i feel like i'm losing this fight
So, there's this kid at the daycare who has been here since he was four. He's always been a case of poor behavior- not listening, disrespectful, and he bullies the little girls.
Thing is, he's also what I'm careful to unprofessionally diagnose as an untreated case of a learning disability. I don't know which precisely, but here are the symptoms I've managed to gather: this kid, first of all, is slow. Painfully slow. He's eight years old and can not read, his speech is very basic, and he has trouble grasping 'complicated' concepts- which mean most concepts that the kids in his peer group can grasp. He only raises his hand to answer true/false questions, and that's because they have a 50% chance of being correct. Even then, he can't explain to me why he was correct, when he was. He can't read well. He can't write well.
He has severe difficulty making relationships in his peer group, and always has had this difficulty. There are major difficulties in communication, obviously, but he seems to lack a sense of empathy as well. I've never seen him genuinely feel compassion for another child or think beyond himself. At four, I could excuse it for typical self-centered child behavior. At eight years, this is indeed unusual.
This boy routinely picks on the girls. Especially the little girls who can't fight back, and especially this very sensitive little boy who is easily provoked and cries at the drop of a hat. Last year, he was calling him 'Coco' for no apparent reason, and this made the boy (Isa) go into fits of crying. I should mention here that his family is from South Africa and the one time I met the father, he took the kids and went 'thanks, baby'. Very disrespectful. This kid could have picked up his dad's lack of respect for the female gender and went on from there. Also, his behavior seems to be a textbook example of him acting out because of his own insecurities about himself. They're all old enough that they know this kid is 'stupid' or 'weird', and there are social repercussions for that. (Example: when I mentioned that he shouldn't call other people stupid because he wouldn't like to be called stupid, a handful of kids laughed.)
Most of the kids can't stand him. I constantly hear 'he's mean,' 'he's rude', and 'he's got no manners'. Now, I can't say he's a great kid, or even a well-behaved kid. I've gotten so tired of his horrible behavior that I've come to resent this kid's presence in my class. HOWEVER. When I hear kids bullying him, I don't let it slide. The other day, the kid came on the bus with a book. Two boys on the bus said: "Look, he's reading! I didn't know he could read!" "I bet he's just looking at the pictures." I instantly gave them the verbal backhand and walked them to the director's office to talk about their behavior when I went back to the school.
The kid, on the other hand, spent the rest of the day tormenting the younger kids. After I stood up for him being bullied. It's just...disheartening to see it. I stand up for him constantly and he still is a bully. I know he's probably a bully because it's backlash- he can't strike out against the peers who make comments about him, so he strikes back at people who can't fight him back. He says things like: "That's easy, this is easy, oh my god it's so easy," for things he can't actually do, because he's insecure. He likes it when someone else has a pratfall because it's not him for once.
Still, I'm just...I have all these little kids who hate his guts and for good reason, and he's so disrespectful and rude, and he keeps pushing it and I could just explode. All his peers use him as the person to pin blame on, especially the 'popular boy'. And this kid still longs for the approval of this popular boy, obviously, but the popular boy is one of the most vocal people on how stupid he is. But he's only eight, and his parents still haven't gotten him any kind of care. They are on welfare...but they DID enroll him in Tae Kwan Do, so they must be able to afford something basic. (He was kicked out of Tae Kwan Do for behavior issues. All his sisters stayed on. Another blow to his ego.)
I don't know what to do. I've worked with this kid since he was four, and nothing's changed, and I don't think I can help him.
Thing is, he's also what I'm careful to unprofessionally diagnose as an untreated case of a learning disability. I don't know which precisely, but here are the symptoms I've managed to gather: this kid, first of all, is slow. Painfully slow. He's eight years old and can not read, his speech is very basic, and he has trouble grasping 'complicated' concepts- which mean most concepts that the kids in his peer group can grasp. He only raises his hand to answer true/false questions, and that's because they have a 50% chance of being correct. Even then, he can't explain to me why he was correct, when he was. He can't read well. He can't write well.
He has severe difficulty making relationships in his peer group, and always has had this difficulty. There are major difficulties in communication, obviously, but he seems to lack a sense of empathy as well. I've never seen him genuinely feel compassion for another child or think beyond himself. At four, I could excuse it for typical self-centered child behavior. At eight years, this is indeed unusual.
This boy routinely picks on the girls. Especially the little girls who can't fight back, and especially this very sensitive little boy who is easily provoked and cries at the drop of a hat. Last year, he was calling him 'Coco' for no apparent reason, and this made the boy (Isa) go into fits of crying. I should mention here that his family is from South Africa and the one time I met the father, he took the kids and went 'thanks, baby'. Very disrespectful. This kid could have picked up his dad's lack of respect for the female gender and went on from there. Also, his behavior seems to be a textbook example of him acting out because of his own insecurities about himself. They're all old enough that they know this kid is 'stupid' or 'weird', and there are social repercussions for that. (Example: when I mentioned that he shouldn't call other people stupid because he wouldn't like to be called stupid, a handful of kids laughed.)
Most of the kids can't stand him. I constantly hear 'he's mean,' 'he's rude', and 'he's got no manners'. Now, I can't say he's a great kid, or even a well-behaved kid. I've gotten so tired of his horrible behavior that I've come to resent this kid's presence in my class. HOWEVER. When I hear kids bullying him, I don't let it slide. The other day, the kid came on the bus with a book. Two boys on the bus said: "Look, he's reading! I didn't know he could read!" "I bet he's just looking at the pictures." I instantly gave them the verbal backhand and walked them to the director's office to talk about their behavior when I went back to the school.
The kid, on the other hand, spent the rest of the day tormenting the younger kids. After I stood up for him being bullied. It's just...disheartening to see it. I stand up for him constantly and he still is a bully. I know he's probably a bully because it's backlash- he can't strike out against the peers who make comments about him, so he strikes back at people who can't fight him back. He says things like: "That's easy, this is easy, oh my god it's so easy," for things he can't actually do, because he's insecure. He likes it when someone else has a pratfall because it's not him for once.
Still, I'm just...I have all these little kids who hate his guts and for good reason, and he's so disrespectful and rude, and he keeps pushing it and I could just explode. All his peers use him as the person to pin blame on, especially the 'popular boy'. And this kid still longs for the approval of this popular boy, obviously, but the popular boy is one of the most vocal people on how stupid he is. But he's only eight, and his parents still haven't gotten him any kind of care. They are on welfare...but they DID enroll him in Tae Kwan Do, so they must be able to afford something basic. (He was kicked out of Tae Kwan Do for behavior issues. All his sisters stayed on. Another blow to his ego.)
I don't know what to do. I've worked with this kid since he was four, and nothing's changed, and I don't think I can help him.