What is the smile about.

Usually, it’s about making you go away.

At first, you have to let it go. It isn’t easy.

I am quite capable of making the mistake that family is the problem.

Family usually IS the problem, but it can be the problem of indifference. Boys will be boys. Or. Boys have conflicts.

No shit.

Most boys do not settle their differences with their fists. The belief that they do is a stereotype.

The boy with the black eyes will often defend the person who put them there in an attempt to convince you that this kind of abuse is irrelevant. Intervention itself can be a more enduring abuse than two black eyes.

I keep my big mouth shut until the kid wants to talk about it.

He will talk about it.

But if he perceives you as the authority figure whose role is to enforce the rules, he’ll look at you like you are a mosquito. In his face but annoying.

He will clam up.

If the rules were so important, then why does he have two black eyes in the first place.

His abuser is not the enemy. The rules become the enemy.

He believes this is just shit he has to endure. Or more violence will come his way, and, often, he’s right.

Teach him how to defend himself.

Period.

No judgements.

He will know exactly what you are doing.

The wearing of a black belt can be a warning to his abuser who will understand that there are limits to his own authority.

Step back. Watch. Listen.

Learn to grow a serious affect. Stare. Do not blink. Do not back down.

The kid doesn’t want to hear that you are on his side. He wants to see it. And he is right to want that.

Let the abuser know that you are there. Most of them are bullies who are fundamentally afraid. Sometimes, I only interfere if someone gets his furtive hush-hush hands on a gun. Guns are like a dangerous secret. This is not the time for mystic shrouds.

This is also a failure of the posturing you have done. The time to stop posturing is when the abused kid chooses to understand that you are on his side. Make being available to him – to talk it out – ubiquitous. Make it very clear you are there for him ANY TIME. 27/7. The line between murder and suicide is a thin one. If you cannot do that, you have no business dealing with boys at-risk.

The abused kid WILL come to you. On his terms.

Anything less than that will be an exercise in futility. You will get under his skin. But you will not get into his head.

You have to reinforce behaviors in the kid that are the antithesis to violence. You are working with the kid. Not his abuser.

You are compelled to create situations where he is set up to succeed. You must create them. The child who succeeds is not the child who is hiding in his skin.

When the kid comes to you, you must confront him on a feeling level.

What you are really dealing with is abandonment. The abuser has abandoned his role as father, brother, mom, friend, team member, we all have roles, and we all play them. The role of bully is far more fragile than it looks.

Your authority as the adult is not the point. I can control who has a gun by taking them. Guns and knives are usually handed over or if I find them, I throw them into rivers not yet running with regret.

The abused kid’s authority over his own life is very much the point. No one can be there for him all the time.

One thing I look out for in these conflicts – is food.

Abused kids can be weird with food. They are attempting to have an overt control over what they eat, and what they will not eat.

Observe. Listen. Watch his words. Reflect them back. You are a mirror.

You are going to find this kid watching what y-o-u eat.

Sit at his table. Not as his protector, but as his friend. Watch when you shake your head affirmatively, and when you do not.

These problems do not simply go away. You might find the black eyes appear less and less. Less black and less often. But there is no magic that suddenly solves the problem. Not when kids defend their abusers.

Ignore this. When boys defend their abusers, I simply turn around and walk away. Saying nothing.

I will put the abuser and the abused in the same discussion group.

I will not ask them how it feels to get beaten up.

I will ask them to explain how it feels to defend yourself. This validates the abused kid’s even small (sometimes microscopic) excursions into asserting control over himself and his responses.

I never have a fathers and sons day. I have sons speak to the fathers in an empty chair day.

Tell him how it feels when…

Often, rage will come pouring out.

This is not the end. It is the beginning.

Kids who arrive with black eyes often have other scars.

I have boys speak to their scars. It can be the first time the scars will hurt.

The hurt having been pushed down in a silence that is protecting no one. After a boy speaks to his scars, watch his body language. They will start rubbing the scar as if to make it go away.

Next week, I will say I see you still have the scars.

The boy will sigh and hang his head. He will tell you all about how hard it is to talk about all this stuff, and he will tell you that he does not have feelings.

So what you’re saying is that it hurts to feel.

The boy will shake his head.

Now, you have him.

I suggest you close one eye. Have the open eye speak to the closed eye. What will your open eyes say.

Plural.

You are asking him to alternate his eyes. This is permission to him to see things differently.

Usually, not all that much.

Until it does. Until it does.