My Empathy Heroes

Happy April! Today I'm grateful because of how blessed I am to get to do what I do at Westwood-Bales.

Yesterday began with car-rider duty, a duty I fondly refer to as counseling on the curb. I thrive on the opportunity to meet those smiling faces as they get out of their cars and step onto our front sidewalk, eager for another day of engagement and learning. I don't tend to pick favorites, but the most memorable was probably the kindergarten girl who told me to "Have a great character day!" as she headed through the front doors. What a blessing her words were to me. She knew just what I needed, and that's why she's one of my empathy heroes.

Shortly afterward, the bell rang and I came in to find a second-grade boy looking for me. He said he wanted to tell me that he knows of someone who needs my counseling help. He only had the kid's first name and he added "the one from my day care." So I said, "the kindergartener?" and he asked if I thought there were more than one boy with that name. In a school with almost 700 kids?, I thought. Likely. Be that as it may, I took him by that child's class and he I.D.'d him for me. He went on to say that he throws fits at day care and he'd like him to see me to learn to control his anger before he gets in big trouble. Touched by his compassion, I asked him to switch places with me: If you were the counselor, what would you do for him?

Well, my friends, I'm here to say that he had better ideas than I could have ever come up with, so I asked him if he'd like to visit with the boy and share his concerns. Sure enough, they talked and agreed that the younger one (K) would come to the older one (2nd) for cool down when he's starting to get frustrated, before he makes a bad choice. I nearly started to cry. Is there anything better than kids helping kids?

He showed up later to show me this sign that he'd made for his new little ward.