Tea and Sympathy

When I was a daycare supervisor for an after school program, I had a kid in my care who came to us with a lot of what a polite person would refer to as "anger issues". He had a lot of really good reasons to be angry, mostly due to his somewhat rough home life. He was also bullied at school. The bullying made him angry and his anger alienated his peers and caused- surprise- more bullying. He was loud, argumentative, and required constant attention. I adored him. Sometimes, granted, he made me want to tear my hair out, but even then I never stopped liking him as a person. He was not sneaky, manipulative, or deceptive. In fact, he had a highly developed sense of justice, which probably led to more anger because the way he was treated by most of the people in his life was not really fair.


Luckily, when he was at school during the day he was mostly protected from bullying by his teachers. I knew one of his teachers quite well, and we occasionally had chats about how he was doing at school vs. at aftercare. The big problem was the school bus that brought him from school to my program. It was like some kind of mobile version of Lord of the Flies. The only adult on the bus was the driver, and he or she was a) driving and b) not paid enough to settle squabbles and sort out bullies while driving. My young charge would get bullied, respond by yelling, and then get yelled at for yelling, which would make him angrier and lead to more yelling. By the time he got dropped off at our centre he was ready to explode.


"I'M GOING TO KILL SOMEONE!" was the first thing he ever said to me on his first day in care. We discussed the fact that violence and violent language were not allowed at daycare. Well, I discussed. He walked around trying to get away from me and periodically smashing his fist on the snack tables.


We did a lot of work with him over the next few months (and years!) that he was in our program. Within a month we'd talked enough about feeling something vs. acting on it that when he got off the bus he started shouting,


"I'M SO ANGRY I FEEL LIKE I WANT TO KILL SOMEONE!"


I considered it progress.


Fairly quickly we realized that he was always hungry. A combination of being a growing kid and not being fed adequately at home. At my former supervisor's suggestion I started keeping a box of food in the fridge for him to access whenever he felt he needed it. He was always interested in what was going on in the kitchen and one day when he was getting some food and I was preparing snack for the group, he noticed I was making tea.


"What kind of tea is it?" he asked.


"Chamomile," I answered.


"Why are you drinking chamomile tea?"


"Well, because today has been a bit stressful and I need to calm down. Chamomile is a herb that makes you feel calm."


Three days later, after a particularly heinous bus ride, he arrived at the centre with his fists clenched. His post-bus tantrums had been on the decline but we knew one was coming.


"I'M SO ANGRY," he yelled, "I NEED SOME CHAMOMILE TEA!"


Again, progress.


After that his post-school tea drinking became an almost daily occurrence. We all found that sitting with him for a cup of tea after school decreased his problematic behaviour during the rest of the day. Something about that bit of attention (and chamomile) made him calm enough to face the rest of the afternoon without losing his mind to frustration.


I was thinking about all of this because he phoned me out of the blue last week and asked if I wanted to get together for a visit with him and his sister. We'll have tea. I can't wait.



J.