Hugs and Kisses

Yesterday morning, 6 year old D was off to his usual overly energized antics that he's been doing as he enter the classroom for past few weeks, if not months. He'd run around the class, unable to stay seated for more than 5 seconds(literally - i counted!). Whereas earlier in the year, giving him a book to read was sufficient to keep him occupied for at least minutes at a time, no book, activity or anything could keep him seated whil we'd do our morning toileting routines.

This day in particular, however, he was also singing, almost maniacally. He has been known to sing approximations of songs in the past, like when he'd get upset, he'd cry and sing the alphabet song. Usually afterwards, he'd calm down. But this day, he wouldn't stop. In addition, he would purposely drop a pencil here, a chair there, and gesturing for one of us to tell him to pick it up. Its like he was waiting for us to reprimand him. Instead we (me and my 'paras' aka teaching assistants aka angels of mercy hehe)decided not to say a word. Oh, the reason for that was that in addition to the running, and dropping things, and maniacal singing, he was also repeating reprimands said to him. He'd say "pick it up"; "not in your mouth"; "that's enough"; "get your mouth off the tv"; "sit down now"; "stop that now"; "no soda"; "no computer". Obviously, adding another to his "repertoire" would not help this situation, ya?

We attempted to ignore it at first, then just respond with "shhh" (because it would be better for him to repeat that rather than our reprimands). We'd physically prompt of gesture him to go back to his seat, to pick up the pencil, etc. But he still would not calm down. We finally got him to go to his "workstation" where he had about 4 tasks to do (some math and reading worksheets, puzzles, etc.). But though he actually sat there for more than 5 seconds, he was still singing and "reprimanding" himself as well as drop things on the floor.

Then he started to tear and his eyes were a bit red and he started to rub at them. I tried something new.

I asked him if he needed a hug. And he said, "Miss Erna, I want hug." And I did.

And he started to cry and hugged me so tightly for what seemed like nearly 10 minutes. He cried louder and hugged tighter. And I patted and rubbed his back to soothe it. I let go to see if he'd go back to work. But he didn't and was just looking at me. So I asked again if he wasnted another hug. And he said he did. So I did and he hugged tight even longer and cried some more. When he quieted down, I let go and smiled at him. I said, "ok, back to work". And he did.

He was calmer for the rest of the day than I've seen in weeks.