These Kids

These kids I work with - emotionally and behaviorally disturbed, they're called. Demanding, some of them are kind of nuts. They like a few people out of the staff and sort of push and fight with the rest, never quite trusting anyone but the few that win it, or earn it or what-have-you, and those utterly - they won't let those adults leave if they can help it; they're constantly tapping them on the shoulders and yelling their names.

Others of the staff, that haven't gained trust from them, try and impose petty restrictions on them to make up for the lack of any real relationship, teacher to kid or otherwise. Some of the members of the staff even gossip about the kids, on how they're so ridiculous, lacking intelligence, will become junkies, etc, I believe because some of the children in particular have a talent for hitting sore spots.

These kids remind me of myself. I wonder when it was, however, that I developed a talent for instantly transforming any needs or desires I think of as unrealistic into silent resentments and disappointment.