Through my work with groups and individuals I get a lot of acknowledgement and appreciation and I can say that all my needs in regards to this are completely met. Because of this I feel very good, content and grateful to have so much of this sort of feedback in my life.
Yet, an ultimate acknowledgement came about a month or so ago and touched me so deeply that my heart is still warm and my mind still a bit confused.
You see, most of my work is with adults, but I love to work with kids as well, be it with college students or in primary schools. The school project that stirred up so many feelings within me half a year ago, brought me also one of the most beautiful and moving experiences of this year. With the beginning of the new school year children asked their teachers to contact me again and tell me that they, the kids, wish me so much to continue working with them.
I barely survived hearing this. Children, right at the beginning of the school year, after having a two months school vacation, remembered me and invited me to come back and be with them, work with them.
I feel completely honoured, touched, moved to tears. It is a very beautiful thing to get a clear acknowledgement from an adult, of course, but to get it from children in such a pure manner, I mean, I don’t know what to say, I feel like just melting down in all the wonderful feelings I am having.
Anyway, tomorrow morning I meet with them again and continue our work on nonviolent conflict resolution. And I am pretty excited and nervous about that, as you can imagine. And peacefully happy. Yes, very peacefully happy and content.
Thanks, kids, thanks so much.
Today is the day!! Good luck and I know it will be absolutely wonderful.
Comment by Hayden Tompkins — October 13, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
Kids bring the ultimate joy especially if are in a process of sharing knowledge…nothing more special…
best of luck with everything that you are up to…
Comment by utp — October 13, 2008 @ 5:25 pm
Kids are the best! They really are.
Comment by thatdudeyouknow — October 13, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
You must know different types of children to me. The ones I know (don’t have any of my own) seem so self absorbed and selfish.
Comment by razzbuffnik — October 14, 2008 @ 4:13 am
Wow… what an amazing thing… You are so fortunate to experience this. Good job at teaching our children better than what we had!
Comment by Amber — October 14, 2008 @ 4:59 am
Razzbuffnik – adults are also self absorbed and selfish. They just know how to hide it. Children are not as fake as we are. Children are pureness. Pure goodness, but sometimes also pure evil.
Comment by thatdudeyouknow — October 14, 2008 @ 10:27 am
Robert–what a lovely post. I do some pro bono work with children and I cannot tell you how many lessons the young teach me. I also teach college classes and my students always teach me a great deal also. They usually are surprised when I tell them how much I have learned from them but I have found the wonders of being a lifelong student.
I also liked what you wrote about being content. One of my mother-in-law’s favorite sayings was, “We should all concentrate more on wanting what we have than having what we want.” I loved that saying and feel there is great truth to it.
Melinda
Comment by Melinda — October 14, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
Hayden, UTP, Dude, Amber, Melinda – thanks a lot. I actually feel so honoured to be accepted and even invited by them, as an adult. It is such a difference to connect with them on an equal ground…
Razz – my man, has anything bad happened in your relation to kids lately? I sense some disturbance in your Force, my Jedi Brother.
Comment by Robert — October 14, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
Dude and Robert
The younger the child the more it is like an animal. Animals have no guile. If they are big enough, they will take from the weaker. Unless an animal is rearing young it will take care of its needs first without thought about the needs of others. Woe betide anything that gets between it and its needs. This is the sort of selfishness that I’m talking about.
As we grow up, we come into contact with the “unnatural” adult world of social constructs, such as manners, altruism and civility etc.
Sure, kids are “pure”. Purely selfish and self absorbed that is, and that’s natural until they learn about how to interact with the rest of society.
Adults can hide their “natural” desire to be selfish more effectively than children. I much more prefer people to control their anti-social natural urges than to be subject to them. I don’t really care if an adult is being “false” by trying to control their unpleasant urges as long as they do. What makes some adult behaviour really obnoxious is the fact that they quite often know better but persist in doing the wrong thing anyway.
I also reject the idea that very young children are either good or evil. Like animals, little kids have no concept of what is right or wrong until they have been taught about such “impure” things by adults and then understand them.
My original comment is a complement to the children that Robert was talking about, in comparison to the children I come into contact with.
Comment by razzbuffnik — October 15, 2008 @ 2:00 am
This is wonderful, Robert. What a great feeling.
And razzbuffnik, I’m raising a 3-year-old “animal” right now, and I don’t quite agree with your synopsis. Ah, well.
Comment by Jennifer — October 15, 2008 @ 9:18 pm
Razz – as always, a very interesting and thought provoking perspective. Not that agree with everything, but I truly love to read well argumented diversity. As for children’s self-absorption and selfishness; children are, up to about 7 or so, known to be blissfully, to a large extent, in this innocent egocentrism, which is quite natural. It even takes them, at the very beginning, quite some months to realize where do their body end and the “outside” world begin, and learn that the mother and the breast and so forth are not them, but “something” out there. And it takes, in adolescence, quite some time to learn to notice the needs of other people and have a respect for these needs. But than to have a good balance between respecting other’s needs and our own needs – well, this takes a life time, I guess.
Jennifer – thanks. I can easily understand that you do not see your 3-year-old sweet angel as an animal. But, wait another ten or so years and you my well find yourself, at least occasionally, seeing this same angel as a monster. I have three in my house. And a cat!
Comment by Robert — October 15, 2008 @ 10:09 pm
After all that you have gone through with those kids it has been an amazing journey and the fact that they have felt your kindness, compassion and care is just beautiful. Could so give you the biggest hug in the world right now so am sending one through the airwaves. I am as honoured as those kids to know you!
Comment by SanityFound — October 18, 2008 @ 11:28 am
Sanity – thanks for the empathy and understanding. And the hug, of course. Well, you see, I do not think I have gone through anything worth mentioning with these kids, but what touches me over and over again is the amount of pain they must have gone through in their lives. And still do and still will…
Comment by Robert — October 19, 2008 @ 2:28 pm