Our Monthly Theme: RESPECT
We are ending our last week in March with reviewing how important it is to recognize and honor others who have worked very hard to accomplish something important to them. This is what we call respect.
This week, classes will gather spare change to honor Mara Olson, who is our librarian’s daughter. Mara has been battling cancer for the past two years and it has been a very hard road as anyone who has dealt with cancer can empathize with. We respect Mara and her family for all they have endured and how hard they are fighting. Having good health is something that we all can take for granted.
In our classroom counseling lessons, we have been learning about how important it is to ask good questions to our friends to learn and understand what they are going through. Then, we can do thoughtful things for them. That's a good way to show respect.
We may ask questions like, “what’s wrong” or “are you okay, do you need some help? '' Sometimes people may want to just be left alone to try to solve their problems by themselves. It shows respect if we give people what they are asking for. If they don’t want to talk about their problems, it’s respectful to say something like, “okay, if you change your mind, you know I’m always here for you.”
It’s sometimes easy to think that others don’t want to be friends with us when they don’t want to talk with us about their problems but it really just means they need some time alone. It’s not about us. It’s about them and what they need at the time.
Respect is also something that is earned. We earn respect when we do what we say we’re going to do. We earn respect when we take care of the people and things around us, when we leave things in a better condition than we found them.
People need time to develop respectful feelings and the way they do that is by observing the good things that others do over time. This is what we mean when we say, respect is earned.
Thank you for the respect you show your children so they can observe your good examples then put it into practice in their own lives.