Spread a little love

Kids are amazingly innocent, resilient, and wonderful. Yet sometimes parents can be downright mean. This week I dealt with a situation I never ever thought in my entire life I would have to deal with. Upon picking my son up from school the other day, I found him hiding around the corner from his classroom sobbing and scared. A parent of one of the other students in his class had (very inappropriately) started screaming at my son as he was leaving his class, and he didn't know what to do except run away and hide. This parent felt that my son wasn't being very nice to their child, and to be honest, I bet that my son had probably done some things not so nice - 7 year olds can be that way sometimes. One day they might be wonderful and charming, and the next day they get off on the wrong foot, and everything seems to fall apart around them.

I have learned that kids learn best when shown a lot love, especially in tough situations. Try telling that to a person who is telling the principal that my child needs to be severly punished. But I feel proud that I remained calm and collected, and spoke from my heart as this woman tore apart my son. I calmly told her I would not be punishing my son, I would however help to parent and guide him through this situation, because this is the kind of parent I am, and want to be.

But the whole thing got me thinking this week about how we teach our children that life can be tough sometimes. And scary. And sometimes grownups don't do the right things. And they might not say sorry. Grownups make mistakes. What happened that has led some people to think they can treat kids with disrespect? Why did we stop taking other kids under our wings?

So this week I challenge everyone to help a kid out. Whether it's helping with homework, helping to tie their laces, or offering an ear to listen - spread a little love to a kid this week, they deserve it!