She respects him

I was in the pick up lane at William's school. I pulled up to the curb and saw him standing there doing a little jig because he could see me in the van. He was standing hand in hand with Mrs. Cindy, his classroom teacher. They were both smiling ear to ear.

She opened the door of the van and handed me his backpack. She then picked up the Hubba-Bubba and put him in his car seat. I said "Hi William! How was school today?" knowing full well that he would only smile back at me instead of answering me with a run on sentence of every thing that he did in three hours. I understood the smile as "it was a good day Mom!".

Mrs. Cindy looked at William while she was buckling him into his car seat and said "William, I am going to tell your Mom what we did today." She continued to tell me about playing with cotton balls, singing in circle time and riding in the wagon. She then looked in William's eyes and said "We had a good time today, didn't we William?"

In that 30 second exchange between the three of us, I knew that she respected him. She respects that he is a person that has thoughts and feelings. She knows that even though he can not express those thoughts and feelings with words he still has them in his head, in his heart, in his mind. Mrs. Cindy could have easily looked at me and gave me the run down of the day, but instead she engaged with Will. She spoke to him as she would have any other child. She was encouraging him to participate in the conversation that I had started with them.

She treated him with respect...

and I love her for that.