“I won’t come to school tomorrow…because I don’t want to talk to you!”

Today was my first 50 Acts of Leadership session with D! Or at least it was supposed to be…It’s been a rollercoaster with him so far. The first time I told him about the sessions, he really upset and even went as far as threatening to have his mom call to get him out of the sessions. Although the next time I reminded him about our upcoming meeting he didn’t protest and just gave me a “…okay.” But yesterday after class I told him I was going to meet up with him during lunch today and he went back to excessively refusing to meet with me. “I don’t want to! I won’t come to school tomorrow because I don’t want to talk to you!”

I knew I was going to have a hard time trying to get him to come with me if he was already in the lunch room, so I decided I was going to get a step ahead of him and be outside of his 3^rd period and wait for him so that he couldn’t escape. But while I was thinking that I was the smart one and he wasn’t going to get out of the classroom without me next to him, before I knew it, he was already walking away trying to get away from my sight. And so the race began…I followed him, didn’t call out his name but I knew he knew I was trying to catch up to him. He kept looking back, shaking his head. His first words were “I don’t want to.” “Why not? Do you know what it is? I just want to talk to you.” “I don’t want to talk to you!” “Why  not?” “Because I don’t want to!” … As I tried to talk to him he kept walking away from me up and down the hall, weaving in between people to try to lose me. He finally sat down at a table outside of the lunch room where his friends were standing. After some more going back and forth, D went into the lunch room one entrance and walked out the other in an effort to lose me. At that point I felt that I needed to give him some space so I just stayed in the lunch room and walked around talking to different students. DC called me over and asked if I was looking for D and we got to talking. We eventually spotted him on the other side of the lunch room and DC called D over. A ended up coming over and asked me the same thing. I started talking to A and even though he was saying “He doesn’t have to go if he doesn’t want to..” I tried to get him to understand that I’m not a threat to him and I don’t understand why he doesn’t want to talk to me, “all I’m trying to do is talk to him”. A called over D and I was surprised to get his support. A was acting like a sort of middle man as I was trying to get D to talk to me. I think at that point D could tell that I was getting offended that he wasn’t willing to just talk to him especially when his other friends didn’t seem to have a problem with me. “I’ll talk to you next week.” “You’ll talk to me next week?! Okay! Can I get you to shake on it?” It felt like such a great accomplishment at that moment, to just get him to agree to meeting, even if it was a week away, I’m okay with giving him more time if he needs it, but I wanted a handshake, I wanted him to take responsibility in his words and have it mean something, in front of his friends. But I think he got scared again. He got up and walked away. A was standing in the middle of us and couldn’t believe that D was just walking away as I had my hand extended for him waiting to shake hands. A kept telling D to shake my hand but it didn’t seem to help. D just went to another table to hide away from my sight. So I took a breath and accepted that I at least got him to verbally agree to talking with me next week. So I sat down at a table with J, he was doing some work and I offered any help if he needed it. A little after I sat down, I looked up and saw that D was on the other side of the table. As we made eye contact (a huge step for him because he usually refuses to look me in the eye…) he extended his arm and said “I’m sorry for walking away and not shaking your hand”. It felt amazing that he actually cared enough to come back and shake my hand, so I’m hopeful that he’ll try next week, and if I need to I can remind him of the effort he put into shaking my hand and making the most of his word. I knew then that it was my time to go. I wanted to show him that I wasn’t going to just give up on him; if I had to follow him around for half the lunch period just to get an okay for next week, I was willing to do it. So after our handshake, I thanked him and got up to walk out. Outside of the lunch room, I saw A in line waiting for food and I went up to him “Thank you for your help, I really appreciate it.” He extended his arm and shook my hand. We smiled and I walked away.

During those whirlwind of 15 minutes, I was shaking in anger, frustration, emotion, desperation, shock, but by the end, I was euphoric. A handshake and an “I’ll meet with you next week” may not seem like much to an outsider, but for me coming from D seems like a true gift. For once he looked me in the eye and he approached me without walking away. And I got the support from his friends; a resource that I feel will play a very important role in encouraging D in anything. So even though I didn’t get to talk alone with D and I found myself feeling a little jealous of my teammates as they were having what appeared like great sessions with their kids, I know that today I took a step towards building the foundation of my relationship with D, as small as it might appear, but don’t be mistaken, it was powerful. D is going to be a great leader one day, he just needs a little help so in the mean time, I’ll be trying my best to offer any sort of help I can to get him there.