Adventures with Urine

Why yes, yes you did read that correctly. Urine.

Listen. I teach. Young kids.

Today, a student from another classroom informed me that one of my students peed on his gloves.

My first thought:

UGH AREYOUFREAKINGKIDDINGMERIGHTNOW?!

But you can't really say that to a 7 year old, you know, when you want to keep your job and all.

Here's something I don't know if many people realize about teachers:

We love your children. We adore your children. We rejoice at their successes and sometimes even shed tears at their struggles.

In the case of this student, I even make great efforts every day to ensure that he has a successful school day. A positive day. A day that lets him know I think he's an amazing kid.

All day, I had been working harder than normal on that. We had a rough week last week. I didn't want a repeat. My kids earned some free time ("free" time where I designate educational activities they can choose. Tricky me!) because of their excellent behavior today. I was so glad this student was part of that.

But guess what? If you pee on someone's gloves, you don't get to have free time.
Bummer.

It really bugged me. I sat him down and didn't know quite what to say.

What came out of my mouth, I think, was probably one of the best things I could have said to him. I don't think that trying to be firm and bossy and my-way-or-the-highway would have worked. Instead, I told him something that my Dad used to tell me.

"You are too good of a kid to act this way."
Right to his beautiful little face.
And I looked into his nervous little eyes and made sure he understood there were certainly going to be consequences to his actions, but I knew he was a good kid and that he would do better tomorrow.
He was ok with the consequences. He was penitent, even. 

I am not trying to pat myself on the back here. I'm just saying....I love these kids. I hate when they do stupid things and I have to intervene. Most of the time I'm pretty successful at redirecting their behavior before it turns into a problem like this...but today was kind of a bummer.