It’s been a while since I wrote anything and I figured that I should do that soon so I am going to write about something awesome that happened tonight. In case anyone who is reading this didn’t know, I work for the Youth Opportunity Center which is basically a rehabilitation center for troubled pre-teens and teens. Anyway, back to the story. There is one particular kid that I work with who can really get under my skin. We'll call him Rocky for confidential reasons. I think he is about 10 and really makes me want to punt him across the room. Seriously, in the last eight months of working there he is the only one who has made me so angry that I had to leave to room for about a half hour.
Today, at the beginning of the shift, he asked if his mother was going to come visit him. Sundays are visitation days but I was not sure so I told him that if he was called to visits then he would be able to go. Well the time came and passed and he was not called so he became very upset. He began to ball up his fist, breath hard, and cuss at staff and his mother. I talked to him for a few and then called his mom to find out if she was going to be able to make it. She told me that she couldn’t because she injured her leg somehow. Brief tangent. This lady apparently "injured her leg" and was not able to visit her ten year old son whom is in a locked down facility. She only has the chance to visit her son for 3 hours a week outside of counseling sessions but couldn’t come today because she hurt her leg. She did not even call to let Rocky know that she was not going to be able to make it. She just stood him up. That really made me angry. For the most part, if the kids I work with had decent parents they would not even be in the situations they are in right now. Another reason to call your parents and tell them how blessed you are to have parents that cared about you. Back to the story. After I told him that his mother was not going to make it, he immediately went into his room and started crying. After a few he came out to watch a movie with the rest of the kids. While watching the movie he got upset at another resident because the resident started antagonizing him. He actually started to punch the resident but didn’t follow through. I gave both of them a consequence and told them to spend time in their rooms. The other resident went but I had to fight and argue with Rocky to get him to go to his room. He eventually went. Later, during rec time, he got upset again because we didn’t play the game that he wanted to play. He whined and pouted for a while and told me he was going to get me fired and how horrible of a staff I was. Again, I talked to him and he calmed down and eventually participated with the rest of the residents. By the end of the night I was getting to the point where I was getting a little frustrated. Well, when it was time for the kids to go to bed Rocky gave another staff a side hug and told her that she was the best staff that he had. Then he came up to me, gave me a dirty look with a smile, and gave me a side hug. This was after he had been angry all day and told me that he didn’t like me and everything else. It really gave me one of the best feelings that I have had since I started working at the Y.O.C. I realized that even though the kids don’t show it much, I really do have an impact on them. Then I started to think about this; I was there today when his mother wasn’t. Sometimes I get to the point where I really don’t want to work at this job. It is stressful, I am under-paid, and I have to put up with alot of things that I really shouldn’t have to. But times like these make the job worth it and make me want to go back the next day. God has blessed me with this opportunity and I hope that the kids see Him through me.
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