I have a little girl in my class this year that is very unique. Let's call her Amy.
She is in first grade, has long brown hair, with loose curls that bounce perfectly into coiled springs when she hops with excitement. She has big, beautiful brown eyes, that sparkle when she successfully sounds out a word in her reading book and she loves to giggle. The word giggle may have been invented for little Amy. The slighted silly thing tickles her funny bone and she begins to giggle and cannot stop. Sometimes she'll cover her mouth with her hand to contain the giggle, but most of the time, it just keeps going, sneaking out between her fingers and becoming contagious to the others around her. Soon all the children are laughing, too. All but the little boy in the front row (an only child) who turns to me and says flatly, "Hers laughs a lot."
Amy wears Hello Kitty earrings everyday and last week, on Valentine's Day, dressed entirely in red - red shirt, red hair bows, red pants, red socks, all topped with a red tutu. She has immaculate handwriting, loves books about puppies and prefers markers over crayons at the Writing Center.
If Amy were an iceberg, you now know the exposed part of her little frozen, floating island. But like all of us, it's what we cannot see that molds how we float through this ocean of life. It's our consealed mass that has the potential to do the most damage.
Amy's mom died last year. While she still has her dad, he seems to not care too much for her; as in, doesn't care if she eats breakfast or not, doesn't care if she wears her coat or not... Amy has a Tia that Amy says watches her often. However, I found out last week that it isn't really her Tia (the aunt I was hoping for, her loving and dedicated mother's sister). Instead, it's her dad's cousin, who called the school last week to complain that Amy "is a little devil at home" and wanted to know what we could do.
Today, I found out that Amy has been reviewed for permanent removal from our federally-funded after school care program. She has been quite mean to other girls in the program, especially little, meek, Mimi. Apparently, Mimi's mother has been caring for Amy after the after school program (not her Tia) and Amy has been mean to Mimi at that time, too. Mimi's mother was given the option of kicking Amy out of the program (and allowing Mimi to stay) or keeping Mimi at home (and Amy could stay). Mimi's mother chose to keep her own child out of the program, rather than care for Amy all afternoon.
So here we have a child whose:
- mother died
- dad doesn't care for her
- Tia (dad's cousin) only helps with her basic physical needs, when she's home
- friendships that are fractured with "mean girl" issues (the trouble with Mimi is not a first time thing)
- another mother-figure/care-giver that would rather have her own child miss out on after-school academic assistance and social opportunities, than spend time with Amy
I went through the paperwork process to recommend her for counseling (we have a school counselor who's on our campus, for half-a-day a week, every other week). After submitting everything, the counselor emailed me and said her load is currently full, but she'd see what she could do.
NOW WHAT?!?!
Interestingly enough, last Sunday, the pastor at our church was talking about...well, I can't remember exactly, because I space out sometimes when I have to sit for more than 15 minutes (it's one of the hazards of being a kindergarten teacher). But often he will say something that reels me back in and I'll write it down before I forget.
This week I heard him say, "You may be the one that's sent to love the unloveable."
At the time, I didn't think about connecting the word unloveable with a seven-year-old girl, but who in Amy's life really loves her?
