Thoroughly enjoyed this essay.

I used to tutor a little girl with autism who would hit me right in the face as well. Like you said, there was no malice in it - I think she just liked my look of surprise. But when she did it in class (I shadowed her at school) all the other kids started crying (the little tykes loved me). She never did it again after that, and I'll never understand why, and I'll always be grateful.

Another kid, age 3, lunged forward and bit me. This was when "water bras" were all the rage and I'd just gotten one from Victoria's secret (now I love my little 32bs, but back then, I wanted more). Anyway my manager was watching our session, and had told me, "if he gets physical, bites you or hits you, you can't react. Just pretend nothing happened." So kid lunges forward and takes a massive bite of my "breast" (it was all water bra) and holds on for a minute, and I keep my face completely impassive. My manager was duly impressed and I think it contributed to me getting "tutor of the year" at our end of the year party. Hooray for water bras.

Not sure why I felt like telling you those stories, except that in the first moments after one of those kids hurt me physically, I always felt a blind rage. Good thing I have slow reflexes. My conscious mind always stopped me when I wanted to smack them back.