The teachers and office staff would like to thank the parents for providing a delicious morning tea on Wednesday for World Teachers Day.
Dear Parents and Friends,
Parents can be surprised to hear another side of a student their own child has negative interactions with - perhaps mean comments of bullying.
They can realise they had misjudged, misunderstood, or written off a child.
Something magical happens when adults hear details about other people's children.They move past stereotypes and cliches and begin to see them as humans - complex, complicated. messy humans who have strengths as well as weaknesses, virtues in addition to vices.
In other words, they start to see other people's children with the same full perspective through which they see their own.
Children are, by definition, immature. They act impulsively. They make mistakes. They have very little judgement. They certainly have little experience to draw upon.
Teens speak without thinking. They are prone to exaggerate and act without balance or moderation. They be reflexively unkind and hostile.
This is why they aren't allowed to drive or vote. It's why there are laws about drinking.
So extend grace, offer a space in which you make no judgement. Or at least to hold open the possibility that the story you are seeing will be incomplete, even when a child seems to be aggravating or difficult.
Especially when a child seems to be aggravating or difficult.
Love Serve Hope
