Stay In It

Yesterday some boys were throwing a football around and I called for them to come inside because we needed to stack the chairs.

One boy was looking at me and as he's doing that another boy throws the football and hits him in the back. It could've been an accident, it could've been on purpose. But there was enough tension in the air already that the boy who got hit loses his cool and starts screaming at the other boy "FREAKING IDIOT!"

And then everyone just starts running to me and going inside to get away from the situation. So I talk to all the boys involved and it comes out that there had been these little things happening over the course of 20 minutes and getting hit in the back was what pushed it over the edge.

When I talked to the boy who got hit, I said something like "I feel like what I'm supposed to tell you is to come to me when things are bothering you. But I know you can't always do that and that a lot of times you just have to deal with stuff. And it sounds like those guys were kinda acting like jerks but you felt like you could handle it."

And the kid said, "yeah."

And I was like "okay. Well, I think you know where the line is when you need to come to me before things get out of control."

"Yeah"

And then we just left it at that. We were in the gym at the end of the day and at first this boy was sitting off to the side just watching the other two boys play. Then over the course of like 10, 15 minutes he made these very cautious steps closer to them and their basketball game. I don't think he joined but he definitely moved from disengaged to like...peripherally engaged.

Maybe it wasn't that interesting. The thing that was kinda new for me was that instead of giving advice or saying what he should have done I said, it looks like you were trying and I think that's the right thing to do. Keep trying.

I don't know. If I want anything for my students it's for them to be socially capable than if they weren't there. Doing lacrosse practice or being latchkey kids or whatever...