't take too much time to figure out another thing.
He.
Never.
Stops.
Moving.
NEVER.
Until that day, I had not encountered anything remotely like this, even with children who have severe ADD/ADHD.
I learned as we were folding paper airplanes to take to the gym that he is just fine destroying other people's work, in fact delights in it. He had to be physically removed from the table where the other boys were still working.
Zippy spent a great deal of time singling Adam* out.
He was like a little piranha, darting up and both figuratively and literally taking chunks out of Adam. Tore up his airplane. Took his toys. If Adam tried to stand up for himself, Zippy would pinch him. Or scratch him. Or hit him. Or call him 'poop poop' and wiggle his butt at him and laugh and run away.
I was always two steps behind him. He's fast, fast, fast. And although I'd mostly healed from the latest knee surgery, I wasn't anywhere near 100%
In between my chasing Zippy back into the room, pulling him off the other boys repeatedly, physically moving his hands away from the papers as we worked, we finally managed to fold an airplane for each child, Zippy included. He promptly took his, unfolded some of it and started licking it, grimacing at me when I took it from him, explaining, "If it's not food, it doesn't go in your mouth." I gave it back after telling him to keep it out of his mouth, planning to take it from him again if I had to.
As we headed to the gym, he took off, trying to run out the exit doors to go outside. I had to run and grab his arm to stop him from getting outdoors. He already had the door partially open by the time I reached him.
Had the outer door not been so heavy he would have been out and gone before I could catch him.
And had he run out the door, of course I'd have to go get him, even though it's against protocol.
Protocol says that you let the kid run and you call the police. There's no way for me to win in a situation like that, you know. Can't you visualize the headlines?
"Daycare worker allows child to wander into street." "Child hit by car while daycare worker watched him run away."
Or... "Daycare worker abandons three children, film at 11."
I doubt that anyone would want to back me up either way.
Not a safe or good situation.
We made it to the gym.
Zippy ran away three times during the walk down the hallway, each time I told the three other boys, "Wait right here," as I took off to catch him and they did.
Stopped right where they were and waited for me.
I'm grateful the other kids I had that day were good kids. Kids I knew well.
In the gym was my first experience hearing Zippy say, "Fuck." He said it repeatedly. "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," all in a rush.
The other kids looked at me, aghast, I told him, "That's not nice, we don't say that here," as he ran, grabbed Adam's airplane and tore it in half.
Adam collapsed to the floor and immediately began to cry, Zippy gleefully said, "poop poop poop," wiggled his butt in Adam's face and ran away. I didn't even have time to address Adam's tears, since Zippy ran up onto the stage, clawed his way through the heavy curtains and disappeared backstage. I had to leave a crying child and two other children ALONE in the gym to catch up with Zippy to ensure his safety.
We played ball for a bit in the gym. Zippy participated, but had difficulty knowing whose turn it was, and wasn't willing to give up the bat or the ball without my repeated intervention.
He ran away several times, bursting into the office of the PE teacher, telling me, "No. No." when I tried to take his hand or his arm to lead him back into the gym.
He repeatedly used the word fuck for no reason I could discern.
Each time I tried to react calmly, as a shocked demeanor would have made it worse, I think. The other kids were subjected to his filthy language and butt wiggling and a new twist, crotch rubbing. His...and theirs. He began trying to grope them between the legs whenever one of them got close enough. If one came to get the ball or the bat, he grabbed for them, connecting at least four times as I came and physically removed him from their vicinity.
On the way back to the cafeteria he got away from me. (He didn't want to leave the gym, folding his arms and saying, "No. No. Fuck. No. Fuck," when I told him it was time to go back.)
Telling him that it was snack time got him moving, but he moved immediately past the other kids lined up and RAN out the exit doors and outside.
As I ran after him, I told the other boys, "STAY HERE, Adam, hold the door open!" They immediately froze in place, Adam holding the door open as I took off after Zippy. (There is no electronic window to wave my badge in front of to get back in on that side of the building.)
He ran into the open doors of a nearby classroom. In retrospect, I'm glad he wanted to go into the classroom, because if he'd made a direct run and gone out into the street, I would not have been able to catch him.
The teacher in the classroom was familiar with him, said, "Hi Zippy," as I ran in and grabbed him by the arm to escort him back into the building. He walked out of the classroom with me willingly enough, but yanked away and ran into another classroom, where I once again caught up with him.
