Today was challenging in a different way. I only had five kids, but we ran into a few problems. It all started okay, but got worse as the day went on.
I had four boys and one girl today. Early in the day, I noticed that the girl was not wanting to play the games with us. She kept sitting off to the side, and I always had to tell her to come and join us. I thought she was just upset because she was the only girl, but I started to sense that there was more to it than that. I decided to let her sit out of the soccer game and talk to her a little to see what was wrong.
As soon as I asked her if she was okay, tears rolled down her cheeks. I tried to ask her what was wrong, but she only wiped her tears and turned away. So I just sat with her and hugged her. I tried to get her to talk several times, but she wouldn’t say anything. I could see that this is a girl that is really hurting, and she is scared.
I just sat with her, hand on her knee, and watched the game in silence. Throughout the day, I gave her hugs and asked her how she was, but I never got an answer. I asked if I could pray for her, but she said no, so I prayed quietly in my heart.
Later, before going to class, two of the boys started fighting. I had to physically separate them and make them sit at different trees. One of the boys likes to pick fights, but the other boy is usually one of my best kids. He is very polite and helpful, but he is also very sensitive to comments and teasing. So when the other boys tease him at all, he gets very angry and defensive. He doesn’t usually hit, but makes a lot of threats.
He was very upset about getting in trouble for something he didn’t start. He refused to do anything, and only sat pouting by the tree. So now I had to figure out how to resolve this so that we could actually have a decent class.
Before we started our lesson, I had all of the kids sit down, and I asked them each what happened. I told them that their fighting affects the whole group, and that we would not continue until they both apologized. They did, and we continued the class without any more fighting. I still had a hard time getting them to listen and participate though. The whole day was just a struggle, but we got through it.
