On Being Gentle

One afternoon, while out on the playground, the older boys were getting into some pretty rough play. It seemed like a simple game of tag, except they were chasing each other with plastic red shovels, tackling each other, and one particular child kept coming to me crying, saying it wasn't fair. After many warnings that "shovels are only for digging" and "no more tackling", I gave the boys just one more chance. Not surprisingly, the trouble continued, so I called them all over to me and told them it was time to find a new game to play. Then, one of them looked up at me and very earnestly said, "It's ok Miss Rachel. We talked about it and we all agreed that we will only hit each other gently."