When I began giving talks to parents 20 years ago, about the Grade Primary year and how children learn, I would increasingly hear the comment “I sure wish I knew THAT when my child was younger!” I began to take notice of what information would cause this comment, print it onto file cards, and drop it in a little box—saving it for when there was time to try to do something with it.

Then I would simply go back to my approach of working hard to program for specific challenges, studying with the best professors I could so I could run cases by them, and trying as hard as I could to keep up with the individual needs of my students. But as the challenges increased I was finding I could not program effectively enough, study hard enough, nor run fast enough to resolve them.

As stubborn a Scot as I am, the day came when I finally had to accept that this approach was not sustainable.

Now this is where it gets really interesting:

Sometimes, when we open a little door in our mind

an experience will come and make very clear the importance of doing something about it.

It took an epiphany at Mackay’s Pharmacy to do just that!

One day while shopping at MacKay’s Pharmacy, I became aware of a growing protest developing between a child and an adult in the aisle next door. I would like to have avoided the situation because having an audience can often add to a child’s stress. The problem was those involved were standing ground in the toilet paper aisle.

This was my last stop before going home, after a long day at work. I was tired. I was hungry. and the oooooooooonly thing I needed was toilet paper.

I was very aware that if I returned home toilet paperless, the family in the next aisle would not be the only stressed people in the county that day.

By that time the piercing screams were unsettling to say the least. In fact, I was just beginning to allow myself to wonder what it would feel like to throw a tantrum of my own.

I really didn’t want to move closer. I waited, and waited a bit longer, and finally decided I had to enter the scene. The little tyke had a good set of lungs. I am sure you could hear him outside by that time.

His little arms were grabbing at the tall legs beside him.

Being pushed away only intensified his anger.

Dropping to the floor he went into full body expression: arms flailing, legs kicking, voice screaming!!

It was pretty exciting!

 But what happened next was even more dramatic.

I experienced what I have come to call a “soul startle”.

There were two women with the boy. One turned to the other and said: “They’ll smarten him up when he gets to school!” The other grumbled: “And about time!”

It struck my core. They have no idea what the Primary classroom is like, I thought.

If a child arrives at the Primary door unable to control anger or is disrespectful of the rights of others, it requires an incredible amount of the teacher’s time to simply keep the classroom a “safe” place to be, leaving little time for teaching.

A child who enters the Primary classroom with behavioural issues can cause a lot of grief to himself, and the children around him before he is taught to “control himself”.

And, in truth, “controlling himself” is not really enough. Unless he can also learn to like himself and respect and care for others, it may simply repress the underlying emotional causes—setting the stage for much larger social, emotional and behavioural problems—for him and us–– as he grows.

Another problem is that it is not unusual to have more than one child needing special help.

According to research cited in the Lunenburg Co. Community Health Plan one quarter of Canada’s children between birth and age 6 experience some learning or behavioural difficulty.

And according to the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment, in 1997 more than one in 4 Canadian children aged 6-11 was affected by at least one behavioural, emotional, learning or social disorder—25% of a class!

But personal experience has taught me there is always a silver lining––The silver lining here was that I had been growing into an understanding that it really didn’t have to be like this. And for the first time I believed I could and even more importantly, I must do something about it. This was confirmed by the “soul startling” words “they’ll smarten him up when he gets to school”

BWhen I began giving talks to parents 20 years ago, about the Grade Primary year and how children learn, I would increasingly hear the comment “I sure wish I knew THAT when my child was younger!” I began to take notice of what information would cause this comment, print it onto file cards, and drop it in a little box—saving it for when there was time to try to do something with it.

Then I would simply go back to my approach of working hard to program for specific challenges, studying with the best professors I could so I could run cases by them, and trying as hard as I could to keep up with the individual needs of my students. But as the challenges increased I was finding I could not program effectively enough, study hard enough, nor run fast enough to resolve them.

As stubborn a Scot as I am, the day came when I finally had to accept that this approach was not sustainable.

Now this is where it gets really interesting:

Sometimes, when we open a little door in our mind

an experience will come and make very clear the importance of doing something about it.

It took an epiphany at Mackay’s Pharmacy to do just that!

One day while shopping at MacKay’s Pharmacy, I became aware of a growing protest developing between a child and an adult in the aisle next door. I would like to have avoided the situation because having an audience can often add to a child’s stress. The problem was those involved were standing ground in the toilet paper aisle.

This was my last stop before going home, after a long day at work. I was tired. I was hungry. and the oooooooooonly thing I needed was toilet paper.

I was very aware that if I returned home toilet paperless, the family in the next aisle would not be the only stressed people in the county that day.

By that time the piercing screams were unsettling to say the least. In fact, I was just beginning to allow myself to wonder what it would feel like to throw a tantrum of my own.

I really didn’t want to move closer. I waited, and waited a bit longer, and finally decided I had to enter the scene. The little tyke had a good set of lungs. I am sure you could hear him outside by that time.

His little arms were grabbing at the tall legs beside him.

Being pushed away only intensified his anger.

Dropping to the floor he went into full body expression: arms flailing, legs kicking, voice screaming!!

It was pretty exciting!

 But what happened next was even more dramatic.

I experienced what I have come to call a “soul startle”.

There were two women with the boy. One turned to the other and said: “They’ll smarten him up when he gets to school!” The other grumbled: “And about time!”

It struck my core. They have no idea what the Primary classroom is like, I thought.

If a child arrives at the Primary door unable to control anger or is disrespectful of the rights of others, it requires an incredible amount of the teacher’s time to simply keep the classroom a “safe” place to be, leaving little time for teaching.

A child who enters the Primary classroom with behavioural issues can cause a lot of grief to himself, and the children around him before he is taught to “control himself”.

And, in truth, “controlling himself” is not really enough. Unless he can also learn to like himself and respect and care for others, it may simply repress the underlying emotional causes—setting the stage for much larger social, emotional and behavioural problems—for him and us–– as he grows.

Another problem is that it is not unusual to have more than one child needing special help.

According to research cited in the Lunenburg Co. Community Health Plan one quarter of Canada’s children between birth and age 6 experience some learning or behavioural difficulty.

And according to the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment, in 1997 more than one in 4 Canadian children aged 6-11 was affected by at least one behavioural, emotional, learning or social disorder—25% of a class!

But personal experience has taught me there is always a silver lining––The silver lining here was that I had been growing into an understanding that it really didn’t have to be like this. And for the first time I believed I could and even more importantly, I must do something about it. This was confirmed by the “soul startling” words “they’ll smarten him up when he gets to school”

Before long I became convinced that many, perhaps most, maybe even all the challenges arriving at the Grade Primary door were preventable. ––My husband calls me an uncompromising optimist.

But as I began to research how to prevent the specific problems I was dealing with, I discovered there was basically no solid research available. So I simply began to write what my heart told me would be helpful.

And miracle of miracles, eventually supportive research began to explode onto the mainstream

and into the endnotes of my book.

It just goes to show, if you follow your heart the world will catch up.

efore long I became convinced that many, perhaps most, maybe even all the challenges arriving at the Grade Primary door were preventable. ––My husband calls me an uncompromising optimist.

But as I began to research how to prevent the specific problems I was dealing with, I discovered there was basically no solid research available. So I simply began to write what my heart told me would be helpful.

And miracle of miracles, eventually supportive research began to explode onto the mainstream

and into the endnotes of my book.

It just goes to show, if you follow your heart the world will catch up.