The magic that happens when adults hear about other people’s children
I TEACH at a pre-K- 8 school, and it’s a big deal when our eighthgraders graduate. Each spring, I have an awards night for the graduating eighth- graders who have participated in at least two plays during their time at the school. It’s a little different from other awards ceremonies. We watch a slide show featuring pictures of each child in each production. The bulk of the evening is devoted to my reading a letter about each student focusing on the unique things that child has done - funny stories, favourite memories, moments where they displayed character. It’s a powerful night. I frequently have to stop several times and regain my composure. I almost always have to pass the tissue box around multiple times to the parents present.
I’ve done this since 2006, and almost every year I get comments from parents thanking me for seeing who their child is, really, beneath the layers of adolescent awkwardness, moodiness and immaturity.
But not all the emotion is from people hearing about their own kids. A lot comes from parents hearing about other people’s children, kids they didn’t know. Or kids they knew and didn’t like.
Then, inevitably, someone says something like this: “I have to admit I have not always thought very highly of some of these other kids. I didn’t want my child interacting with them. I realise now that there were other sides to these kids, positive things I didn’t see.” Often these statements contain a degree of regret. The parent misjudged, or misunderstood, and wrote the child off.
That’s natural, after all. Often a parent remembers a time when one of their child’s peers was mean or did something hostile or bullying. This tends to be the way the parent views that child from that point on.
Of course, that is the opposite of how most of us want to be treated. We claim the right to be defi ned by our entire selves, not one moment when we might have been agitated or upset.
Something magical - no, sacred - happens when adults hear details about other people’s children. They move past stereotypes and cliches and begin to see them as humans - complex, complicated, messy humans who have strengths as well as weaknesses, virtues in addition to vices. In other words, they start to see other people’s children with the same full perspective through which they see their own.
In over 30 years of directing and almost 20 of teaching, I cannot remember a child who did not have some redeeming virtue. Sometimes, to be sure, these diamonds were more deeply buried than others. Sometimes it took a great deal more skill and patience to unlock the treasure that existed. But it was always there.
When I could not see it, there was a good chance that the problem was my perspective. My assumptions. My own fl aws and weaknesses.
I have learned to extend grace, to offer a space in which I make no judgment. Or at least to hold open the possibility that the story I am seeing will be incomplete, even when a child seems to be aggravating or difficult. Especially when a child seems to be aggravating or difficult.
Children are, by defi nition, immature. They act impulsively. They make mistakes. They have very little judgment. They certainly have little experience to draw upon. This is why they aren’t allowed to drive or vote. It’s why there are laws about drinking and sexual consent. There are any number of ways we collectively recognize that these are not adults - even if they look grown up.
That’s not to say they should get away with everything. That’s unhealthy for our society and for the child. It is to say instead that no child is just one thing. Surely, if we followed any teen around we could find something for which to scold them. We would almost surely find something for which to praise them as well. One doesn’t negate the other.
Yes, teens speak without thinking. They are prone to exaggerate and act without balance or moderation. They can be reflexively unkind and hostile.
So, however, can adults.