I almost feel as if every single day, I learn more from being around children than I ever have being around anybody else. Today was just one of many days where I really had to take a step back and really assess how I try to solve life's problems. Thought this was a great learning lesson for me and I hope it can bring a smile to your face, it sure did for me :D
Today as I was picking up my second group of kids from their half day kindergarten class, the three kids that I picked up were all trying to get into the van. A boy and a girl were starting to get into an argument because they wanted to get into the van first, and they just couldn't come to an agreement. The third child, a girl, started to get annoyed and told them, "You guys are always fighting! Just get into the van!"
As we all piled into the van, the two kids now argued about something different. The first girl was arguing with the boy about a time when she had yelled at him because he wasn't listening to her, while the boy was telling the girl that it was actually the day before yesterday, which once again (*sigh*) CAUSED ANOTHER ARGUMENT... :/
Well, the third girl started to take initiative by stating to the other girl, "Since you guys keep arguing, I decided I don't want to play with you because you're not being nice to one another." This immediately made the girl upset and said that she really wanted to play with her. So, in order to get her to have the opportunity to play she said that the BOTH had to apologize to one another. The boy started by saying, "I'm sorry." The ringleader (the girl NOT in the argument) said that he wasn't being specific enough, so the boy emphasized by saying, "I'm sorry that I yelled at you."
The other girl said, "Thank you," and then said, "I'm sorry too for arguing with you." To finish off the compromise, the ringleader said that when you guys start arguing, you guys need to talk about what they are upset about first before they start arguing again. And if that doesn't work, then they need to apologize, which is exactly what happened. To finally end this, she stated, "See, now you guys can be nice to each other again and now I can play with you both!"
In all honesty, this is kind of my recollection of what happened today, so it isn't completely accurate ;). But it really put a smile on my face, and helped me to realize how fortunate I am to learn just as much from children as I try to teach them.
*ON A SIDE NOTE!*
I think my storytelling skills are improving because today I was trying to read a book to a few children (four to five years old), and they were very interested into what I was reading. The group was fairly large about 17 kids, and I first started off with about 5 kids, which wasn't bad at all considering the rest of the children were quietly reading to themselves. As the story started to pick up, more children started to come to the group and were interested in hearing the story. In about 5 minutes, I had the whole group around wanting to hear the story! I was even able to get through two picture books without too much problems, except the children kept insisting that they couldn't see the book, which was obviously wrong because the were RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME :P!
Just though I'd share a little bit of joy into each of your lives so hopefully you too can find something to smile about :)!
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