After three hours in the relentless morning Texas heat, my son Seth was wilted and exhausted. He is in a tennis camp this week and God bless him because he didn’t complain! However, when asked how it went he said, “It was fun till the girl that is my coach was mean to me.” Now, I hate to admit, but my first reaction was doubt. Seth is my more ‘sensitive’ child and he takes everything anyone says to him like a dagger to the heart. I looked at him through the rear view mirror as we were driving home and asked him what she had done. He said, “We were about to do a backhand lesson and I said, ‘Ah, I don’t like my back hand.’ and she said, “That’s because you suck.”
🙁 WHAT?!
I nearly ran off the road! I know Seth wasn’t making up what she said because he wouldn’t say it and because anytime I even say ‘crap’ I owe him a dollar. (My kids don’t realize that they would’ve been millionaires had I not ever had my reconversion to Christ!! 🙂 ) I just couldn’t believe an adult would tell a child this. I asked him to tell me about it again and just to make sure he wasn’t possibly mistaking her with one of the other kids or maybe she could have been kidding but obviously not mature enough to realize kids can’t and don’t kid like that.
Long story short, I made a phone call and realized it was a high school student that was hired on to help…which in a way calmed me down for at least it wasn’t an adult that surely should know better. But even still, a high school student should know better too. I’ve taken care of the situation and in a way that best benefits my son (of course). To see the relief on his face was confirmation enough to realize he also needed to see that his dad and I would stand behind him and take care of him.
At the same time there is a part of me that is praying this young girl will not take this employer reprimand as a personal attack but as a life lesson to recognize that our words are weapons especially to the most fragile of minds – a child.
Galatians 5: 14-15