my footprints

Sunday, October 07, 2007

STUDY THE INTENTION

stanley came to school only on friday. he didn't attend school from mon to thurs cos his mum was sick and she did not go to work. hence, stanley stayed at home with her too. but i guess he was too much for her to bear that she decided to send him to school on friday anyway.

but too much of staying at home didn't do stanley any good. he came back to school wanting a lot of attention. so when he couldn't get enough of the attention he wanted, he started doing all sorts of nonsense.

things he did:
1. pull charlene's hair
2. squeeze audrey's hand
3. snatched zann's waterbottle and refused to give it back
4. used his chest and body weight to push gordon down
5. kept using his fingers to "walk" on chantelle's head
6. snatched toys from benedikt
7. threw toys all over the classroom
8. kept rocking his chair despite the many times i told him to sit properly

for your infomation, these was only half of what he did. he also screamed and yelled each time any of the children talked to him nicely. despite all these misbehaving actions, he kept very closely to me. even my terrorist, benedikt was better behaved than him. thankfully, scott was sick and his mum decided to keep him at home for the whole week. else it would really be a big disaster on friday.

after lunch, he kept disturbing benedikt throughout. knowing ben's character, he gets very agitated when he is provoked. yesterday was one of his better days when he was more forgiving after the few times stanley tried to disturb him. but it came to a point when he couldn't tahan anymore and scratched stanley on the left side of his face. so stanley had a few scratch marks on his left cheek.

my boss saw the incident and decided to step in to discipline both of them. she could tell that stanley was getting on my nerves already. but poor benben, it wasn't so much of his fault even though it was wrong of him to react that way.

but as i thought about all the incidents that took place in the whole day, i found something that i could learn from. that is to remind myself that even though i am upset with the child, i need to deal with the issue of the behaviour instead.

that is to find and recognise the intention behind the behaviour. to study the intention is not difficult and to solve, you'll just need to work on the root of it. rather than punishing or criticizing the child himself/herself.
yet its not just about children, this is very much in use for our daily lives too. for every action that we take, there is an intention behind it.

just lately, i find myself judging people for how they act and behave. in short, looking on the surface. which is something which i didn't do so often in the past. perhaps its really work politics that's affecting the way i see people these days.

i have been pretty confused in knowing how to draw the line between being myself and yet guarding my vulnerablity because of certain behaviours and people in my workplace. driving a wall in circumference will look too anti social, yet being too approachable will result in situations which i don't want to find myself in.

a facade seems too much for me to bear, though i know i'll still need some form of distance. perhaps, an invisible wall would help. question is, the know-hows to balance that invisible wall.

she pens down @ 11:47 AM --------------------------------------------------------------