With Jeannette Eisen and Susana Eisen
Edited by Lindy Wolf, email
Lindy
Parents at Rocky Mountain
There is an "explosion" at the snack table. Truro suddenly punches
Gabriel, who has just offered mischievously, “YOU ARE THREE!”
Gabriel, almost 6 years old, finally has Truro’s attention, which
Gabriel craves. Truro, red-faced with outrage at such blasphemy, punches
Gabriel again in the chest and shouts, “I am NOT, I’m FOUR!”
Tears are unusual for Truro but now his eyes fill up and accompany his rage.
Nicki, 5 years old, is taking this all in. The student vocational nurses,
here for a week to observe children, look on. Two of the seven attempt an
intervention and look to me for help. I am nearby when I hear the commotion,
and I move to position my body on a chair between the two boys.
I look at
the three of them. These three boys have
lately challenged the adults here with
their confrontations, conflicts, rejections,
and jockeying to "be
my friend.” Gabriel has “hooked” Truro with this tactic
and repeats, “You are NOT FOUR, you’re THREE, I KNOW!”
Truro, even more furious now, responds
with a lunge at Gabriel which I block
with my right arm. He shouts, “You’re
lying, you are a LIAR!”
I use my body instead of words to short-circuit
the hitting (I think of myself as a dancer).
Now I wonder what's behind the interaction.
I use such situations as teachable moments.
I reflect out loud to the nurses and others,
“Do you see how angry Truro is, and do you see how Gabriel keeps this
conflict going? I don’t understand it, but they keep this going for
some reason. Each child has his own agenda, conscious or otherwise.”
All along Nicki looks on, siding with Truro. I realize as I sit strategically
between the boys that as the teacher, I am the "container," holding
the space--making it safe for the expression of Truro's reactions and Gabriel’s
teasing.
I look up at the bulletin board which
has a list of our children’s
names and birth dates. I read out loud, “Truro, April 4, 1995, Nicki,
December 14, 1994, Gabriel, April 24, 1994." I ask Nick, Truro’s
father, who has been standing near the door silently observing the event,
for confirmation: “How old is Truro?” “He is four,”
he responds confidently. Gabriel taunts again with sureness and emphasis
on each word: “I know how old Truro
is, he is THREE!"
I know that whatever it takes to keep
the contact going, they will do. Contact
is what is so crucial for them. Gabriel
has been feeling vulnerable, often pushed
aside by Nicki and Truro. As for Nicki,
he has been securing an exclusive relationship
with Truro. He asked me the other day
to move his photograph on the shelf and
place it next to Truro’s. I did so immediately.
A few days before that Nicki asked me, “Could
Truro and I have one cubby?”
again cementing for himself this friendship.
(It is noteworthy to me that his father,
Ron, has a new fiancee and they plan to
marry.) I reply, “That
is something we will have to have a meeting
about.”
I am impressed
with the way he thought through two methods
to be closer to his friend. I am aware
how strong his desire is. I may not know
his agenda. I am clear that his learning
and growth process depend on my sensitivity
to such requests. By honoring children’s
ideas, I am helping them value their own
ideas and in this way develop a healthy
sense of themselves, so crucial for all
learning to build upon.
A few days later at morning circle, Nicki
asks again, “When can we
have the meeting about the cubbies?” I decide to address it in the
moment and call an all-school meeting. This is not only Nicki's business,
it is the business of the entire school. I feel we are each others' business.
In the discussion, other children voice their desire to switch cubbies as
well: Evan with Gabriel, Soleil with Ella. Marilu, Soleil’s mother,
says, “I’m against the change, I’m used to where all the
cubbies are.” Gaby, Ella’s mother, says, “At
the beginning of the year it took us a
long time to arrange the cubbies.”
This illustrates how every issue that
comes up has so many ramifications, and
I like to air the complexity of what goes
on in the school. For the child, "falling in love" with
a friend and wanting to share the same
cubby is important. For the mother, fearful
of yet another chore after she had figured
it all out at the beginning of the year,
making this change doesn't seem important
enough. I'm aware that nothing ever seems
to be settled. It's all in process. And
that's what I like about the work, that
everything is changing and becoming the
next thing.
My job is to cradle the children's needs,
the parents' needs, and my needs simultaneously.
To sit with all of it and value all of
it. It's important to me to not solve
their problem, to avoid "fixing" it.
