Ok, so it's fair to say that I don't have the easiest job in the world and to clarify, I'm talking about my "main" job. Facilitating for a 9 year old boy with ADHD was never going to be a walk in the park, but it's actually been fairly ok so far. We've had our ups and downs, but it's been manageable on the whole. Today...? Well, today was a totally different story.
After a fortnight of him being deliberately naughty and generally choosing to misbehave, today he took it to a new level. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that he pushed his boundaries and they snapped. In glowing technicolour! No, I didn't hit him or anything :-). I sent him home. Talking to him on a day like today is like hitting a brick wall. You might as well not bother. In the end, the decision to send him home wasn't an easy one. We've never done it before, but it was the only available choice today. At least he now knows that the "red card" is NOT an empty threat!
Somehow, I feel as though I failed him today. I'm cutting myself a fair bit of slack though because I know that both the school and his folks have days like this all the time and it's my first one! To be honest, my days are often emotionally and physically draining and I find that I'm wiped out by the time I leave school. It can be really hard to get my "groove" back for not only my office work and the projects I have on the go there, but also for tutoring in the late afternoon.
One of the big things that keeps me going though is that I know that I'm making a difference to him. To how he interacts with the world and also with how they interact with him. I just feel so .... well, exhausted.
So... if I'm ever weird with you on the phone, via sms or email or in person... my apologies. My mind has probably melted and pooled somewhere else.
Leave a message and I'll get back to you ok? :-)
Until next time.
Hugs,
Me
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