Hot Mess

This was Friday's story that I never got to write about. There's this kid, let's call him Tony. Well, Tony has ADHD and he has his good days and his bad days. It first started with Tony jumping off the bus and running into the school. That was the beginning of a rough day for him. The social worker, her interns and I set up a system that allows breaks for Tony from the classroom. Around 10 o'clock someone goes to Tony's classroom and gives him a walking break. We just walk around the building for about 10 minutes and then he returns to the classroom. The unfortunate thing about Tony's situation is that A) we never know if he's actually on meds or not. His mother claims that she gives him his pill every morning. Some mornings he's okay, others, like this past Friday, he's the Tasmanian Devil. B) his former teacher contaminated his current teacher by telling her all of the things that Tony doesn't do well, but nothing about what his strengths are. His teacher now has a very negative attitude towards him. It's to the point where I avoid her because I don't want to hear her negative comments.

Friday, Tony was a hot mess. His entire day was a long, drawn-out episode of what happens when a kid with ADHD is bored with school. After getting off the bus, his morning got off to a rocky start. I got a phone call in my office from his teacher telling me that I was needed in the music room. I arrived to find him sitting in his seat following what the teacher said. (This is interesting, because for the past two years whenever I've been called to someone's room I'm usually greeted by a sobbing child who won't leave the classroom and can't tell me what's wrong. So far this year, I've walked into classrooms and couldn't immediately tell what the big emergency was.) Anyway, I called Tony out of the room and asked him if he knew why I was called there. He told me something about classmates laughing at him. We discussed why they may have been laughing and what that had to do with me being called to the room. I didn't get much out of him and I was ready to send him back to the room when he asked if he could use the restroom. I sent him in and told him he had 2 minutes. He has become notorious for spending extraordinary amounts of time in the restroom. While he was in there another student went in there and then left. I knocked and went in. He was washing his hands. He was probably playing around in there, but I was able to retrieve him from there.

Later that day, I saw him twirling in the lunch line. I ignored him because I know that he really can't contain himself. About an hour later I made my way down to the main office to look at someone's permanent record. I passed by the table where children who lose recess have to sit and noticed it was unoccupied but there was paper strewn all over the floor and table. I said, "what's going on here?" The receptionist simply said, "Tony." So then I chatted with my principal, and went looking through the files and then made a couple of phone calls in the conference room. I probably spent 15 to 20 minutes there. As I was about to leave to go back to my office I noticed that the table was still unoccupied. I asked my principal, "Where's Tony?" She thought he was still sitting at the table. The receptionist finally turned around from her chair to see that he was no longer there as well. she just assumed that he was sitting there when I passed through the first time. The principal remembered that he went to the restroom in the nurses office, so she sent me to get him.

When I walked into the nurse's office, she told me that he was still using it because she could hear water running. I shook my head and knocked on the door. It was unlocked and when the nurse opened it we saw that the entire mirror and counter were covered in sudsy water as if he was cleaning the bathroom. Meanwhile, his hands were soapy and his clothing was wet. My immediate thought was, "You're a hot mess." The nurse couldn't believe it, but I did. He has been using the bathroom as an escape from the classroom since school started. Now he found another way to occupy his time in the bathroom. What else could he get into by the end of the day? The principal was not happy and she made him clean up the mess. Friday was definitely not a good day for him.

BBC