Oh Alvin

 We had a visit last week from someone who has joined Team Alvin.

We're trying to figure out ways for him to be able to stay in our program. I can't tell you a lot about the visitor or her official capacity but I am glad she was able to observe the whole program and Alvin in action.

Her report showed up in my email this morning and she agreed with my assessment that Alvin needs a person just for him in order to continue with us. I am hoping that will happen soon.

Meanwhile, he's not getting miraculously better on his own.

I have started working to separate him from the other kids when he winds up. When he started kicking the other kids and destroying their creations, I went to the rug, took him by the hand (he yanked away from me, of course) and I put an arm around him instead. I got him to the table and we sat down together. He was angry with me, trying to get away.

I was talking calmly to him, reminding him to relax his body and listen to me.

"Why did you hurt your friend? Kicking people isn't very nice."

"He's not my friend. I hate him. I hate you, too."

"That's okay Buddy, you can hate me, but you still don't get to hurt other people. Until you are ready to go back and be nice, you will be sitting here with me."

He pinched my arms and scratched me. Tried to bite me but his mask got in the way and he wasn't able to get his teeth into my arm.

I kept talking to him. Rubbed his little back and told  him that it's okay to be angry but it's not okay to be mean to others.

He relaxed a little and said, "Okay, I will be good now,"  then I let him go. And he went right back and started slugging one of the other kids in the thigh. He hit him eight times before I could get him. As I reached for him, he ran away from me.

::sigh:::

I won't bore you with all the rest of the details. The meltdown happened within five minutes of school getting out and did not get any better, which of course is the whole nature of a meltdown.

I called his mom, she sent his dad to get him immediately.

He was excluded from program on Thursday and for whatever reason, his mom did not send him today. I can't say I am sorry, although I still want to be the person who can help. Things were very peaceful without Alvin there.

Not that life was completely uneventful, though.

My assistant at my current (temporary, dammit) placement is 81 years old. Nope, not a typo. She's a nice lady, although not very strong willed. The kids don't listen to her very well. She is kind to them anyway.

She also has a lot of stuff going on in her personal life. I admire her, she has been through a great deal of trauma and other things in her life. I won't tell you her story because it's not mine and I don't want to betray her privacy.

While we were out on the playground this afternoon, she was monitoring the play structure area and a kid came zooming around the corner on a bike and ran right into her.

She didn't fall, but she smacked into the chain link fence and the kid wrecked. He felt terrible about the accident, she said, and was tearful as he apologized over and over.

I did not see the incident as I was monitoring kids waaaay over on the other side of things, but I was the one who got to write up the report. She was bruised and a little sore. I asked her if she needed first aid or medical attention, but she didn't want to go to the doctor.

I made sure she understood that if she did not feel good tomorrow or any time over the weekend that she would seek medical attention. I let her know that our employer would pay for her to go see a doctor.

And called our manager person to let her know what had happened, too.

I really can't wait to get back to MY school and MY kids and MY regular programming.
Also, I'm really tired and too lazy to go back and proofread and edit, so what you see is what you get.

Unless I read this tomorrow and find something spelled incorrectly.

zzzz ya later.