Matty, His Mother and My superviser

Matty-6 yo boy with autism was the first child I worked with .  Matty's mother had problem with mental health, so I worked with him in my place or in the basement of one of the residences. I already knew Matty pretty well and he made a good progress and the supervisor was very happy with that work.  One day out of the blue Matty  started to behave very strange. He was hitting my furniture, even me. I saw that he wasn't really angry. He did something and waited for my reaction looking at me. I tried to do everything in order not to let him do that, tried to protect the furniture, but did nothing actively, because I couldn't figure out what was a reason for such behavior. I was just  observing.  I told my supervisor that something was wrong there. The supervisor told me to apply ''behavior therapy''  giving  Matty a chocolate chip every 15 mins, so he would try to behave well in order to get that chip. I said Matty didn't care at all about food and we should try to find out the reason for his behavior. Supervisor insisted I had to do that chocolate ''behavior modification''..so I agreed.

Usually all wrong behaviors of every kid has the same explanation its “chemical imbalance” and we cannot say why a child does this or that.To argue with the supervisor didn't make any sense. During that job I tried to please all normal adults in order they would let me continue working with Matty.... Matty was a great guy.

In a couple of days supervisor called me with the news-  Matty's mother accused me in child abuse...It was a trace of a hand on Matty's chest. The investigation took 2 days and those days were not good as I was waiting for the result. I knew that I didn’t do that, but didn’t rely much on American justice system and loyalty of the agency I worked for. A while before that event my supervisor told me that I had to be very careful with Matty, because his mother wanted to extort money from the agency. She already tried to do some suspicious actions and I was very careful. I was cleared from accusation in a child abuse.. Supervisor knew that mother was hitting Matty and investigation confirmed her hand on Matty’s chest....

However on my numerous calls asking for another case I got no response.
Once I met the supervisor on the street and asked him why he didn’t answer my calls, why he didn't give me another child to work with. His answer was very strange-I am not good at this type of work. It was very strange to hear as he was very happy with my work , I really did a good job and he gave me a great reference for my work with Matty….I wanted to know and as he was a psychologist by his education,  I tortured him to give me the answer -the details what was wrong with  my work with the child that I cannot continue doing the same job.He got angry with me and left as what he could say..... In a couple of years a coworker of my educated me on this. Its unwritten rule of the agency not to give any job to a worker who was under investigation with abuse no matter if the worker was guilty or not....strange senseless rule

Also from supervisor I got the information that Mother claimed during the investigation that Matty probably destroyed something in my place and I hit him for that ( this is what was going on his own home)... I didn't know what she said to Matty, but I knew that SHE provoked that Matty's destructive behavior , which my supervisor psychologist wanted to stop with ''chocolate chips behavior modification technique''. Also I thought again what a smart child Matty was and really did that not easy task his mom gave to him. I did ask a supervisor what would happened to mom for false accusation and for real child abuse….but of course I got no answer to that....those questions were not my business.....

In a while I met Matty with mother on the street and she apologized for what had happened. After awhile when I stopped working with Matty I met a woman housekeeper, who knew me when I had been  working  with Matty in residence basement from time to time. She said, that Matty again started to hits everybody, bites them, screams and so on. He didn’t do it when we worked together as he was always busy with interesting things I gave him to do. The woman said that she was so sorry that I stopped work with Matty because new people treat him really bad for his behavior.

In a few years by another agency I was assigned to autistic boy and there I met Matty. He was already 13 years old and his behavior was really very bad-he undressed himself in the middle of street. At home he put himself on the floor and could stay like that for a long time. He never had any connection with his mom when he was small, now it was a disaster. Mother and father got divorced. He liked father more, but father was always busy and didn’t have time for him. It was very heartbreaking to observe Matty and the whole situation, so I quit the position
Later I’ve learned that Matty was placed in the residence. I was glad for him. I worked again for that agency and met my first  supervisor person as well. He never said anything. Supervisors never apologized for anything no matter what. My last supervisor explained me such behavior that every person wants to think about himself that he is perfect. Another explanation I've heard that if supervisors would apologize or admit they were wrong then they would lose respect from their workers....but I remember the apology of Matty's mentally sick Mom