On Being Small

Lillee (year 3) and Alyssa (kindergarten).

The kindergartener’s sobs grew steadily louder, and nothing would comfort her, let alone coax the reason for the tears out of her. From what I saw, nothing happened physically, and I didn’t hear anything. What on earth could it be? Finally, she calmed down enough to communicate, through deep sobs and monstrous crocodile tears, that the other kindergartener had called her small. I closed my eyes and sighed. Seriously?!  We had already lived through tears of stuff being taken by the other kindergartener, having to share the crayons, being tagged while playing tag, and a handful of other small incidents. Granted, it was all over a good period of time, but by this time I was tired of tears over such “simple matters,” and this in particular was not something I wanted to deal with. 

But wait a minute… How many times did I go home from school in tears because the other kids made fun of my height? How many times was I hurt and upset when random people in the grocery store thought I was five years younger than I actually was?

Too many times to count. What made this any different? Absolutely nothing. I could definitely understand her heartbreak and pain over what had been said. I took a deep breath, appreciated my parents all the more for their patience with me, and asked God to grant me some of that same patience. We calmed our distressed student down and assured her that no, she was not small, and the day went on.

Too cute not to share :)

This whole experience was during the first month of school.  The tears have become pretty much extinct now, though the accusations of being small haven’t quite disappeared. Just the other day as we were sitting down to story time, the same kindergartener sadly and very offendedly informed me that the other child had called her small.

“Gift, did you call Alyssa small?” I asked him, a stern expression on my face.
“Uh-huh!” he very gleefully replied, his face FULL of excitement, obviously very proud of what he had done.
“No Gift, that’s not nice.” I then impulsively added, “You’re small.”
“Me small, Alyssa big?” A look of complete shock replaced his previously excited expression, as if he could not possibly believe that he was small.
“Yes.”
He pouted and sat lower in his chair.

Gift (kindergarten), with his adorable
smile through missing teeth :)

Gift is our child who is just now learning English. I know that he knows the meanings of yes, no, time-out, and “what do you say (i.e. please, thank you)?” especially since he decided it was cool to tell me “no” when I asked him to do something. He is learning English fairly well, and sometimes I’m amazed at what he says and uses appropriately, but I’m not sure at times how much he really is understanding. So, to make my golden-rule “if you don’t like being called small, you shouldn’t call other people small” point, I turned it on him instead of trying to explain it to him in words I didn’t know would process correctly - I knew he would understand the few words that would make him feel just like he had just made Alyssa feel.

But was that the right thing to do? Was that even Christian of me? Did he understand it? Was it effective? Is that what Jesus would have done?  Was that being patient and loving? Would a simple time-out have been a better option?

I have no clue. No clue at all. I pray that I didn’t just ruin the boy’s life, and that he actually understood what I was trying to get across to him. 

Language barriers are difficult things and can be quite stressful, but thank goodness that God is bigger than every barrier and can defeat them for us.

Swimming class. Sitting on the sidelines because these two were sick
and couldn't swim that day....