Abusive Head Trauma often occurs when a care-giver is frustrated with an infant's behavior, and takes action...incorrectly.

How would you deal with a shark attack? A home invasion? Loss of your job?

While thinking and talking about things is a good first step, action is what changes the world, and to take correct action amongst a variety of stimulus, we need practice.

Practice Taking Action (PTA)

1) Teamwork

At the beginning of your child care journey, always practice with another, and preferably with someone who has experience. Assign one of you as lead for a fixed period (say 15 minutes to start) while the other watches, then review and suggest new actions for the next time.

2) Talk It Out

While having first Teamwork practices, talk through all the thoughts and feelings that come into your head. Often we try to internalize everything, and this pressure build up can lead to future explosions. Be aware of your own, and your partners', monologue in connection with their actions, to find possible triggers for feelings of frustration and anger. Be especially aware of any physical changes, such as grabbing the infant more firmly, or a change in tone of voice.

3) Practice Options

With your partner, come up with options of behavior, and practice taking those options explicitly. Practice being with the child, then actively disengaging, and reaching out to others, so that when the triggering behavior comes, you have these alternate behaviours trained up and ready to go.

Continue cycling through these steps in larger time increments, up to a couple of hours.

By working within this framework of Teamwork, Talking It Out, and Practicing Options, you will gradually build the skills you need to handle an infant, and support others in their infant handling as well.

I man-handled a child.

It's the simplest distillation, of so many thoughts and feelings bouncing in my head over the last few days.

The image of him, sitting on the bathroom floor, hyper-ventilating, unable to breath enough to even begin to talk.

And I did that.

So some part of me feels, some collection of thoughts, and tracing the threads of those tendrils of truth...how they fit together inside, in the ball of my person.

There is always more to the story, the trap of the serial word, serial thoughts, in an infinitely parallel space.

I...added...to that. I helped create that suffering.

The physician's oath makes so much more sense now...to first do no harm.

What a challenge for any of us too lazy to listen to love.

He had been slow even at the beginning of the day, and seemed to be getting slower. Slower in word, slower in movement...

And as he slowed, so more I pushed. With words, wondering why he was so sluggish, why he could barely keep up, in any way.

Hesitant to change his clothes in the locker room with the other kids, so he was slowly walking in his still-wet swimwear, barely able to gather his belongings in his hands.

I pushed him with words, reminding him that he was slowing all of us down.

Then we were outside in the back, amongst many kids playing in the sand and playground equipment. He seemed better when he was throwing the tennis ball at my head, round about dodge ball and such.

And then I decided it was time to go inside. I was cold, the skin of my hands drying out so much that they were actually splitting, blood flushing into the breaks but not quite bleeding.

He was lying on the ground. All the kids had headed for the front door, except for two: a girl, and him.

I begged and pleaded, walked over and tried to get him up with words.

And then I man-handled him, lifting him from the ground, pushing his back, driving him towards the front of the building.

I grabbed the girl as well, who was laughing and talking back and trying to twist away.

I held them both, yet...I only remember her talking back.

I stopped, asking them to take themselves to the front. "Just go, so I don't have to push you", yet neither walked away.

In fact, I know she pushed back, trying to duck around, still talking, yet...I have no memory of his voice. Do I have memory of his silence?

I moved them forward, past the gate in the fence, stopping again in front of the tree.

"Come on! Just go on in!" Her still talking, his silence.

I walked them in the front door, and he immediately went into the bathroom, while she ran off to the tables.

Minutes later, and another teacher grew concerned. He knocked on the door. No answer.

He tried the door, pushing it open, and the boy was sitting on the floor, panting, eyes glazed.

We got him water, and another teacher drew the boy onto her lap, holding him.

Someone called his mother, who arrived in a few minutes, as our supervisor arrived as well.

I went home.

And worried.

And remembered a moment during our second stop when the boy made a little gurgling sound.

Was he already panicking them?

What did I do in my thoughtlessness, in my physicality?

Did I really break him?

...

I don't want to hurt any more children.