As many of you may or may not know, I work in a private, special education facility for children with emotional and behavioral health issues. On most days, it is an extremely emotionally and physically draining place to work. It's the only place I know, other than the prison system, where you can go to work on any given day and expect to hear someone, who barely comes up to your waist, weave a tapestry of profanity so elaborate that you would think they were Tony Soprano reincarnate (He did die in that last episode, right? If not, just add the name of some other smart ass with a mouth like a truck driving sailor with syphilis in this spot and you'll get what I'm talking about). I have worked at this school for the past 10 years and have worked at other schools like it since...well, since a long time ago. What never ceases to amaze me is the amount of creativity and dysfunctional intelligence that most of these children possess. For example, while working in a similar program in Philadelphia a long time ago, I was in the process of holding a child who had just attempted to stab another kid with scissors (and yes, I mean physically restraining him). He was a wiry little guy and was only 7 at the time. His mother was an old school woman and would become IRATE when her son acted out or used any profanity. Now, this kid was smart enough to know that he was already going to be in a heap of trouble when he got home and he didn't want to add to it, but he wanted to make sure I knew how unhappy he was with his current situation. Therefore, he decided to start showing me his spelling skills by yelling, "You B-i-c-h! You B-i-c-h!" over and over again. I didn't really think it was the right time to tell him he wasn't spelling it right, so I just let it go. However, one of his classmates caught the error and wanted to help him out. (Before I go any further with this story, let me put this into perspective for you. The helper classmate had a name that was only four letters long and, despite his being in 3rd grade, still could not spell his name.) My friend's classmate, on his way to his bus, decided to come over to where we were and say, "That's not how you spell it. It's spelled, b-i-T-c-h". I swear to you that, in that moment, I wasn't sure if I should jump up and hug the kid for being able to spell something that long or kick him square in the ass for that being the word he focused his brain power on. Anyway, that's the type of kid I have surrounded myself with for a long time now. And that's the type of story that has helped me keep my sanity.
For a few years now, I have had the idea of turning my job into a mockumentary type show like The Office or Parks and Recreation, but I have been plagued with the idea that people would not find the show funny; that people would instead find it cruel that I share these stories for the purpose of entertainment. Now, I have had some ideas to remedy that situation, but I still come back to the idea that the kids still have the best lines. Let's take, for example, another student story. This one, again, took place during a hold following an equally dangerous situation and there were a few of us trying to contain the boy. He's yelling and cursing at us and then busts out with this gem, "A-B-C-D-E-F-G! Get your fat ass off of me!" Now, I ask you, how are you supposed to continue to focus on safety when you're attention has shifted to not pissing yourself from laughter?
Now, I don't want to make it seem like every story I have involves a restraint, because they don't. I think some of those are funny because the situation is so dire that almost anything else would be entertaining in that moment. The kids do come up with some great things at other times. Let's take, for example, the 13 year old girl who came to school seemingly distraught. When asked what was the matter, she said she was worried she was pregnant. Now, we knew this girl was dating a kid in the school who didn't live anywhere near her and who she could not possibly get access to during the day, so we were a bit confused when she mentioned this concern. So, her teacher asked her if she had sex recently and her reply was, "No". Being the educator that her teacher was, she proceeded to explain to the student that she needed to have intercourse in order to get pregnant and, without that event, it was pretty safe to say that she was not with child. This student, not looking particularly relieved at this bit of information, then looked back at her teacher and asked, "Well, I've had phone sex. Does that count?" Um. Hm. Yeah, no. That does not count. And, please remember to clean the phone when you're done.
Then, there's the story of one of Nicole's students who is supposed to be silently reading a book, but, while his finger is diligently scanning the pages of the story, his eyes are roaming everywhere but down at the actual words. Nicole walked up to him and said, "Hey. How's that story?"
"Oh, it's pretty good."
"Oh yeah. What's it about?" Nicole asks. The kid flips to the cover of the book, reads the title (which was I got a D in Salami) and replies, "It's about a kid and salami".
