I am surrounded by good friends. Some of my friends, we don’t see eye to eye on everything. I know that might come as a surprise to you. I’m sure you agree with everything your spouse says, your family says, and your friends. Alas, I don’t. I have taken some big risks in my lifetime to take up for people who could not necessarily take up for themselves. I would not change a thing.
The values you learned as a child are part of who you are today. I have learned from my research into social emotional behavior, that by the time you are a teenager, you have either developed these skills or you have not. Here is what one website says: Social-emotional development provides the foundation for how we feel about ourselves and how we experience others. This foundation begins the day we are born and continues to develop throughout our lifespan. The greatest influence on a child’s social-emotional development is the quality of the relationships that he develops with his primary caregivers. Positive and nurturing early experiences and relationships have a significant impact on a child’s social-emotional development. They also influence how the young child’s brain develops.
Many people who are now adults, did not grow up this way. They grew up in broken homes and were often verbally abused. They are not comfortable in their own skin because they do not have the coping mechanisms needed to process the challenges that life brings. Often they feel threatened by others and have a hard time thinking that anyone is going to help them just to be nice. These were the types of parents I worked with for many years.
They have pushed their troubled childhood way down inside their souls, and it eats at them. They are angry and sometimes have turned to the same skills they learned growing up, which is verbal abuse. They look for hidden messages because that’s how they learned. One mother I worked with several years ago had a very difficult time getting out of this cycle. She had little money left in her pocket one night after a conference at school, so I gave her bus money. I looked her in the eye and said, pay me back when you can. I did that because I knew she would not want to “owe” me anything. It wasn’t for me that I said that. I knew she was mad she needed help.
Her little boy, “M”, was in my class. He came to school the next day and said something I did not allow in my class. I allowed a lot of things to pass by my ears as I understood the background of the neighborhood, but this one I did not. He used the “N” word. The first time I heard him, I let it go, because he was halfway across the room and perhaps I misheard. The second time he said it, I caught him loud and clear right next to me, so he couldn’t deny it. I would not have cared if he had uttered an expletive, but that, I would not allow. All the children in my class were the same color, but it didn’t matter to me. All of the children did not need to use that word. I wrote a little note to M’s mom kindly explaining that word was not to be used in my class. It was derogatory, and I was building the children up, not tearing them down.
The next day, sure enough, in marches this mad momma. She has M by the collar of his shirt and he is looking down at his little feet. She makes him look at me and says tell her what you said. He won’t make eye contact. He mumbles a word. I ask him what and crouch down to hear him as I always make eye contact. He looks at me and in that moment, I knew he hated what he was about to say because it was a lie. He opens his mouth and said “Snicker. I said Snicker.” Oh, hmm, okay then. I looked the mom directly in the eye. I let her know it is good he didn’t say the other word, because I want all children to think highly of themselves. She marches into the office and next thing I know, M is having his last day in my class.
He still came to see me. The whole rest of the year. At Christmas, he brought me this tattered bear from his own home. His mother came in later. She said quite simply, he loves you and misses you. I’m sorry for what happened. I hugged her. The truth is, I always knew she was sorry. I knew she was hurt by things out of her control, but I was an easy target at that moment. I would forgive. Forgiveness comes easy when you can see the pain in the other person. Working in that school, surrounded by pain, I learned to be thankful for everything I had. It also became one of the reasons I didn’t really like Christmas presents. But that story is for another day.
