Musings from Middle School: First impressions

I'm now a little over a week into the new job, and I think this has become my new mantra.

Backing up a bit, after 6 years working with high school aged students, I've decided to try my hand at the middle school setting.   I had a long list of reasons where change would be good, and then an opportunity to try working in a different setting, and I decided to go for it.

So a few of my random first thoughts

• Middle School involves more tears....when the first one started to cry, I though OH MY, was my tone that rude?   And then today, we had one crying in the bathroom for no reason other than "she had a cold and a headache".  Ah, now I get it, puberty is a hot emotional mess, tears flow easier and faster in this age group.
• Missing Kids are searched for differently.   Day 1 I heard the radio call for Freddy.   Nope, hadn't seen Freddy.   Turns out, Freddy had gone to the bathroom, and wandered back to the wrong class...or something along those lines.    Freddy wasn't stoned-ditching class-passed out in the bathroom (3 top high school scenarios), he was just in the wrong class and too afraid to speak up.  
•  Use the right words.  My vocabulary is apparently too rich for some of these kids.   I had explained to one young lady "given how you injured your hand, it's highly unlikely you broke it".  "WHAT?  I BROKE IT?" (cue the tears).   Ok, let's try this again, AND let's call Mama (because clearly if I didn't make sure Mama heard the message, it would get twisted around as soon as Snowflake called mama.
• Innocence is not lost.  Poor little Joey was all upset (at least he wasn't crying).   When I asked why, he gave the over dramatic heavy sigh one word response "POO-BERTY".   Seems his voice had cracked and he had one lone pimple on his porcelain face.   Oh sweetie, it's gonna get so much worse before it gets better....but yeah, I held my tongue on that one and just let him be
• If you didn't chart it, you still might have done it.   In nursing, we've always been told to document our every action, "If you don't chart it, you didn't do it".  Well, that isn't always true either.... I called Suzie's mom to find out the plan for daily medication.  Mama Bear chuckled and said "same plan as when you called yesterday".  Yeah, I hadn't charted it, therefore, didn't remember which parents I had called.   

All in all, I'm excited for the change this new job will bring....oh sure, I too have felt a bit overwhelmed at being the new kid.   But overall, there is a good feeling to this new assignment and I'm eager to see what adventures are to be had.