Rebuilding Friendships: Molding Clay and Letting Go of Boulders

A few ago when I was the head of High Meadows School, I was walking the halls of the early childhood building and heard something extraordinary.

A teacher was seated on the floor outside of her classroom with a young student. From what I could glean, the student was not getting along well with one of his classmates. 

"She keeps bumping into me and she knows she's doing it," said the student. "She did it last year too and it makes me mad."

After guiding the student to think of his own strategies to improve the relationship, he sat quietly. "Are you OK with this?" asked the teacher. "Something tells me that you're not."

Her heartfelt sensitivity to the child's feelings opened him up right away. "I just don't think it's going to stop," he said.

"Do you know what it means to forgive?" the teacher asked. "I like to think of people as lumps of clay. We can be molded and changed, and we are never the same. It's possible to change and be different shapes over time. So if you give her time and space, you might notice that she has grown and changed too."

The student sat quietly, pondering what his teacher had just said. Sensing that she needed to go a bit further with him, the teacher said, "You know, bad feelings about someone can weigh on your heart like a boulder. It can actually make you keep feeling angry if you don't let go of that heavy boulder."

What a lesson! The teacher, demonstrating natural intuition and compassion, engaged the student's trust as he shared with her his honest feelings. She guided him in coming up with his own strategies. She then used metaphor, a powerful teaching tool, to illustrate the nature of change and the ill-effects of holding on to resentments.

I hope the outcome is as strong as the lesson, but the lesson itself will stay with this student for a long time. I know it will stay with me.

A Diary of an Angst-Ridden Kid

With the excavation of adolescent angst inscribed below, I offer you a personal peek behind the veil that separates teenagers from the rest of us. Lest you judge me too harshly, I assure you that I have successfully worked through the multiple issues described herein. Mostly. Here goes:

Unlike heterosexual boys today, “getting” a girlfriend was my highest priority. And, hey, a four-year age difference is nothing when you're in your forties:

I had an above-average self image back then. Thankfully, my artistic talent gave me an outlet:

Of course, my "competitors" looked like a cross between Han Solo and David Hasselhoff:

It still baffles me that a girl would react adversely to a greasy-haired stalker wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt:

Needless to say the old "Do-you-have-a-sister-named-Denise" trick never worked for me:

So I guess I peaked at 13, and it's all been downhill ever since. Isn't that the way it is for most of us? 

How to Help Children Navigate Hard Realities

Originally posted in August 2017

When I was a kid, school was lockstep-simple. I had no idea that the economy was tanking, that the Vietnam War had left an indelible scar on society, that the Cold War was simmering and creating fear all around me. That racial strife and social injustice were alive and well, despite how I was taught that Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King had fixed all of that.

Things are different today. News is inescapable. It’s delivered in a flow that is constant, ugly, and sound-bitten, and in social media venues that didn’t exist in the late ‘70s. All but our youngest kids (hopefully) are exposed to the realities of the world. Our instinct is to protect them, just as we were protected, but we really can’t. And even if we could, would that be the right way to raise them today—in blissful ignorance?

The answer is yes…and no.

5-year-olds need reassurance and comfort--they should be shielded from terrible facts they cannot possibly understand. They can learn to be compassionate, responsible, and active global citizens by creating and maintaining strong friendships. They can learn that there is a place called “the world,” where there are people just like them who are looking for the same things in life that they are. They can be empowered to be kind to everyone at all times, no matter what.

9-year-olds are entering the age of reason, and parents and teachers know that their children’s questions cannot be brushed aside. Though adults might not initiate a conversation about events such as the horrors in Charlottesville, they should be prepared to field a child’s questions honestly. They should invite children to reflect on why people hate and guide them to create ideas about how hate can be eliminated in this world. They should empower children to take action on those ideas with the promise that their action can really make a difference.

The adults in the lives of 13-year-olds should be truthful and direct with them. It’s reasonable to be open, even provocative. It is right to initiate a conversation about facts and morality. About what white supremacists believe, what they did in places like Charlottesville, and why they are wrong. To distinguish between empty rhetoric and words that inspire moral action. Most importantly, adults can help activate their innate propensity to be compassionate, responsible global citizens by encouraging them to take action to ensure that the evils of bigotry and hatred don’t take root in their own world.

Children of all ages today feel and know much more than we think, certainly more than we did in our day. We need to honor where they are developmentally and to take them seriously. Most importantly, we need to model for them—in our words and actions--what it means to be good and just.