(Reposted from last Friday. Let's try this again.)
I think it's safe to say that when she showed up at Summer Camp in time to see Schuyler sitting on top of another, much larger kid while choking him and ignoring the teenaged counselors as they told her to, you know, like, stop and stuff, Julie had some concerns.
I'm pretty convinced that it was a case of wrestling and horsing around that got out of hand, but still. That's a disturbing thing to hear about your sweet princess, your pretty ninja. Choking a kid? What the fuck? And why was she ignoring the staff? When she finally was pulled off the other kid, she then ran off and refused to cooperate.
The thing is, this is the sort of stuff that the rest of you deal with all the time. Little kids are barbarians. They are figuring out where the lines are, what they are allowed to do as primal being and what rules govern them as humans. Without those rules and that guidance, you get Lord of the Flies. So I understand that it's an important part of every kid's normal development, and I'm trying to stay cool about it.
With Schuyler, there is the added burden of finding a way for her to express her anger and, as I've mentioned before, to tell her side of the story. I know she's been bullied by neurotypical kids who take advantage of her lack of a voice to spin their own versions of "okay, so here's how it went down". I've watched it happen before, and not just with strangers.
It's bad enough that she can only give her side of the story in simple verbal expressions, sign language and miming the action. But when she is upset and tries to use her Big Box of Words, Schuyler freezes up. She becomes daunted and punches buttons helplessly before finally giving up in frustration. She's a little like Melville's stammering Billy Budd, who is so upset at false accusations of mutiny that he is unable to answer with his voice and instead strikes and kills his accuser, and therefore himself.
I keep telling myself that Schuyler is better off in this environment, that for all the dangers and all the obstacles, she will benefit from making her way in that grand rough neurotypical world for a few short summer months before returning to the shelter of her Box Class.
I'll let you know when I actually convince myself.
15 comments:
Way to go, Rob!! So glad to see you've decided to virtually flip off the jerkoffs who are trying to ruin a good thing for the rest of us.
That takes courage. :)
I'm glad you reposted this entry, Rob. What sort of a coward threatens a child? It makes me question my already tenuous faith in humanity. :(
Thanks for re-posting, Rob. I wanted to read it again, just to see if I had missed something.
Nope, I hadn't. Her behavior sounds pretty darn normal to me -- my 7-year-old reacted just about the same way when he was picked on by a couple of older kids on the bus and finally couldn't stand it anymore. Adults say, "Tell a grownup." But what do you do when the grownups keep patting you on the head and telling you to simply ignore the bullies...and the bullies keep on picking on you?
You finally hit back. Or at least, you do when you are a kid and you haven't figured out what else to do! It's part of the learning/socialization process. (I've got two of them going through the process right now. It can be waaaaay harder on the parents than on the child, I think!)
Hey, all it means is, Schuyler has reached another milestone in her life. A scary one, for sure, but an important one! I would be somewhat comforted by the fact that she hit back at the big bullies and didn't take it out on "littler" kids.
Perhaps that anonymous poster flunked the socialization process and is taking out his rage on "littler" kids?
Ooops. Sorry for the long post. Feel free to edit.
You got that right, kids are barbians. However, as a parent, it is your job to discipline them, not these "armchair quarterbacks" on the internet.
Rock on, brother.
I too am glad that you reposed this entry. I read your blog everyday and from what what I read Schyler is an awesome kid. When I read what that person said I was mad!! I dont know one child who hasnt been in some kind of scuff in their life. Shoot my son in son is one and he gets rough with other kids. Anyways. I'm glad to hear all is well and I'm glad that we'll be able to contiue reading aobut you and Schyler.
That does sound like normal frustrations of a young child. She got upset by being bullied and protected herself.
Unfortunately when kids get frustrated, even ones without a BBOW, they have a hard time communicating it.
And, i do have to say, I'm a bit proud of her. It's good she can protect herself, as sadly enough, she made need it again.
My best friend in the whole wide world is also a Box user (incidentally, she uses the Pathfinder - the only thing more powerful than what Schuyler currently uses). She has cerebral palsy and we went to school together.
