StandUpForKids - Don't Runaway Program

The Presentation

The presentation consists of a young kid named “Squatter.” Fleeing from an abusive home he runs to the streets looking for a better life. Unfortunately the streets only bring him more fear and discomfort. It is only when he gets help from someone that he trusts that he finds the life of hope and respect that he has always dreamed of.

Every student in the audience is given a “Squatter” card that has resource numbers that they can call for help. The audience is challenged to think of an adult that they can trust enough to go to for help if they needed it.

The Don’t Run Away Presentation

Squatter is thirteen years old. Whenever he is unhappy he goes for a long walk around his block where he lives. He walks out of his house thinking about school. He gets into a lot of trouble at school because he talks while the teacher is talking and he hardly ever does his homework. But, Squatter likes school because no matter how badly he behaves no one at school has ever hurt him. He feels safe at school.

When Squatter leaves school he does not feel safe. He feels like he life is out of control and he is scared. Scared, because he’s being abused by an adult. Mostly, Squatter walks quietly around his neighborhood or stays in his room hoping that no one will notice him.

He wishes that he could stop the adult from hurting him but he can’t. He is too scared and he doesn’t know how.

When Squatter was in the fifth grade, a STANDUP FOR KIDS club member came to his class and gave a presentation about not running away. The speaker gave the entire class a resource card with helpful phone numbers. In fact, Squatter had the card in his wallet still. They told him that if there was a problem in his life that made him want to run away, he should tell someone he trusts about the problem and ask for help.

When STANDUP FOR KIDS told his class to tell someone if they were being abused, Squatter cringed. He felt uncomfortable even thinking about his problem. How could he ever talk to someone about it? Also, he was afraid of what might happen if he did tell someone. He was afraid. What if they would take away from his mom and he never sees her again? Squatter’s dad only came home every once in awhile. He didn’t want to loose his mom, too. So, he decided not to tell anyone and hoped that one day the abuse would stop. Now, two years have passed and he is still being abused.

One day, while on one of his long walks, it came to him that two years is a long time, too long. “If I don’t stop the abuse, it will never stop.” Squatter is smart kid and he knew what he had to do. But, the mere thought of telling someone about it made him feel cold and lonely. “Who can I tell?” he asked himself over and over. Knowing that he really didn’t want to tell anyone.

He trusted his brother, but his brother was only a few years older. He can’t help thought Squatter. Squatter thought about telling his dad but he was hardly ever around. He liked Mr. Dorn, his math teacher. He lets the whole class call him Mr. Mike. But, he wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to Mr. Mike about his problems.

He is thinking about this when turning the corner, he sees his house, his home, where he had felt scared and lonely for a long time. Then, a sudden anger started to well from within. “No one is going to stop me from surviving,” he said to himself. “I am going to run away.” Then, just like that, he turned around and walked to his friend Brandon’s house – I’ll never get hurt or feel scared again.”

After Squatter decided to run away, he felt powerful. He felt that for the first time in a long time he was doing whatever he wanted to do. He felt strong and in control. He felt free. He knew the abuse was over!

For a long time Squatter slept at different friends’ houses. But for a few exceptions, life was treating him well. He had to borrow his friends’ clothes and get a toothbrush. His friends helped him out in any way that they could. They all thought that Squatter was cool for running away. They were jealous of the freedom he had. When his friends’ parents grew suspicious and asked why he slept at their homes so often, he started to sneak into his friends’ bedroom windows late at night, after their parents had fallen asleep.

His plan worked until the night his friend Brandon’s mom came caught Squatter sleeping on her son’s floor. She started asking all kinds of questions including why he was sleeping on the floor again, and if he had run away? It was now a whole year since Squatter had run away, sleeping on the bedroom floor at homes of his friends.

Looking Brandon’s mom directly in the eyes he lied and said, “I got into a fight with my parents but I will go home now because they are probably worried about me.”

He knew that Brandon’s mom couldn’t call his mom because she didn’t have his home phone number. Squatter was glad because he didn’t want to go home. At the same time he knew that Brandon’s mom liked him. If she knew the truth, she would want to know everything. There would be too many questions. He didn’t want to explain his abuse to her. It was too painful. So he left Brandon’s house.

Squatter tried to think of another friend’s house that he could go too. He’d often slept at his friends Ryan’s house but now he was afraid to go there. He had told Ryan that he was sleeping at Brandon’s house that night so Ryan wouldn’t be listening for his knock on the window. He was probably already asleep. It was late. What if Squatter woke up Ryan’s parents? Squatter didn’t want another run in with a parent and so he decided to try to find a place to sleep outside.

