Kobi was 15, tall, strong, and often, very angry. He took offence easily, he got frustrated quickly, and he regularly flew into violent rages. Kobi was still in school, but only just. After being involved in three fights, his Principal had told him that if he didn’t learn to manage his temper, he would be permanently excluded.
Kobi was part of a Kav L’Noar school group mentoring program, which had sessions every week in his school. During one of these sessions, there was a heated discussion and one of the students insulted him. Kobi was so furious that he picked up a metal chair and hurled it at the other boy, who ducked out the way just in time.
Calev, the mentor, didn’t know what to do. It was a serious incident- the other boy could easily have been badly hurt, and he couldn’t let it go unreported. On the other hand, of course he didn’t want the Principal to decide that this was the final straw and throw Kobi out of school- he cared about him and knew that he had a lot of potential.
One More Chance
Calev liaised with his Kav L’Noar supervisor. Together, they decided that Calev would first have a private meeting with Kobi, to go over what happened and try to work out what was behind these explosive rages. Calev would tell Kobi that he needed to truly commit to learning to cope with his feelings, to working harder on his self-control and to changing his behavior. Only if Kobi was willing to do this would Calev would be able to advocate on his behalf to the school and and request one more chance.
We don’t yet know how this story will be resolved. But we do know that either way, this has been a truly valuable process for Kobi.