As I was beginning my morning meeting on a Wednesday , Arman walked in with his sister, crying. Unusual, because Arman had started to love school and would enjoy learning, unusual also because his mother hadn't come to drop him. As he entered class, I asked him why was he crying. He ignored my question and kept asking me, whether his mom or dad or someone from home will come to pick him up from school in the evening.
I assured him they would, but he wouldn't stop crying until I let him cry and continued with my morning meeting. Sometime later he got angrossed in the classroom activities and stopped crying.
In the recess, I took him on a walk around the school and asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. I kept trying to know what was wrong because I was sure something was extremely wrong. After a while he opened up. What he said got tears to my eyes and stabbed me inside.
'Didi yesterday I made a mistake, my mom got angry and she hit me, and she said I don't want a son like you, tomorrow I will leave you to school and not come to take you back'
'Arman does she do this all the time?'
'No Didi, but whenever she does, I feel she will really not come to take me back, didi what if she does not come today? Am I a bad son?' Tears rolling down his eyes.
No Arman, relax, she will come back, she is just angry, she loves you, she will definitely come to take you'
So many kids, including all of us, may have had similiar experiences like these. Do we as a parent or a teacher or even as a human ever think about these small things that affects a kid so much? Do we realise that these small little things, build up to damage the confidence, the feeling of security, of a child? Do we realise that this little kid might grow up and become the most insecure person we know? This little kid will have a huge inferiority complex, that will hold him back from being the best he can be? I ask myself these questions, and I feel guilty for saying whatever I said to a friend who was being stupid, because she wasn't sure if she should buy a expensive phone or save money for her grad school and she choose buying the expensive phone. I feel guilty for telling my mother she did not do anything to solve her problems in life. I feel guilty for shouting at a kid when he could not speak in a loud and clear voice. I feel guilty when I unknowingly made fun of that boy in my school who was the most quite and secluded person I have ever met.
I'm guilty.
