Mentoring – helping parents understand

But I don’t think that my parents coming to our school are different than other parents.  I just think that I’m the person who has to be that constant reminder that that’s what 3 year olds do. That’s what they do.  Do you see what he’s doing?  Whatever it is, there was a little boy swinging really, really, really high and he says to the kid next to him, “Aren’t you glad you’re my friend.”  So then I get to remind that parent, I’d say, “Did you hear him?  Do you hear how egocentric he still is?”  That’s what kids do.  In fact I have to tell you a wonderful story about helping a parent understand.  There was a little boy who had a bowl of soda and vinegar and it was about this big and about this deep and I could tell by the look on his face that he was going to do something with it.  I said, “Do you have a plan for that?”  And he’s kind of edgy sometimes.  And I say, “Do you have a plan for that?”  And he said, “ I’m looking for Michael.”

He’s looking for another kid.  And so he walked, and I walked right beside him and I never left his side.  I never, never said anything.  I just stayed with him.  Finally he turned around and looked at me and he put it down.  He was going to dump it on Michael.  What I did was I helped him hold the line.  Another parent said to me, “Beth, what were you doing?”  I said, “I was helping him hold the line.”  He didn’t know.  He was going to cross over the line and without embarrassment, without humiliation, without timeout, without being punitive, I helped him hold the line.  He figured out well, that’s something I can’t do.  But I think we have to help parents know.  I think again people are always asking about discipline.  You have to understand what that brain can’t do.  The brain can’t think about consequences.  That brain can’t think of alternatives.  We say to kids, use your words.  Well when we say that that would be an alternative to what they’ve just done and they don’t have that ability yet.  So we have to be there with our support but we have to support parents.  What I do I think I do that better at school than I do, especially at the beginning of the year, then I do even in workshops.  I say to parents, see what he’s doing, that’s what 4 year olds do.  That’s what they do.  What he’s trying to figure out is this.  He’s trying to belong.  He doesn’t quite know how to do that yet.  He’s going to take a lot of missteps and we’re going to support him but we’re also going to help other kids say, you know, I don’t want you to do that.

The lovely thing that I do is if one kid should hit another kid, one of the things that I say to the child who’s been hit, if you don’t want his hand on your arm you need to tell him.  Not use your words.  Not screaming at the kid who hit but just that if you don’t want his hand on your arm.  Then if it continues, they say well what if he keeps doing it?  Then I say, “I heard him say he doesn’t want your hand on his arm.”  But you have to think is how you would want to be treated and that’s how I would want to be treated.  The greatest lessons that I have ever learned in my life as an adult and as a child is when somebody nudged me.  Not embarrassed me but somebody stood close and nudged me a little bit.  And that’s what you have to be.  You’ve got to know you can’t hurt other people.  You can’t destroy property.  But the rules in our school are very, very, very clear.  You’ve got to play.  You’ve got to run.  You’ve got to make friends.   You’ve got to fight with friends.