Saturday, May 12, 2012

Kol Hakavod - B'nai Akiva children at Mizrachi Shule

B'h

It is always pleasing when you come across children who know the real meaning of rachamim or Chesed in the way they behave and interact with others.
My son has some developmental delay and some things he does not quite catch on to or understand straight away.
Today he asked me if he could bring his football card album to shule. I let him take his album with the cards he has seconds of and some of these special best and fairest cards. So he went off to B'nai Akiva and I went to my Shiur and the sueda shlishit.
Just before the speaker started, a young boy CXXXXX came up to the function room and tapped me on the shoulder and told me that my son was giving out his cards to who ever. He was concerned as were some other boys that Nir was being a bit vulnerable and maybe some kids were taking cards because Nir did not know the value of his cards. Nor did he know how to swap the cards effectively.
When I went down to the playground, here is Nir giving out his football cards, but three or four of the other boys including the boy who had gotten me from the function hall, getting his cards back and trying to explain to him that you just don't give them away.
Nir is desperate at times to be liked and to have friends. He has some rather bad experiences at a school which shall remain nameless a few years back. It happens and sometimes what is a good school for some kids, is not a good school for others. Also there was a woman who has always despised me and her children harassed Nir on at least one or two occasions that I knew. I chose to ignore things and it did not help the matter and apart from anything else and for other reasons, I had to end up withdrawing him from the school for his mental health and safety.
Nir is a very good kid with a lot of good qualities. He tries hard and is friendly and a very trusting sort of child. He loves sport and loves playing with the other kids. He is however over trusting with strangers and that scares me as his mother. I have to instill some sort of caution into him about who to talk to and who he is to go with. I have to work hard at making sure that he does develop more discretion and a healthy sense of being cautious of strange adults. Sometimes I will have to tell him, that not everyone we know is friendly or to be trusted.
Anyway it was a relief to know that there are such good children around that they are also looking out for another child who is vulnerable and a bit naive about the dealings of the football card swapping games. It is about good values or middot instilled in children which comes out in their daily interactions and that is how you know as a parent or educator that you have succeeded in doing something positive in forming future characters or making people who are genuine or positive people and not scoffers and cynical. There are a lot of cynics out there and I myself am a bit cynical. But today I was genuinely happy to see how well my son was treated by these people. He has responded well too.
Kol Hakavod Mizrachi

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