Anyway, my point is this. Friend, now an almost-23 year old student about to graduate from university, had absolutely monstrous tantrums almost daily for the first few years I knew her. They were legendary. Now, Friend is different from Schuyler. She has some Makaton signs which are understandable to the people closest to her, but that's about It. She walks a little and drives a powerchair. When she is angry, or distressed, her whole body communicates it, all over - and she has to work very, very hard to get her hands to work her Box. When we were younger, she couldn't do it at all, and screamed and kicked instead.
I dunno what I'm getting at with this. Guess my general point is that yes, it's an extra issue for Schuyler to deal with, but it's not always going to be anywhere near this bad. She's still in the very early days of learning to work her Box and she's right in the middle of that horrible thing called growing up.
And yes... she will benefit from this time in the neurotypical world, however hard the journey is. These kids - the nice ones and the horrible ones - they are going to be her friends, love interests, work colleagues, neighbours. The longer and later a disabled kid is separated, the harder a time they'll have learning to deal with the Big Wide World. It's blissfully easy to step out of mainstream society into the world of Special and a rough, cross-country ride in the other direction. But we've all done it, we serried ranks of cyborgs, and Schuyler's got a fantastic set of parents on her side.
I think she was either playing around and things got crazy (my brothers regularly put each other's heads through walls because of that), or she was being bullied and snapped (I broke a girl's nose when that happened to me in junior high. I did it with a Star Trek paperback, too.)
As for running away and refusing to cooperate - um, embarassment much? Schuyler knows that physical violence is not allowed. She knows it could get her in trouble. She probably even knows her reaction was over-the-top. So...not surprising she wanted to hide!
Thanks for reposting this; I was really worried about you leaving and what happened to Schuyler. If I could find the board where these people came from (I tried!) I'd be doing some of my own internet bullying on you behalf.
That's it? She beat up some kid and the internet went batty over it? Cripes, I thought at the very least Schuyler popped an eye out or something.
Ok...she's normal with a bit of embarrasment tied in a whole lot of expression that has limited ways out.
When PDQ was going through some medical stuff, she literally flung a double mattress off her bed at me.
No, she wasn't right no matter what caused the problem. Yes, she will learn that beating the crap out of a kid either by mistake or by purpose isn't acceptable behavior.
I wouldn't worry about it too much other then the whole guiding her to more appropriate ways to handle the situations.
At least she didn't take a metal baseball bat and wing some kid upside the head because she thought it would be fun (yes, my kid did do that!) YIKES!
I'm a regular reader/lurker and a parent of a special needs child(and worried about my blood sugar). Please don't stop writing, you're very inspirational.
Thank you for reposting. Ugh, what is WRONG with some people?
I personally think that this outburst is not out of the norm for a child who has special needs and has trouble communicating verbally. I used to work at a summer camp for kids with special needs, many of them autistic, many of them with speech problems. Outburst like Schuyler's were practically a daily occurence. Just because she gets frustrated and reacts in a physical way does not make her a bully or a brat.
I'd be congratulating Schuyler on taking down a bigger kid and offering her tips on technique. This is one of many reasons I should never have children.
There are *still* a few people from my childhood that I'd like to sit on and choke. Because I'm a well-adjusted adult, though, I prefer imagining them as homeless crack whores to physical violence.
Um, I think my point is that Schuyler is normal. We on the internets get mostly the sweet side, but no six-year-old is perfect. Really, props to Schuyler for beating up the bigger guy, and props to you for writing about it.
I was shocked when my gentle, pacifistic oldest kid pushed someone off a chair in kindergarten. Turned out the kid had been mean to a new friend of hers earlier in the day. You can't always tell what leads up to an event like that, and it's got to be even harder with Schuyler.
Younger kid WAS a hitter. We went endlessly through other ways she could deal with anger (I can yell, I can stomp my feet, I can punch a pillow, etc.) and one day she said tearfully, "But, Mommy - sometimes I just want to hit."
Yep. Me too. We all have rage, and we all (well, mostly all) have to be socialized to deal with it in acceptable ways. Not easy!
I bet there are some people you've never even MET that you'd like to choke the sh*t out of, eh? ;)
K McC.
I don't know...this all sounds like a normal thing that happens between kids. He probably pushed Schuyler too far and she clocked him. It sounds like the counselors were there and pulled them apart. I'd second what a few people here have said. I'd feel a lot better knowing Schuyler will stick up for herself instead of being meek and accepting of abuse. Over time she along with the other kids will hopefully learn impulse control.
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