The street was deserted and a cold breeze swept across it, sending shivers and a sense of fear through his body. Walking away from Brandon’s house, he thought of the nights that he had walked on those roads. He had been out this late many times, but it felt different now that he had nowhere to go. For the first time since he ran away Squatter felt homeless.

He decided to try and sleep in the park. He had skateboarded in the park many times and it almost felt like a second home. He walked past a man out walking his dog and said “hello.” Squatter felt very lonely and thought how it was weird that the man had no idea that he was a homeless kid. He wished he had brought a jacket because the cold air was making his body shake. His stomach felt sick. Squatter hoped that it was just his nerves and not something that he ate because if he had to go to the bathroom there would be no way to get in this late at night.

He stood and stared at the park for a long time “Where can I sleep?” he thought. He tried one of the picnic tables but it was out in the open and he had no way to keep from being seen by the police. What would he tell a police officer if he was found? How would be explain being thirteen-years old and sleeping in the park?” Finally, he lay under the picnic table. The cement was cold and hard but it was better than sleeping on the wet grass, and he wished he had a blanket to cover up with. He wanted to cry but fought back. The, quite suddenly, he realized that no one was there to hear him anyway.

He realized he was completely alone and had nowhere to go. “Strong” he whispered, “be strong.” But, the tears just wouldn’t stop. He tried to go to sleep but couldn’t because he would stir at the every little sound. He was scared. Then he worried about waking up to a policeman’s flashlight, shinning right into his face. What would Squatter tell him?

Or, what if someone would find and hurt him while he was sleeping? Who would hear his cries for help?

Finally, he went to sleep behind a bush. It was a bit muddy, but it blocked some of the wind and made him feel a little safe. But, it was hardly perfect. He kept swatting at the branches that rubbed against his arms and face because they felt like bugs. Fearful of a spider that might climb up on his neck, he pulled his ship up against his face. He was pretty well covered on one side, thanks to the bush, but the wooden fence behind him didn’t offer much protection. There were some gaps between the boards, and the sidewalk was right on the other side of the fence, where someone might easily see him.

Every time a car drove by, he would listen to make sure that it didn’t stop. He thought about his friends sleeping safely, under the warm blankets in their rooms. He hadn’t thought that running away would be like this. He wished that he was safe or had some way to make himself invisible. As he pulled his shirt closer to his face he wondered how he was ever going to survive if he had to live like this?

No matter how hard he tried, Squatter could not stay awake all night. Now, in the early morning light he could see that he was muddy. “There would be questions,” he thought to himself. He also began to worry that he smelled bad and so he decided to skip school that day. He didn’t eat anything the whole day. All day, Squatter just waited for his friends to get home from school. He was hungry. When Brandon got home he asked Squatter where he had spent the night. Brandon was concerned. The mud was still on Squatter’s back and he looked really tired.

Squatter was embarrassed by his homelessness. When the STANDUP FOR KIDS club member had talked to his class, he never thought that he would be homeless, yet now he was. To get Brandon off his back, he lied and said that he’d slept at Ryan’s house.

Ryan came over to Brandon’s house later that day. Brandon realized Squatter’s lie when Ryan asked Squatter why he wasn’t at school that day. Brandon questioned Squatter repeatedly about where he had slept. “Squatter where did you sleep when you left my house? Where did you sleep when you left my house?”

Finally, Squatter broke down and admitted that he had slept in the park. Brandon and Ryan no longer envied the freedom Squatter had from running away. Now, they looked at him angrily. “Are you serious?” they asked. “Squatter, go home! Don’t be stupid!”

Squatter wanted to cry. They didn’t know that he really wanted to have a home to go to, but he felt he didn’t have one where he would be safe. He had run away to escape the abuse and he was not going back to it. He was not going to let that man abuse him anymore. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he wasn’t going back home!

The weeks now turned into months, and Squatter was still sleeping on the streets. He stopped going to school and even began to dislike hanging out with his best friends. It was a nuisance waiting all day for them to get out of school. Besides, he felt he lived in a different world from that of his friends. Brandon and Ryan were always complaining about how their parents bothered them. They asked too many questions. When will you be home? Where are you going?

Squatter knew his parents weren’t even looking for him!

