SHORTSTORIES

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES My second-born is a charmer and has been practically since birth. People gravitate toward him and always have. When he was eight, though, for no apparent reason, a classmate pushed him down on the playground at school and stomped on his leg. A teacher’s aide on playground duty saw the whole thing. I got a call from the school nurse, who thought his leg was broken. The mother of the “stomper” also got a call to come pick him up and was told that he was suspended for three days.

The nurse’s fear about my son’s leg being broken was unfounded, fortunately, but my son returned to school the next day on crutches for soft tissue injuries. At the end of that first day, his teacher called to tell me something she thought I should know. My son had asked her if he could say something to the class. She agreed and tears welled up in her eyes as she listened to what he had to say. He told the class that he believed only very unhappy people are cruel to others, and asked them to be “extra nice” to the stomper when he returned to school. “Let’s give him a ‘do-over’ and help him become a happier kid,” he urged the class.

At the end of the school year, the teacher (herself the mother of four adult sons) told me that she believed the certain development of a bully had been nipped in the bud by the persuasive speech and example of one little boy.