Will

I'm really worrying about Will. He's a neat little kid, handsome and outgoing, funny and engaging.

When he's not teaching the other kids swear words, running in the cafeteria, getting screamingly angry over a piece of Bionicle or belching at the snack table, anyway.

In my job, I can't talk with school personnel about a child unless the parent(s) of the child has checked the little box on our information/enrollment forms that allows us to discuss. All my parents have done so, however, so I am able to share observations/concerns about kids.

I sent an email to the counselor this week. This is a short excerpt, names changed as usual.

Today, Juan was teaching the rest of the group how to play a game.
I was across the room with Amelia, helping her with a little project.

I heard raised voices, looked up to see everyone yelling at Will. There were cries of, "You're cheating!"

He jumped up from the game table, screaming. Ran toward the end of the room with the doors to the outside. Stopped just before the doors, placed his hands on the wall and bashed his head into the wall HARD about six times.

I caught up with him as he sat down at one of the tables, said quietly, "Will," and he smacked his head on the table another four times, also hard.

I'm talking *hard* impact. Hard enough that if he does this often enough, he's going to give himself a concussion. This isn't a small little headsmack to draw attention, this is serious self-harm.

I sat with him while he calmed down, and we discussed whether the head banging had made things better.

He agreed that he still felt bad and that on top of that, his head hurt, now.

"But I wasn't cheating!!" he said. "They just didn't want me to play!!"

I talked with his dad, and he's doing all the right things, or at least the things I'd be doing if it were my child. There are many factors that cause children to be angry. But being angry enough to hurt himself rings all kinds of alarm bells for me. So I'm keeping an eye on him in case I have an opportunity to help.

Because of privacy concerns, I don't want to say a lot more about it, but I can tell you I've lost a little sleep over this one.

He's changed a great deal in just the last couple months. He has a different look to him, whatever's going on in his life shows on his face.

There have been a couple more incidents of head banging since this one, he just gets angry so fast.

::sigh::