THE CRYING BOY

In comes a little boy with tears in his eyes and crying out for his mom at every moment possible. It's a summer camp with loads of children present and the teacher takes an immediate liking to the crying bundle. She holds him in her arms and slowly, after whispering soothing words in his ears, the poor child's sobs begin to subside. Now here comes the funny part. The sobs subside to such an extent and he begins to enjoy himself so much that he begins to disrupt the enjoyment of the other children. He smiles and laughs at all the wrong things and thinks that by saying sorry everything will be fine. Well, his mother has played a wonderfully important role in that sphere. He turns out to be an attention seeker and it becomes obvious to the teachers that he doesn't have a stable atmosphere at home.
But the teachers love him a lot eventhough he can be a total headache at times. His stubbornness is amazing and annoying! The child has not been taught how to sit quiet and that comes from the fact that the parents have given in to everything that he wanted. Giving too much at too young an age goes a long way in harming the children. He is so used to constant entertainment that it becomes rather trying at times to make him sit quietly.
Then the other day, something happened and the teachers understood perfectly why the child was the way he was. His mother came in and wanted to see his drawing sheet. Unlike other children, his drawing sheet was nothing but a riot of many colours running astray. It was not a pretty sight to see and the mother was very disappointed when she saw that. Then she asked the teachers about him and they told her honestly how he behaved in class. Then something happened which was rather sad. The mother made the child stand up on a chair and told him to say sorry to everyone and said that he needs to be insulted to improve and the teachers thought to themselves....how wrong can a person think? The child felt very bad and it showed. It's amazing how the feelings of self respect and pride are present in us from this tender age itself. He downright refused to say sorry and ended up crying. Later on it came to be known that he did indeed have an unstable atmosphere at home. He was caught between constant fights and what was the child to do? He will be nothing but a reflection of what he sees around himself and hence came the violent side.
But the teachers were not ready to give up on him. There was an extremely sweet and caring side to the child and they would do all they could to help him. What the child needed was a lot of love and care. That is why he had become an attention seeker. He needed love and was using any means possible to get the attention. Poor child.

Then the teachers, me and my friend, decided not to get angry with him anymore. Today we decided to love him more than usual and see his reaction. Whether he would listen to us or not was a challenge. It was difficult, very difficult. The child himself had no idea how many barriers he has put around himself. But today was a test of our patience too and we did win.
When he was disrupting the work of the other children, I called him close to me and after telling him 4-5 times that he is a good boy and he won't do anything bad, he finally nodded and said ok. He is such a sweetheart! After that he did everything we said. It isn't a great achievement but for me it was. It was lovely to see him happy and quiet without harming other children. What a heart warming sight!
Today was a lovely day because of this incident and I wanted to share it with you all.