We (finally) made it back to our doors, and as he ran in, he socked Adam in the stomach and kept on running. I had to continue to chase him, not even having time to make sure Adam was okay because he was headed for another exit door not too far down the hallway.
I had to ignore a crying child who'd been gut punched. A child who may have been hurt so I could run after Zippy.
He ran back into our cafeteria, ran to the snack cabinet, pulled out jello, ripped off the lid and started cramming handfuls into his mouth, baring his teeth and growling at me when I physically moved him to the snack table, telling him, "We sit at the table to eat our snack." He deliberately smeared jello all over the table, I gave him a napkin to wipe it up, and he said, "You fuck you fuck you fuck," to me as he spit jello into the mess already there, jumped up and ran past Liam*, shoving him out of the way as he did.
He ran past Adam, grabbing the airplane I'd folded for him to replace the other one, and hid under a table and started to eat the airplane. I went to one side of the table, he dodged to the other side. I went to the other side, he dodged again. So I shoved the table up against the wall, got on my knees and crawled under there to get him.
I grabbed a leg to pull him out while he tried valiantly to kick me in the face with the other foot.
He was not successful.
I pulled him out, picked him up, and carried him to a cafeteria bench where I sat down with him, encircling him with one arm and gently rubbing his back with the other hand.
The paper airplane, missing a few bites, ended up in the trash on the way to our seat.
I tried talking to him, knowing that reasoning with him would be a joke. So I talked about pets, asking him if he had a puppy or a kitty. Or fish. He turned his head, made a fish face at me, and I made one back at him.
He laughed.
A connection at last!
We sat on the bench for a few minutes, taking a breather. Incidentally, this gave the other three boys an opportunity to have a normal conversation. A moment without a predator.
We talked a little, or rather I talked and he heard some of what I said. And I asked him if he was ready to be nice. He said, "Be nice." in a firm tone. I sat him on his feet, and he immediately took off and ran into the custodian's area. There's an exit door there, too, but it's hard to open. I was able to get him before he got it open, although he was sure trying.
Once again back to our bench, me holding him with one arm, rubbing his back with the other hand.
Once again a few minutes of quiet talking from me, ("You need to stay here with me, Zippy. We aren't going outside right now. We're going to stay inside, aren't we?") very little response from him.
The other three boys were lying on their respective beanbag chairs, having a little conversation.
And after he once again said, "Be nice." in an agreeable tone, I allowed him to get up.
He ran to the little group of beanbags, jumped on Liam and began hitting him and grabbing for his crotch.
Back to the bench. Another five minutes of my calm voice, another agreement to be nice.
He did not respond to a single verbal command the entire afternoon.
When his father arrived to get him, he ran to the snack cabinet, me right behind him, and tried to get jello again. I told him, "No." and physically removed him, taking him back over to his dad.
His dad asked me how he'd been.
I told him that Zippy had used a lot of inappropriate language, that he'd behaved in a physically inappropriate manner with the other kids and that I'd had to chase him repeatedly to keep him safe.
He said, "Okay. But other than that, he was fine?"
I guess I'd have to call him clueless.
So that evening, I called Caustic. I was very bothered by the safety issue. I only had a few kids that day, but a person responsible for a big group of kids and Zippy was not in a good situation.
I told her that my biggest concern was his acting out sexually. I didn't put that all in this post. It was too much. But scary.
She said airily, "Oh, I've never seen any of that with him."
Of course she hadn't. She only had visited our sites once at this point, and only to find fault. Certainly she hadn't taken the time to get to know any of the kids/situations we were dealing with.
She suggested that I was overreacting and that my 'lack of experience' might have been a factor in his running away behavior. I tried again, wanting her to understand how dangerous the situation was. And she shut me down. Not only didn't want to hear it, but it was all my fault anyway. She hung up on me.
I consulted with Sunshine.
After our conversation, full of good advice, I contacted the person who was responsible for Caustic. That person listened to me very well.
"You know I'll have to call Caustic and tell her that you called me, right?"
"Of course. I'm fine with that. I am very concerned about this child. Whatever we need to do to ensure his safety is fine with me."
Caustic wasn't pleased that I had gone over her head.
A week or two later, I had occasion to do so again.
OH.MY.GOSH! I can't even imagine dealing with all this in the first place, but Caustic, too! Holy cow!
ReplyDeleteOh she was a piece of work.
DeleteIt was really odd to hate the idea of going to work for the time she was our (mis)manager, since I've always loved my job. But she turned it into a hostile work environment. And since the person she'd replaced was so amazing, it was REALLY shitty. Fun times.