Story of clarity

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This is the story of two equally clear and determined minds. He is 7 yrs old and I am 47 yrs old. We both are clear about our needs. He often comes to me with other clear needs and leaves giving me a clear message. We normally don’t get into any clash.

Last week during campus care we happened to bump into each other. We were in the same team. He was cleaning the toys while I was arranging the library books.

The story began when he ignored the work and chose to just chit-chat around during campus care timings. I watched for two days and the third day I shared my observation with him. He agreed but his actions did not change. On the fourth day, I clarified “we are working together in the library to arrange books”. He promised me again that now he will work. But this time I was clear.

He said to me “you don’t listen to me”

I said, “I have been listening, but in this case, I will not listen”.

He started crying and screamed, “you can’t do this to me”.

I said, “at this time, I can only talk about the work”.

He said….

I said…

He cried…

I said…

He said…

If anyone would have heard us talking during this time, wouldn’t have believed that we had 40 yrs difference of age! He was clear what he wanted to express to me. I was clear, what I wanted. He didn’t think that I was 40yrs older and needed to just obey me. I didn’t think that he was 40yrs younger than me to sympathize because he is a child (small child, let me do your work, you go to play, and so on). And while we were talking, in between he was crying “you can’t do this to me”…. and then his hands started working, then he stared arranging books by size and then he started sharing jokes with me and then he said to me “we can’t leave the work in half”.

As we were moving out of the library, he hugged me and said “I was upset with you, but when my hands started working, I enjoyed it. Now I have hurray with you for working with me”.

Later during the mentor meeting, I asked him ” what kind of help do you need from me to add value in your learning journey?’. He said after pondering “help me like you helped me to do the work in the library’. I said “I will not want to do this all the time”…he smiled and told me ” but sometimes you can do that. Sometimes that makes people sad, but then you make them happy”.

We both were genuine with our expression at all the time during this conversation. We both were clear what we wanted to convey to each other. It was not at all about who was at fault (not doing work) or who was right…but it was all about both of us clearly expressing our needs, thoughts and emotions without any age boundaries.

Celebrating living and learning at Aarohi without boundaries.


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