Don't ever give up. Ever. Ever.

Every class has one and every school has quite a few. That one kid who screams at you, his face turning red in his fit of rage. Really, it's hard to say what sets kids like this off, but when it happens, it's hard to come back from the point of no return.

Like every year as a teacher, I have that ONE this year.  Well...actually, I have about 6 this year. But one of my "loose cannon" kids comes to mind when I think of kids who rage and scream, going from 0 to 60 within 5 seconds, taking an hour to calm back down.

My friend, my sweet, angry friend...he gets so so angry. I'm talking screaming at me across the cafeteria, "I know you hate me!  And I will sue you! Sue you and this school. I hate you!"  Back in the day, this type of outburst rubbed me the wrong way as a classroom teacher and I took it as a sign of ultimate disrespect. My explosions would quickly match my students'.

Awwwkwaaaaard.

Everyone knows this kid.

But, like most things in life that mellow over time, I have come to realize that these outbursts aren't personal.  If they were in this case, this little guy could sue me. (Perhaps as a coping mechanism, I picture my friend in court behind the plantiff's podium a la People's Court from the 80s, wearing his little suit and suing for...not letting him have an extra milk? Having him to go to the back of line? Judge Wapner handing down the sentence. A fine in the amount of $1,544.)

The Man. The Myth. The Legendary Judge Wapner.

I digress.

This guy. I want to hug him. Hard. I want to squeeze his tiny little body and say, "It's OK, buddy. I know you're angry. I get angry, too. But screaming won't help you."  Honestly, even in my few months working with this guy, I still don't know exactly what triggers him, nor do I have the magic pill to help him work through things.

But he's mad. A lot. And it breaks my heart.

But I don't give up. I was dropping off my son at before school care this morning when I noticed a few kids playing Blokus with the teacher. I sat down to play for a bit and invited my angry friend to be my partner, telling him that we were going be the yellow team and beat the pants off everyone else. I swear this kid grunted at me and sat down on the chair with me with such force I didn't know what to do.

He mumbled a few times when it was our turn and after some time, I had to get going back to my office. I asked my friend to make sure the yellow team won and was met with what I'm pretty sure was a snort along with zero eye contact.

I have no idea how that game ended, but I will say that my angry, grunting, shoving and snorting friend came to me at the end of the day, giving me the biggest hug out of the blue. Honestly, I was so shocked and didn't really have words. The words, "have a great night" fell out of my mouth. Off he ran.

I'm sure tomorrow he will snort again. Grunt. Scream. Threaten to sue. But we can't give up.

We can never ever ever give up. Ever.

We may never know what triggers our kids or exactly what they need to pull it together, but finding these small moments to connect, to see kids for who they are...well, we can only hope these are tiny seeds planted which may one day bloom into beautiful flowers.