The BLESSING of teaching

I have had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful children during my 11 years of working with children. I had one that truly touched my hear. She came from a broken family and she had gone through a lot in her first three years of life. She may have been the hardest child that we worked with in the school. She came in hitting, biting, spitting, and being very disrespectful to the teachers and her friends in the classroom. But there was something about her that made me fall in love. This little girl had my heart. No matter how much of a challenge she was I wanted to help her overcome her problems.  I learned that when we was not acting out she had a huge imagination. She thought about things that most of the other kids were thinking about at the age of three. I used this imagination as an outlet to help with her misbehavior. When I saw her in situations where she could act out I quickly stepped in and changed her focus. I talked about the time machine she told me she made. We would travel around the world and back in the matter of two minutes. This Blessing to the world had no idea that I was working on her behavior. She got to the point where her behavior was no longer a concern. She played with the children well and was no longer disrespectful to the staff. She was an angel! As soon as the staff and I knew we had reached this child, social services arrived at our school to take her from us. We never saw her again. I often wonder how she is doing. The staff and I make so much reference to her when we tell our newer teachers that the behavior issues they complain about have nothing on the things we have seen. But we also tell them with a lot of patience and a huge heart that behavior can be corrected (without resorting to  medicine).