Teaching Moment

Byron was a tough kid, even at four years old. He didn’t take crap from anyone, and was quick to get even for the slightest insult, real or imagined. He would hit, kick, or scratch, and he wasn’t afraid of anybody. He came from a rough home situation, with a father in prison and a mother trying to be strong for her kids. He had a couple of older siblings, and said they would “Fight a lot” in his house.
I knew from the start that he was going to be a challenge for me. I was a father of three teen-agers, and was a pretty tough disciplinarian. He and I locked horns several times early in the year, for the most part about his inability to work out problems without his fists. Time out, loss of playground privileges, nothing seemed to curb his temper. Finally, exasperated, I took him over to one side and sat down on the ground with him.

“Hey man, why do you think you have to hit people?” I said quietly, not showing the anger I felt inside. He had just hit a little girl half his size when she picked up a ball from the ground.
“She was messing with my ball,” He mumbled.
“Did that make you mad?” I replied.
“Yeah, and she wouldn’t give it to me,” He continued.
I thought about Byron, and how rough it must be to be in a playground situation when he had no frame of reference at home.
“Hey, I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s name your mad.”
He looked at me, puzzled, “What?”
“Let’s name your mad,” I repeated. “Give that feeling you get when you want to hit somebody a name.”
He thought for a minute, looked up at me and said, “Walter; let’s call him Walter.”
“Okay,” I said. “Now let’s figure out what to do with Walter when he shows up. He has gotten you into a lot of trouble lately, and he needs to see me when he comes back around, before he gets you into trouble.”
“So, Walter will get in trouble, not me?” he asked.
“Right,” I agreed. “Bring him to me when you see him, before he gets you into trouble, and I’ll talk to him. Then, you can go back and play.”
He hugged my neck and ran back out to the playground. Sure enough, about twenty minutes later, Byron walked up to me and said, “Walter needs to see you now.”
“All right,” I said, “let’s meet him over here.”
We walked over to the side and talked with “Walter.” After deciding that Walter should do a time-out for trying to get him into trouble, Byron went back onto the playground, happy and content.
This transferred to his home life when I talked with his mother about his new “friend” and how to deal with him. It wasn’t foolproof, and sometimes Byron would let Walter run his life, but it made a huge difference in his daily relationships. For the rest of the year, I would see Byron coming to talk to me about “Walter,” the name we gave his anger. It was a good feeling. I was a teacher.