“And, Mr. Mike gives us too much homework.” Squatter wished that he had the luxury of worrying about homework. Instead he was worried about when he would eat next, if he got any, and if his blanket was safe at where he hid it.

Oftentimes, when he went skateboarding with his friends he would secretly look for places that he could return to and sleep at night. Squatter hoped that things would get better but it seemed like they were only getting worse. After more than a year on the streets he decided to go to the big city where he thought there would be more people like him. Maybe he could find some help?

The night before he planned to leave, Squatter asked Brandon if he could have some of his clothes? Brandon became really worried when Squatter told him of his plans. Brandon threatened to call Squatter’s mom if he left.

Squatter didn’t want to go home, so he lied, convincing Brandon that he wouldn’t leave. That night, while Brandon slept, Squatter took some of his best friend’s clothes. He felt bad about taking them, and wrote Brandon a note saying that he was sorry. He took the old stuff that he knew Brandon didn’t wear anymore.

Squatter also needed a bag to carry the clothes. The only thing that Squatter saw was Brandon’s school backpack. Squatter really didn’t want to take it but he needed it. Then he thought, “Brandon’s mom would buy him a new one.” He told Brandon in the note that someday he would pay him back. Just as he started to climb out of the window Squatter remembered something. Even as the thought entered his mind he wished it hadn’t. Brandon had saved $100 to buy a new skateboard!

Brandon did have an old board, so if Squatter knew that if he took the money Brandon could still skate. He thought that Brandon would understand that he needed the money for a bus ticket so he took the $100 from the dresser drawer and left through the window.

Early the next morning Squatter was on a bus to San Diego. It would take him a day and a half to get there but he didn’t mind. He wasn’t even excited to get to San Diego. In truth, he was really scared because he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. When the bus got a flat tire in the middle of the night everyone else was angry and upset. Passengers were complaining that they were going to miss a connecting bus or that their families were going to have to wait for them. But, Squatter wasn’t angry – in fact, he seemed happy. He wished that he could sit on the bus for a long time. When it started to rain he was happy that he had a warm, dry place to sleep. Now, all of a sudden, he was terrified to be going to San Diego. What would happen to him when he got there?

The next day, Squatter arrived in San Diego. He hid the backpack under some boxes beneath a bridge close to downtown. Then he walked around looking for a place to eat. When he got back, he discovered that someone had cleaned out all the garbage from under the bridge and the backpack was gone. Squatter couldn’t believe it. Everything, everything was in that backpack. He had stolen it from his best friend so that he would be prepared for the streets and now it was gone! He had betrayed the trust of his friend for nothing!

That night, as he curled up into a ball on the cold ground, he thought long and hard about why and how he had become homeless. What had he done wrong? He’d run away from home because he didn’t want to be abused anymore. It wasn’t his fault that he was being abused – he’d done nothing wrong! He thought of how he was too embarrassed and ashamed to talk to anyone about his problems. As he lay under the bridge, cold, tired and lonely, he wished that he’d told Mr. Mike or Bandon’s mom that he needed help. Sure, he would have been very uncomfortable – it was such a difficult thing to tell anyone or admit to, needing help, the abuse – but at least things would have started to get better.

Lying there, he realized that now more than any time before, he really had no one to go to for help. He was alone in a strange city and he didn’t know anyone. No one knew who he was; no one knew where he was. He couldn’t get a job. How was he going to get money? He had to have money so he could eat!

He really had nothing except for his empty wallet. It was then that he remembered that he still had the resource card from the Don’t Run Away presentation! Squatter pulled out the card and looked at it for a long time.

I’ll call one of the numbers,” he thought. Still, it was terrifying for him as he wondered the “what’s going to happen to me” question. He wanted things to change. He knew he couldn’t go on with the way things were now. He knew that only he could change this situation, it was up to him to make it better.

He looked around at his surroundings, at the bridge, cold, gray and tall over his head, at the dirt he was sitting on. This isn’t what he was hoping for when he ran away from his abuser.

As he stared at the phone numbers, he knew he was making the right choice. Yes, it was going to be tough, but he knew his life would be getting better. So, Squatter decided he would face all of his problems head-on. He would no long hide or remain quiet. He would never tolerate anyone abusing him again; he would never again feel the way he felt now.

If the problem got to big for him to handle alone, then he was going to ask for help. “I should have done that a long time ago,” he thought.

He was going to call one of the numbers and ask them to help him get back home. Maybe he could start by telling his mom?

1.800.365.4KID

runaway@standupforkids.org