𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐣𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐞𝐠𝐨 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫?

A couple of days ago I was in admin and found a child being grounded heavily for not having wanted to change their place (after talking) and then throwing his water bottle to the floor after the discussion with the teacher.
I heard everyone talking and calling the parents and it was made a big deal of.

Then I saw the boy and how his eyes filled with tears. So I took him away from all the noise into calm and sat opposite him and spoke to him in a calm voice and asked him why the tears were rolling down.

He told me, “Because they are calling my parents.”
I asked him why that was so bad.
He said, “I don’t know.”
I could feel that he was not scared of the reaction of the parents, but rather he didn’t want to disappoint them. So I let go of that track and calmed him down.

I asked him if he would like to tell me his side of the story. And he did.
I told him, “You know, there are only two reasons that I see why you didn’t want to change your place.
Either you are so comfortable in your own that you don’t want to go anywhere else,
or you had a real issue with the person sitting next to you in the new place.”

He told me that he really doesn’t like the girl and didn’t want to sit next to her at all. So I understood… could be a broken heart, could be a bullying thing .. could be anything…

He told me, “I even told the teacher if I could sit somewhere else.”
He offered an alternative. He didn’t dismiss the teacher’s order.

Instead of wondering why he didn’t want to sit there and feeling his distress about the other student (whatever the reasons to that story may be)… instead of respecting the distress about the relationship with the other student (or even trying to learn about it), the teacher interpreted it as defiance and the discussion started.

He tried to protect his feelings and distress and even offered a solution that would have worked. The problem was not her order to change place, but to where…

And when he felt cornered he threw the bottle on the floor. Not the most elegant solution, I agree, and not one to be encouraged… but I understand it. When noone wants to listen to you no matter how hard we try to make ourselves heard … frustration kicks in.

So the teacher goes to the mom and tells her, “He is the student. He has to do what I say and there is no discussion. And I will be very hard with him now.”

You see, I have a problem with this approach.

Who are you? Who are you, that your words are the infallible ones?
What are you teaching this child?

Yes, you are an authority figure. But a leader doesn’t impose.
A real leader gets the attention of those they lead through trying to understand them and their needs and being flexible and doing what’s best for the team… in your case, for the entire staff and the class.

You could have avoided hours of admin work and a disruption of the class … all of which cost 20 other students learning time …

All that was needed was to simply ask for the reason why he didn’t want to change his seat to that place, and then accommodate the child’s need. You are not losing your authority… because he DID change place. Just to a different one.

𝑆𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑏𝑖𝑔𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑒𝑔𝑜 𝑔𝑜𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙-𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑜𝑢𝑡.

And it is very frustrating for me when I see that teachers and parents don’t even try to understand their child’s motivations.

Either they don’t try to listen… or they pretend to listen, but all they listen for is just to respond, not to understand.

𝐍𝐨𝐰, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧?
That his needs are not important.
That his voice is not important.
Because neither the teacher nor the parent asked why he did what he did.

I spoke to the mom a couple of days later. She is a lovely woman and very open and told me that she made the mistake of not even listening. She opened up about the struggles at home. A lovely home, and they do a lot for their children… and they do many things right. But when you parent a child with ADHD and giftedness… it’s not always the easiest path of parenting.
We talked for an hour and agreed on working together as a team so her son will get the support he needs.

Parenting and teaching children that think differently is stressful and as adults we have our ups and downs. And we do get triggered and we do lose our patience.
But that is OUR problem, not theirs. It’s on US to not let that bleed onto others that are not involved in our own issues.
They can trigger, but we have to know how to handle triggers for oursleves.

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐘𝐎𝐔

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𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫:
Our ego has no place when we deal with children.
Because ego is the part of us that desperately wants to avoid:

being wrong, losing control, seeming weak, feeling disrespected, feeling powerless, feeling like “the child won”

But here is the truth, whether you like it or not ….
We 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 be wrong,
We 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 lose control,
We 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 be weak,
We 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 be powerless,
And other people 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 win over us… 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧.

One day a teacher came to me and told me how she had majorly screwed up her English lesson by explaining a whole grammar lesson wrong, and asked me how to hide it so she wouldn’t lose face in front of her students.

I just looked at her and was like… “Huh? What do you mean?
Oooh, I will tell you what you will do…
You will leave your ego at the door, right there, and go into that class and tell them, ‘I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened that day. Apparently my mind was somewhere else. I mis-explained a whole thing. We all make mistakes. Please erase all of it and we’ll start new.’”

𝐻𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡?
𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑?

She did that and the students respected her even more in the end. And whenever they made mistakes now, they said,
“𝑊𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠, 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑜𝑘, 𝐼’𝑙𝑙 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟.”

When I myself screw up… I just walk around and say, “Yep, I did. Watch me and learn.” and I own it.
(In the sense of: watch and learn that this is NOT how to do it, or watch and learn how to deal with it gracefully… screw up, repair, and continue life. Noone died, so we are all fine!)

Self-acceptance that we are not infallible … and that it’s ok, because no one is, no matter how much we would love to make ourselves believe that … and then modelling the right way of dealing with screw-ups…

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 is strength. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 is resilience. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 is grit.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 is how you teach children.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡, 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐬, 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬?
𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭

Do you remember how your English teacher explained the present progressive?
I don’t. I just use it.

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐝𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 … 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 …
𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥.

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When we as grown-ups were raised in systems where obedience was the only marker of a “good classroom,” and then a child comes along and challenges a request … like that child did … even for a valid reason… many adults don’t see communication; they see a threat.

𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑔𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜
𝑎𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒, 𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒… 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒 “𝐼 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑛” 𝑚𝑜𝑑𝑒.

𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐬… 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐧. 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝.
𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐇 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞.

Because at that moment…

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑒𝑔𝑜.

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭.