Brooke’s Story

Hi, my name is Brooke. Before I started going to Rainbows, I was being suspended from school just about every day, and I was only six years old. I was throwing chairs around, hitting the other kids, and screaming at my teachers. I had to be supervised constantly because no one knew what I might do next. My mom, who has some challenges, tried really hard, but she didn’t know how to “fix” me.

 The other kids avoided me and called me names. I hated it when I was told I had to do this thing, at that time, in this chair.

 When I got to Rainbows, it was like suddenly everything was calm. Although there were routines like hanging up our backpacks and washing our hands, I felt like I had choices. I could choose not to wash my hands and then sit up against the wall while all the other kids ate a snack, but nobody sent me to the office or suspended me. I just didn’t get to eat all that great food.

 Nobody said either that I had to write in my journal or play games when a whole bunch of the other kids were doing those things. The teachers always gave us a couple of choices of projects and activities we could do, but if none of those things appealed to us, there was lots of other stuff in the room to play with. All those angry feelings I had inside me seemed to go away when I could sit and work on a craft. In the beginning, one of the volunteers would always stay near me. She would help me and talk to me if she saw I was getting frustrated and really worked up. But then everyone began to trust me to manage my emotions and let me work on my own.

 The teachers and volunteers were brilliant. After a few months, they started to sit near me with some of the other kids, working on the kind of craft I liked or playing a game they knew I loved. They would ask me questions like, “Do you think I should make this purse with purple fabric or yellow?” or “What move do you think I should make next?” Pretty soon I was making purses and playing Monopoly with everyone else. Then the other girls started asking me to play with them, and I began to feel okay about asking them if I could join them in writing letters or join them in their imaginary play.

 I still didn’t behave perfectly at school, but I kept getting better and better. By the time my four years with Rainbows were up, I was no longer being suspended and I had made some friends. Because my mom didn’t have to walk over to the school every day to bring me home after I’d written on a desk or poked somebody with a pencil, she was able to get a job at a local restaurant. She loves it, and one of the Rainbows volunteers my mom served told me she’s really, really good at it.