This morning, I took Dom to his classroom and his French teacher was there preparing for the lesson she was going to be doing with them later, with a poster of the words to the famous Alouette song on the board.
He suddenly went all quiet and flatly refused to do his normal, Monday morning schoolwork.
I wondered what on earth was going on so sat down and got him to sit on my lap and have a cuddle.
After a while, he managed to explain that he hated that song because it’s about a bird having its feathers pulled out, and he doesn’t like to think of the pain it feels because it really upsets him 🙁
I had absolutely NO idea that’s what that song was about (I Googled it when I got home and he’s right!):
Here are the lyrics to “Alouette,”as provided by Wikipedia:
Alouette, gentille Alouette (Lark, nice lark)
Alouette, je te plumerai (Lark, I shall pluck you)
Je te plumerai la tête (I shall pluck your head)
(Je te plumerai la tête) (I shall pluck your head)
Et la tête (And your head)
(Et la tête) (And your head)
Alouette (Lark)
(Alouette) (Lark)
O-o-o-oh
Alouette, gentille Alouette
Alouette, je te plumerai
Je te plumerai le bec
I shall pluck your beak
(Je te plumerai le bec)
Et le bec
(Et le bec)
Et la tête
(Et la tête)
Alouette
(Alouette)
O-o-o-oh
After I’d managed to calm him down, I went to the teacher and explained that if he didn’t sing along with the rest of the class, it was because he found it too upsetting to, and it wasn’t that he was refusing to join in for a ‘naughty’ reason, because I didn’t want him being punished (like sent to time-out) for having a sensitive nature.
The teacher was lovely and because she now understood, she wouldn’t ‘push’ him to join in at all, and even said it was wonderful he was so caring and kind, to have such empathy at such a young age.
I felt so glad I’d been there and was able to find out the issue and deal with it in a way that supported him.
It made me wonder though how many other times a child has been made to feel ‘naughty’ because there was nobody there to advocate for them when they have a different perspective on a seemingly normal classroom activity, and the overworked teachers literally don’t have time to deal with one ‘apparently disruptive’ influence in such a sympathetic manner…
Imagine how Dom would have been dealt with if, instead of getting upset (which is easier for most people to sympathise with), he’d suddenly reacted in an angry way because he felt it was cruel to pull feathers off a little bird?
As adults we often have NO idea what is going on inside a child’s head; what they are feeling, thinking, believing, at any given moment.
So we react to their behaviour as if there is something wrong with them, when actually, there might be something very RIGHT with them and their wide-open hearts that care, and feel deeply.
It would be lovely if EVERY child ‘refusing’ to behave in a certain way was treated with empathy and compassion, and the reasons for their refusal ascertained before anyone, parent/teacher/stranger in a supermarket, assumed they were just being ‘naughty’ and decided to treat them as such.
What a wonderful, compassionate world we would live in when all those children grew up…
Photo credit: dimitrisvetsikas1969 at pixabay.com
