As I was heading home from the gym this morning, I came across a 4 car accident that occurred just moments before but I didn't witness. The last car was a woman and child so I immediately put on my breaks and headed over to her car. She had rear ended 3 stopped cars in front of her and pretty much totaled her car. She was visibly shaken as was her 5 year old son. I help her and her son out of the car and offer comfort on the side of the road. Her son's name is the same as Big C and they call him CJ...just like we do! I distract her son and keep track of him for her as she deals with all the aftermath and wait around til everyone including their cars are gone so she isn't alone.
About 10 minutes after getting home, I get a phone call from Kai's middle school. He is upset and crying in the office. Apparently, he was told to do the best he could on the MAP test. HE CAN'T READ ENGLISH PEOPLE! He was stressed out, embarressed, frightened, angry, and sad...and trying to hold it in.
I arrive in the office and see Kai a ways down the hallway. I can tell he's upset and been crying quietly. I open the door to the individual offices so we are hidden from other students. He sees me, walks toward me, and extends her arms out for a hug when he gets within 4 feet of me. I hold him and he squeezes me and begin to sob. Heart wrenching sobs.
I open an office door that is empty and take him in there. He tries explaining what he feels and goes into meltdown mode. For the next 30 minutes, I offer comfort and try to regulate his mind. In the meantime, he is well heard and office staff continues to come and check on us. I tell them calmly that I have seen this before and it is normal and I am fine handling it alone. Kai kept repeating something about zeros. I have never seen him so angry. He was flat out ANGRY!
At one point, I ask him if I can leave him for a few minutes to talk to the counselor and he said yes. This man is very kind and I very kindly but firmly tell him Kai is NOT to take the MAP and it was unreasonable and ridiculous for him to be asked to try in the first place! He agreed. I then told him about zeros. Kai is seeing zeros somewhere and it is destroying him.
The counselor goes back into the room with me and Kai. He pulls up Kai's grades and shows Kai he has awesome grades. Below each S (for satisfactory) is a zero simply because there is no percentage to an S. We explain to this to Kai and he understands and is better. I end up checking him out of school and take him to lunch where he tells me that grades in China were 0, 1, and 2 and 0's were really really bad and he never got them. I reiterated that the zeros he was seeing didn't mean anything.
I learned a few things today. First of all, I am truly Kai's safe person. He reached out to me for comfort and felt completely safe with me and wanted ME! What a beautiful feeling. Secondly, when he hurts, I hurt. I want to take all his pains away. After my tough week last week, this was a good feeling to feel. I love this boy so much!
Secondly, even though he had a tough meltdown, I could see he was trying to not do some old behaviors but then it became too much. This, too, was progress even though those old behaviors came through. Our efforts are working.
He has been great the rest of the day. We are now on our way to pick up Big M!
