Lesson learned, by the, teacher, in the interactions he has with the school children, translated…
As school is out, waiting for the parents to pick up their young, I’d passed the tuitions collected inside an envelope to the older sister of a pair of young siblings, and, the younger brother’s hand reached for it to grab the envelope, neither refusing to budge. Out of reflex, I’d said, “the older, why don’t you let your younger brother have it?”, she’d gazed at me with those, innocent eyes, and, let go, unwillingly; and the younger brother who got his way gloated, cunningly, grabbed a hold of the, envelope.
The little girls who were watching the interactions, all started getting loud, and of them, the oldest girl, extended that hand in empathy, patted the girl on her shoulders, told her, “I totally get it, I completely, do!”
That stunned me a bit, with that apologetic mean, I’d looked over at the young girl, and, curiously asked the girl who’d patted her classmate’s shoulders, “aren’t you the youngest? How could you understand what she was going through? Don’t all your sister let you have the things that you wanted?” “No! Whenever my younger cousins came over, I’d had it, coming!”, she’d given me a response that I never expected to hear. Then, all around us, the words came coming at us, “Yeah, not only did we have to let the younger kids have our toys, when the older kids come by, the adults tell us, ‘older brother doesn’t come here all the time, just let him have it.’ There are, more toys than one, and yet why did he have to want to play with the one I’m playing with?”, can’t believe, that the envelope with the tuition caused a ton of upsets, all rushing out like the waterfalls.
Or maybe, it’s because we’d been adults, too long, we’d forgotten, how it’d felt being, taken; or maybe, because of the busyness of life, we’d hoped to, swiftly, get through the nitty-gritty, the unimportant matters, using our self-righteous fairness, but rough ways, to resolve the issues between the young children, disregarding, how everybody is a complete being, that being this careless can, cause someone to feel, hurt, or even, damaged.
I’d watched the group of young children in silence, and, skimmed every face, and came to understand, that hidden underneath all these innocent faces, there were, the icebergs of their own, separate, emotions. I’d felt really awful, that in the moment’s time, I’d only cared about the younger boy’s emotions, and not paid enough attention to the older girl’s, I didn’t know how I can, effectively, help the young girl who’s an older sister who probably, felt, hurt.
Or maybe, I could, give the envelope with the tuition to the older girl while her younger brother still sat in class. Or maybe, I should wait until the parents arrived, then, hand off the bag, instead of having the kids, take the envelopes home to give to their, parents. Or maybe I should, put their separate tuitions in separate, envelopes, and hand it to them separately……………but, too late, I shouldn’t keep going now, shouldn’t blame myself too much. Or maybe, I should, allow these, tiny, upsets to, ferment in the minds of these kids, to saturate on their, own. Or maybe, that’s the price that every child must pay, in order, to, become, adults.
And so, this just showed, how the careless act of the adult can easily, DAMAGE a young child, and as adults, we are usually, too, careless, not paid enough attention to the children’s feelings, because most of times, we have our own problems that we’re having troubles dealing with on our own, so, these things, they happen, and, we don’t get our, do-overs in them.
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