That;s Alright....I got it..I am fine..It;s just a shot to my KNEECAP!

This week I had the opportunity to work with one of our students who is having a hard time adjusting. This student is VERY smart. He just has a lot of change in his life going on right now both in his personal life and in school. When he gets upset he begins to cry and gets into a type of trance. You can talk to him. He hears you but does not respond to anything you say. My assistant principal has delt with the student a couple of times this school year but her answer is to send him home. She has done this twice. I asked her if that had worked? Did it stop the behavior in other words. Her answer was...well no . Do you think he might be doing it because he WANTS to go home? The only place that is kind of what he is used to? Dad's girlfriend just moved in...with her son.....NOT GOING OVER TO WELL.

So back to my story. It is about 11:45 and I bring the child in and he is upset and he sits in a chair and does the crying trance game. I fall back on my experiences of working with students in the transition unit and start using those skills.

I am not going to bore you with a play by play of this but there is actually some funny parts to this story. Through out the day this student varied in his intensity in trying to get me to react to him. The problem is he is not a bad kid. He is very compliant normally. He tried to get me to react to him by crying in my office for over an hour.I just sat there and took notes on observations of his behavior. I never interacted with him. I did tell him I would talk to him about what made him upset but that I needed him to stop crying. After an hour he stopped crying but refused to talk to me. Fine...I took the chairs out of my office and I would let him stand. Let's see how long he will last now. After another hour he moved over to the corner and he stared leaning on the wall. Ahhhhh he is getting tired. Are you ready to talk? I only got grunts. He started kicking the wall. He started kicking the wall HARD. So I told him I could not let him do that because he could hurt himself. This is when he turned around and kicked me in the knee like he was kicking a 57 yard field goal! The pain shot through my leg and I left foot went numb for about 2 seconds. It's like I took what they call a stinger in football. I see the student is about to take another shot to me and I react quickly and get him in a restraint so that he can't kick me again. This now has many peoples attention in the office. My secretary jumps up and starts taking notes. This is to cover my bases. Make I am doing everything properly. I don't know if you have ever had to restrain someone but it takes alot of energy. This is something that is precious to me. I had a bone marrow transplant in January of this year. Now I am in a restraint. I had several people walk by and look at me but noone was coming in to help me. Where the Hell is my AP? I thought....I asked my secretary....Where is MRS... We have some kids texting during class so she is working getting all the kids involved in that. She knows you are here working with.......

Let me get this straight.....I have been with this kid since 11:45....it is now 2:30. I am sweating like a pig...I am taking shots to the kneecap and my back up is working on FINDING THE TEXTING BANDIT?!?!?!?!

I let the student out of the restraint and took his shoes off with the understanding that if he started kicking me again I would restrain him. I let him go. He kicked my desk HARD..ONCE..then he backed off...with a limp. Lesson learned I figured. I finally find someone to relieve me and I go out to use the restroom and regain myself.

I see my new AP coming down the hall into the office area. I ask her how she is doing. I am getting to the bottom of this texting Mr. JDHTeach....Hey I am glad that you are Mrs. AP. Are you okay Mr. Jdhteach....you look tired......hey I got it..you take care of those cell phones...thats important

Mental Note To Self.....talk to AP about PRIORITIES---- When I am taking shots to the kneecap texting on cell phones can probably wait