By creating a forum for expression of
desire, indeed, for possible confrontations,
problems seem to evaporate. People are
heard and listened to, and we all yearn
for that. Oftentimes parents and teachers
fear emotional confrontations if they
do not have a ready solution in their
own mind. I enjoy going into the unknown,
and I have faith that the process addresses
the real needs of everyone: to be acknowledged,
to be seen, to be cared about, to be visible,
to be heard.
I'm not even sure how the switching cubbies
situation was resolved. What was important
was that the children's love, their caring,
was honored. The process is as interesting
to me as the end results.
I continue to sit with the three boys
and the nurses. I must be sure that the
children are in control. I muse out loud, “I wonder what this
is about, this happens so often, this conflict between the three of you.”
Gabriel says, “I know, they don't let me play with them, they just
want to play with each other.” Impulsively I lift Nicki off the table
and onto my lap; he has a "feeling good" smile on his face. He
is the trophy, after all. “Who do you want to play with?” I
ask each one. Truro says, “I want to play with Nicki,” Gabriel
says, “I want to play with Nicki.” I say, “This is like
the brown chair when each of you want it at the same time. Remember when
two people want the brown chair, I usually put it up on a shelf until you
figure it out? Nicki, today you are like the brown chair. How about if I
put you on the shelf until it's resolved?” We
all smile.
Nicki continues resting on my lap; he
seems to enjoy it. The rest of us stay
with the situation we have created. Our
conversation, our reflection, has taken
the charge out of it. Out of the blue
Truro comes up with a quarter and says, “I’ll throw the coin. If it’s heads, I will
play with Nicki, and if it's tails, Gabriel will play with Nicki.”
He seems very confident with his suggestion
for resolution. The coin is flipped, no
one objects. . . .
The triangle for the moment has disappeared.
A few days later, at the snack table again,
I overhear an excited conversation between
Nicki and Truro about marriage.
Nicki: “I want to be gay so I can
marry Truro.”
Truro: “A boy has to marry a girl
and a girl has to marry a boy.”
Between bites a song emerges from Truro:
”First comes marriage . . .
then comes love . . .
then comes a promise . . .
then comes the child . . .
then comes the maid . . .
then comes poop. . . . “
I remember a similar chant from when I
was a child. They continue playing with
the lyrics as they munch their cheese
sandwiches:
”Ron and Nicki on a tree . . .
P-R-I----I-N-G. . . .
First comes love . . .
then comes marriage . . .
then comes Ronnie with a baby carriage.
. . ."
Such are the ways children process and
master the world they live in. I so enjoy
witnessing, listening in.
I am clear that children can find the "medicine" they
need. I have faith that they know who
and what will satisfy their yearnings.
Often parents and teachers try to control
children's choices--for relationships,
materials, and activities. It's our job
to provide a safe environment for both
children and adults to express who they
are.
And what about Gabriel? He is feeling
his pain of exclusion and struggling to
cope. The adults are close by to be used
for leaning on, for his tears. A few days
later I observed him knocking down block
buildings, not his own. I held him in
that moment and inquired, "Who destroys your buildings?
Who hurts you?" He relaxed into my lap and offered an immediate reply,
"My brother beats me up all the time." "Oh," I thoughtfully
responded. "Does anybody stop him?"
"No."
"Should we have a meeting and invite your mom,
your dad, and your brother?" He was visibly relieved, "Yeah."
I realize that children’s stories may not always be factual. However,
just asking the questions already mitigates the issue and shows the child
that I’m interested in his life.
I know that through such intervention
this issue is on its way to resolution
in his mind as well as in mine. I have
neither ignored nor judged it. We opened
it up. So often we feel confused and ignorant
of how to be present with so-called negative
emotions. How to move from separation
and stuckness to reconnection and balance.
The goal is to embrace it all--to make
a practice of taking care of each situation
as it arises and say, "Thank you for
coming up now, I can look you in the face and use this opportunity so I
don't replicate it in my next interaction." We have many invitations
to deal with our own reactions, impulses, fears, and vulnerabilities. We
learn to move, dance with them. Soon we become fearless warriors and come
to enjoy the unknown. We expect to encounter difficulties and confusions.
We even expect to be clueless sometimes and admit, "I don't know, this
is the first time I've been a parent of a 5-year-old." We
are ever in the process of becoming more
and more of who we are RIGHT HERE, RIGHT
NOW.