Week one with Growlie

Well. One week complete with my TSS client, who shall henceforth be named “Growlie”. He growls when he is angry or isn’t getting his own way. And I know he’s trying to be mean and intimidating, but I tend to think it’s rather cute.

So. I think week 1 went pretty well. At least I have a feel for what he can do scholastic-wise and a semi-baseline spectrum of how he is behaviourally. I mean, I’m sure I haven’t seen the worst, but on Tuesday he had an “episode” that lasted nearly 40 minutes and was mostly negative all day and on Friday he barely even needed prompting for anything and was in a good mood all day. And now the kids are mostly back in to the swing of the school thing, wee.

I’m enjoying being in the elementary school WAY more than I liked the HS. And while I don’t necessarily feel therapeutic for Growlie all of the time, I do feel useful. I have concrete goals to work with, and am getting the hang of most of the paperwork. It’s much more…’strict’ than the agency I worked with before. But that’s not a bad thing for me, at all.

Other Good Stuff….
– I seem to be building a pretty good rapport with the classroom aide, Miss L. (haha…NO idea what the L stands for??)

– L (different from Miss L.) who is my BSC (behavioural specialist…caseworker?? No clue, really, what it stands for…essentially she’s my direct supervisor) came and observed/supervised on Tuesday. And because I know her very well, I didn’t feel like I was being monitored for mistakes or…I dunno. I didn’t feel under pressure. And I was easily able to say to her “ok, when he did This, I did ______. I have no idea if that was the best thing to do, but I didn’t know what else to do. The response was _____” instead of “Well…he did This and I did _____. Was that ok?” and being all nervous that I fucked up. Essentially what I’m saying is that I think having L as my BSC is going to be really beneficial for Growlie because this is all a team effort, and I already have an easy and open relationship with her. Yay!

– The classroom teacher, Miss W, while a bit scattered and not all-together structured, is not super-scary. She seems ok with having TSS’ in her room (sure as hell hope so, since she’s got 6 of us!!), and so far as Growlie is concerned, I haven’t felt like we’ve been stepping on each others’ toes regarding him. I feel like the times when I’ve wanted her to intervene first she has, and also that the times when I’m intervening and getting nowhere and she comes over to talk to him that she’s not at all condescending or anything towards me. I worry at times if she thinks I’m in/competent, but it’s worry that stems from my perception of me rather than how I think she feels about me. If that makes sense. (lol. I think I need to go over Cooley’s Looking Glass Self a bit, then I’d be able to explain this better)

– I don’t totally avoid conversations with the other adults and TSS’ I talk to them at lunch, a little, and I make myself available to talk during recess, even tho I could hide and/or pretend I’m busy writing up my notes and such.

Somewhat Neutral Stuff
– Growlie is going to be a very frustrating child to work with!! His actions and reactions are, at times, totally governed by internal things rather than anything I say or do. Which means I can say or do the same thing in the same situation, but end up with totally opposite results. But this is to be expected, and I’m ‘prepared’ for it.

– Next week we start “specials” — which means Growlie goes with the “regular” 4th grade class to either art, gym, music or library. Actually, I think Mrs W is having them all start library, cuz she thinks it’s good and important (kudos to her) and then he gets to pick one of the other ones to start as well. And if that goes well, in another week or two another will be added. Not sure how it will be. A group of 20 ‘normal’ kids is different than a group of 7 ‘special’ kids, regardless of my thoughts on mainstreaming and occlusion and such. I don’t think occlusion is the word that I mean but oh well.

Not Great Stuff
– The other TSS in the room who works at SS…I’ll call her Annoying C. I already mentioned that she annoyed me and that I found her behaviour somewhat inappropriate for the classroom…well. I did talk to L about it. She’s not L’s favourite person either. But I didn’t mention it to anyone else. Well, the other day Miss L and I were chatting and SHE brings up C and her annoyingness. Ugh. So now I’m stuck in the dilemma of do I tell someone at SS and if so, who? Cuz it’s one thing when it’s a personality/personal issue. But it’s another thing when a teacher also brings it up. And I have to wonder, did she just bring it up to me cuz we were chatting? Did she bring it up to me cuz I work for the same agency as C? Did she bring it up to me cuz she’s brought it up to everyone else also? Argh.

– oh.em.gee do I HATE mornings…..heh. Why can’t 10 year olds go to night skewl or somethin….heh.