Patience and Compassion

Each year, our school welcomes around 300 new kindergarten students. Since I teach guidance classes to the entire student body of around 1000 children, I'm responsible for trying to deal with the behaviors and misbehaviors of every student in our building. With kindergarten, I always go to the first guidance class "green", not knowing much about who can sit still and listen and who can't. It can be a little daunting for those first couple of weeks of each school year!

Well, there are several children this year who have major behavior problems. Some will probably end up getting extra services, but since this takes time, they're in a regular class with twenty-something other children and one teacher trying to make the best of the situation. One particular little boy has extreme difficulty paying attention and letting other children learn. At my first class with him, he had the benefit of an assistant sitting with him to help him attend. This was only a short-term solution, though, as we tried to help him acclimate to school. The second time I went to his class, I knew I'd be on my own and felt a little nervous about handling things appropriately.

The child stayed in his spot, and although he made lots of noises and played with a stuffed animal, the other children were very adept at ignoring him and focusing on me. Since the little boy was obviously trying and seemed to enjoy his "pet", I decided to let him be one of the 5 students chosen to hold a puppet during my story. I knew this was risky, as he could act too silly and loud with it, but I wanted to reward his efforts at staying in our group.

The little boy chose an eagle puppet, and although I had to remind him a couple of times to keep the eagle still and quiet instead of flying him around and squawking, he soon settled down, sucked his thumb, and paid good attention to our story.

At the end of class while I was packing up to leave, he brought me his puppet, as instructed. I thanked him for taking such good care of Eddie Eagle, and he looked at me with huge brown eyes and wrapped both arms around me in a sideways hug. As he turned to go back to his seat, he came back and hugged me again. Then he walked a couple of steps toward his seat, turned around again, looked in my eyes, and gave me a thumbs up. I actually felt tears spring into my eyes, knowing that we'd bonded and that things would be better from here on out.

I asked the teacher discreetly whether she thought it would be a good idea for this child to get to hold a puppet every time since it seemed to mean so much to him. She said yes, and that she thought his peers would understand and not be jealous that he got to hold one EVERY time. As I left, this little boy held the door for me, and we discussed swimming, fishing, and going to the ocean to surf and catch sharks. I felt so happy as I walked back to my office, grateful for the patient teachers and compassionate children in this world!