Hit me with your best shot

I recently just started my internship working at a school for kids who are emotionally disturbed or have severe Autism. I love my internship and the kids. Even though the kids are beyond difficult at times, at most times, it is still a very rewarding place to be.

The students at my school have come to us because their public school did not have the services that are needed to support these kids. The kids I work with have a hard time regulating their emotions, controlling their impulses and expressing their feelings in an appropriate way...which means we see a lot of explosive behaviors, cursing, spitting, hitting, property destruction, etc.

As a school psych intern, I mostly work one on one with kids or in small groups. I am not in the trenches of the every day school events, so I am not used to being involved in some of the more severe behaviors. However, yesterday, I was facilitating a social-emotional group with a class of four male students probably between 7 - 10 years old. One kid in particular was targeting me, throwing beads at my face, so I asked staff to take him out of the group. When he returned thirty minutes later, I was explaining to his teacher that he had to leave class and missed out on the group activity.

That's when he hit me!

That's right, a big open fist slap to the arm. I know you are thinking a 10 year old kid couldn't have hit that hard, but no, you are wrong. It hurt. It hurt really bad. And when it happened, I was in shock. Luckily, my time with the group was almost over so I rushed to my desk to shed a few tears and get myself together. I just couldn't believe it. My first hit. I knew it would come sooner than later, but I was just so startled that he hit me without any warning. Wah. The rest of the day I tried to talk to other staff about getting hit and guess what? I got no sympathy. Everyone had better stories than me. "Oh yeah, I got hit in the face this morning." or "So and so spit on me today." Poor me.

I came home from work and told Brandon what had happened. 

The next morning, I found this on our "I love you because..." chalkboard: