I think there are two types of people in this world: people who love kids and those who just tolerate them. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm the first of the two - I freak out over any picture of a baby and every time a cute kid walks into a room. I recently starting working at an elementary school aftercare program and I couldn't love it more. I'm a kindergarten aftercare teacher, which essentially means I get to hang out with 25 kindergarteners every day for a couple hours. I love my job and I really love my kids. They've reminded me what it’s like to see the world through their eyes, and they’ve taught me some really awesome lessons I needed to learn.
"These flowers taste spicy."
Yes, right after we came inside to have circle time with my favorite little five-year-olds, one of my girls shouted this to the rest of her friends around her. Shocked and confused about what to do, I asked her what in the world she was doing eating flowers! "Ms.Syd, I'm just eating these, they're fresh!" I couldn't help but laugh. She was just doing something she thought was perfectly acceptable because the flowers were from the garden and everything we pick in the garden is fresh! This made me realize that I really need to start taking myself a lot less seriously. (Now, I'm not promoting eating flowers, but you get what I mean.) Life is far too short to be serious and uptight all the time, learn to laugh at yourself and take a deep breath. Life is a lot more fun if you're laughing.
"Want to be my best friend?"
I've actually heard my kids ask their classmates this statement about a million times. IT’S SO CUTE. I melt a little each time I hear it because it's just so dang sweet. It's taught me a little something though - why do we lose that when we grow up? I think once we get older, we expect people to do a lot more to gain our love. We are a lot slower to love and accept people than kindergarteners are and I don't think that's a good thing. We'd have a lot less problems in the world if we saw others like my kindergarteners see their peers.
"You're beautiful!"
Usually when I go to work I'm wearing my typical outfit of Nike shorts and a t-shirt. But the other day I had a presentation for class and had to dress up and actually put on makeup. When we went to pick the kids up, one of my students looked at me and said, "Ms.Syd, you are so beautiful!" DAY MADE. It was absolutely adorable and totally made my day. However, it made me realize something. I feel like as we get older we stop complimenting and encouraging the people around us. If one of my kindergarteners is thinking something, they usually say it. This can be a good and bad thing but I think we can take this and use it for good. Make it your goal to encourage a few people every single day and see how things change!
I adore my 25 precious kindergarten babies. They are sometimes difficult, complicated, and don't listen but I love them anyway. I think we can learn lots of lessons from children because their view on the world has yet to be "corrupted" by the bad things that go on every day. We adults can learn so much from their little minds and I think you should take every opportunity that you have to sit down and have a conversation with a kid. I promise you'll probably leave laughing because kids say the craziest things!
