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William’s daycare center had recently created a new “award” - a “helper of the week” sticker - to encourage the children to help each other. I noticed he had never received the honor.

At first, I was not alarmed - it might just take time for a 3 year old to learn a new habit.

As the sticker cycled through all his peers, I became concerned. I decided to talk to his teacher.

“Oh,” she chuckled, “William is good boy - but he doesn’t like to help… He just cleans his own stuff and stops right there.”

“But don’t worry,” she added, “I can tell he was thinking about it - it was just that for some reaon he decided not to do it… Give him some time. It will be OK.”

The teacher was very nice, and she might even be right; but I decided it was time to talk to the little boy.

After school, while he was playing with his toy choper, I cautiously started the conversation.

“William, tell Mommy about the helper stickers.”

He paused, and said nothing.

“I saw Maxx got a helper sticker today…” I said.

“Maxx always gets a helper sticker! I never get a helper sticker! Nobody ever gave me a helper sticker!” His voice was filled with frustration.

“But that’s because Maxx always helps. If you help, you will get a helper sticker too.”

“I did! But the teacher never gave me a helper sticker!” He was almost crying.

Oh, God! That doesn’t sound right - maybe the teacher wasn’t as nice as she appeared, after all; maybe there were things I didn’t know…

“William - tell Mommy what happened. Why the teacher didn’t give you a helper sticker? Did you help?”

“Yes! I did!” he answered, looking directly into my eyes. He was sincere and purplexed.

“Who did you help? The teacher?”

“No.”

“Your friends?”

“No.”

“Other kids?”

“No.”

“But - you just told Mommy you helped…’

“Yeah, Mommy” he said,  matter of factedly, “I always helped myself!!”

Posted on Monday, February 5th, 2007; filed under He Said She Said, Baby Challenges. You can follow responses to this entry via the RSS 2.0 feed. You can also trackback from your own site.
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