My boy could have easily found himself in juvie last year at the ripe old age of 9 for attacking teachers and substitutes and such, but was lucky enough to not have any of them escalate the situation beyond the schools. I know for a fact there’s one his age in the one we support at work right now and it’s never far from my mind. We moved him into a new district and changed his medication and he’s improved at an unbelievable level from last year (No suspensions or assaults, honor roll, perfect attendance, etc.), but he’s had turn arounds that collapsed in the past and I’m always on my guard for when I’m gonna have to go to his school and physically restrain him as I’ve had to do in the past. It’s funny because my brother, who’s 11 years younger than me, had a lot of the same issues and when I was in high school and college, I spent a lot of time acting as his (and my youngest sister’s, who was 4 years older than him) de facto parent despite our abusive father and negligent mother living with us until the day my dad died. I always felt bad for not pulling him out when I moved to the midwest, even though there was never a chance it was going to happen officially. Within a few years, it went from me worrying about my brother all the time to me worrying about my kid who was given an IEP at 2, which became an EI IEP by 6. It’s fucking exhausting, and I know 100% of my attention needs to go to him, but when I’m left with my thoughts, I STILL feel guilty for leaving my younger siblings to handle their teenage years without me. Better yet, I automated a process for student account creations at our juvenile detention, and every morning, I get to see a report with the new kids who get to be locked up. Most are older teenagers whom I’d still usually argue should’ve been given an alternative to being locked up, but some of them are like 9-12, and it infuriates me, because it means many adults failed that child throughout their short life.

This was meant to be a 3 sentence response. I could fill volumes with this shit. Do the good shit, sir, but don’t let it pull you down when it doesn’t work out, because it won’t always, because it can’t always.