ABSTRACT
During a pick-up basketball game among sixth graders, Reggie, a large 12year-old boy, turns and runs after a much smaller classmate who had accidentally stepped on his foot. Reggie hits the boy in the face when he catches up with him on the other side of the room, where no teacher can see what is going on. Earlier in the year, Reggie had continually touched two girls of the same age on their buttocks. Next to his home, he sought out a younger boy whose mother had recently been killed in a car accident and teased him relentlessly about her death. In his earlier years, Reggie had been extensively physically abused and was threatened with being killed by a family relative. His mother was never clear who his birth father was, due to her early “crazy” drug years. Reggie is a continual behavioral problem at home, where he often threatens to harm himself or becomes assaultive toward his younger sisters.
