okay this girl needs to vent or she is going to lose it. big time.
never have i ever felt so much anger and frustration toward a child before. there are not enough words to describe just how completely frustrating this child is.
we will call this child carl. carl is a child that comes into my classroom for just the afternoon because that is how his schedule works. he is with 4 different care givers every day. mom in the morning before she goes to work. then to grandma's to be watched until dad gets off work and picks him up. from there he spends a small amount of time with dad and then is brought to my classroom where he stays until mom gets off of work. so this kid is shuffled around a lot throughout the day. which takes a toll on him as brought out by his actions.
take today for example... dad drops off carl earlier than normal, which means he comes when there is still a good 30 minutes left of rest time. so i tell him to go get a few books and to sit down quietly and look at them while i slowly start getting the children that are awake up and ready for snack. he gets the books, but proceeds to start throwing them around the room and making extremely loud noises. which then wakes up all but two of the kids. my room is officially chaos because every other child is laughing as carl is continuing the nightmare. i finally get him sitting down in a chair and inform him he is to take a break while i try and calm everything down. what does this induce, screaming and tears. but i have no other choice if i am going to wrangle 7 other children up, cots put away, bathrooms done and snack in 30 minutes before we go outside.
so for the next 15 mins carl sits in his chair and screams and calls me stupid and says he hates me... yada yada, i've heard this all before from him the prior week. i finally get all the children up and give them snack. i tell carl he may join his friends for snack. what does he do? he goes and sits down and instantly starts kicking one of the children for no reason. i calmly tell him 3 times that kicking his friends is not nice, please keep your feet to yourself. this does nothing. so i move him to the end of the table where he is out of reach of kicking anyone. finally peace... for a maximum of 3 minutes.
outside. we were outside for a total of 13 minutes because it started raining. carl screamed the whole time because he did not get the car he wanted. another child got to it before he did and he instantly threw a fit and ran to me telling me he wanted it. i told him he needed to wait his turn and that in 5 minutes he could have a turn. this did not please him. he threw himself on the ground, then sat up and kicked me and hit me. so i calmly pick him up and set him down on the curb, where he swings his head back and head butts me. i can honestly say i have never been headbutted on purpose before by a child, but i guess there is a first for everything.
the rain came so we moved to the gym inside. where he again did not get the bike he wanted. after giving him a different bike, he called the other children stupid the whole time. he did eventually get the bike he wanted, only to run over children on purpose, causing them to cry. which of course after twice, cost him his bike. this induced more screaming and crying.
once children started to leave, carl was fine. i have learned that one-on-one help is needed. it is thought that he is on the spectrum, which i fully agree with. once we were down to 4 or 5 children, carl was able to interact with the children that were there just fine. he was able to fully communicate what he wanted to do with them and it was fine.
i also learned today that this is probably going to he his last week as dad is getting a full-time job and they will need to move him to mornings, which we can't do because we are full. the thing that got to me, was that when i heard that, i was so relieved. never have i ever felt that way about a child, including alek when i was working in clackamas. sure i have been frustrated to no end with children before, but by the end of the day i have let it all go and i still find things that they do to be incredibly cute. nope not with this kid. i see his mom at the front door and i am happy he is leaving. i look forward to mondays and fridays, cause i know he won't be there. and to wednesdays because i leave at 4 for my other job.
i feel like a terrible person for feeling this way. it makes me feel like an awful teacher. i like a challenge, don't get me wrong, but this is over what i feel that i can handle. and i hate the feeling. i hate not being able to get a handle on his actions and be able to assist him in the way that he needs. i feel so helpless and i can't stand it.
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