"Really? Tell me about the paragraph you just read".
"I don't know what I just read" he honestly retorts.
"But, I thought you said you were reading?"
His honest to goodness reply was, "I wasn't reading it, Miss. My finger was" and then he looks off to the side, where no one is sitting mind you, and says, "Can you believe this woman?"
Then there was the conversation I overheard between one of my students and one of her classmates. Mind you, I have no idea how they came to this topic, but this is what was said:
Student 1: "I have ADHD".
Student 2: "Oh, we just have cable in our house".
One of my favorite stories, however, was about one of my kids who was about 12 at the time, but probably a good 6" taller than I was. He was definitely a handful to manage and, even though his IQ scores were very low, he was always managing to put together some kind of plot to help him get what he wanted. One day, he ran away from the staff person who was specifically assigned to him and barracaded himself in our physical therapy room. While the room had windows, the only real way to get in was through the door and he moved some very expensive therapy equipment in front of it which we didn't want to damage by pushing through. As his therapist, I was called to deal with the crisis, so I began trying to talk with him through the door and his response still makes me chuckle to this day. As I was talking to him through the door with his staff person, my supervisor, the clinical director, and the principal all standing next to me, the boy actually called out, "I'll come out if you give me a Sony Play Station and $300". Yes, he was holding himself ransom. Being the smart ass that I am (still better than being a dumb one), I quickly turned to my supervisor and asked, "Can we get him those things if he promises to stay IN the room?" As we tried to figure out how to get this kid out of the room, someone came up with the idea of running a fire drill to see if that would work. So, the principal arranged for the drill, the alarm went off and, from behind the door, we hear laughing with this child's response of, "Ha ha! I'm still not coming out" I won't bore you with the rest of the details of the story, but his father was called to help us. When he arrived, his father, very calmly, walked over, knocked on the door, and said, "Come out here right now". Suddenly, the laughter stops, the door slowly opened, and the boy says, "Oh. Hi, daddy" with no exchanges of Play Station or cash. To this day, I loved the idea that the kid wanted to hold himself for ransom and I would have loved to have seen how he would have managed the exchange. Hm...I guess I'll never know.
Perhaps, however, the thing that is most entertaining about my place of employment is not just the level of dysfunction in the children, but also the sheer amount of crazy that lives in the staff. For example, our program has a child psychiatrist on staff to provide a complete array of mental health services to the family in one program. Several years back, we had a psychiatrist who was probably about 5'5", 120 lbs soaking wet, and who wore glasses. The man was perhaps one of the frailest people I have ever come in contact with and, yet, he was the one holding the prescription pad. What made that last statement even more ridiculous, however, was the fact that the man used to move about the building with a blazer draped over his shoulders as if he was walking the promenade in Rome for an evening coffee while pushing a...wait for it...wait for it...while pushing a wheelie chair. You know. An office chair with wheels. This little man would walk around with a wheelie chair in front of him as if it was a walker. If you're having trouble forming this image in your head, I encourage you to act it out now. Throw a sweater over your shoulders, grab your office chair, stand behind it and hold on so tightly that if you let go, you will surely crumble into a heap of helpless man flesh on the floor. Now, walk around and try to grab a glimpse of yourself in the mirror or, better yet, have someone snap a picture of it and put it on your favorite social media source. That was our psychiatrist. I don't know for sure, but I'm fairly certain he ended up on an inpatient psych ward shortly after he left us.
Now, many of you may not find any of these stories funny and, for every funny story there is, there are at least 5 other ones that will make you ache with sadness, frustration, and rage at the horrible existence some of our children must endure and how miserably the system has failed them and the people trying to help them. As I mentioned before, I have been working in the mental health system for many years, with this population specifically for 15 of those years, and while others may not find these stories entertaining, I have to find the humor. Doing so not only allows me to keep my sanity and not crumble into a sobbing mess, but it also allows me to see the resiliency that lives in these kids. And if you still have a problem with these stories, then you can "A-B-C-D-E-F-G. Get your judging ass away from me."
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