Lessons in emotional intelligence..courtesy of a 6 year old with apraxia
Ashlynn’s classroom has a color clip system for behavior. Basically, every child starts the day on pink, which is a neutral color, and during the course of the day, students’ behavior earn them a “clip up” or “clip down” depending on their actions. At the end of the day, they get a star to take home that is the color of where their clip was for that day.
Ashlynn has never had below the neutral pink color. On occasion, she has been coming home with greens and even some purple stars! Yesterday, she had a green star and I asked her why she clipped up today. She answered first that she didn’t know (easy, known, motor plan), but when I pressed more she said for sitting in her seat.
When we were leaving, I was able to ask the teacher, who told us it was because Ashlynn finished a writing assignment and stayed focused even as many others around her were not. I mean, maybe that’s what she meant by “sitting in her seat.” Who knows. Stupid apraxia. I never feel like I get the entire story, and how frustrating for Ashlynn that she knows but can’t convey everything she knows.
I made a joke to the teacher that I told Ashlynn if she clipped up she should know why so it can happen again! I started thinking though, maybe that’s not right. Mother Teresa was canonized this week and there were a lot of memes floating around social media. This one caught my eye and reminded me of Ashlynn.
My God I pray she keeps this mentality. She really does know who she is. She could care less about clipping up. I mean let’s be honest. If you’ve read my blog, you know that girl works harder than anyone else and is always trying to learn to write, to talk, to read, to do jumping jacks….like literally her play is stuff she practices in her various therapies. Basically, Ashlynn earns a clip up everyday. Most people have to learn humility, ESPECIALLY egocentric kids. As I write that, I don’t mean to imply there are *some* egocentric kids. Kids in general ARE egocentric. It’s their nature.
Not Ashlynn though. Nope. Ashlynn was born with humility. Seriously. I can’t tell you how many times she gets told she’s pretty on a daily basis and she always accepts the compliment with a smile and grace. I’ve never heard her once walk around bragging about anything, but conversely, she is not devastated by criticism either. If you don’t believe me, read this incident at the park where one of our worst dreams comes true and she is asked why she “talks like a baby” when she was just learning to talk and use her words and was putting herself out there. She handled it way better than me and I’m the adult.
Anyway, when I first started this blog, one of my most liked posts was called lessons from a tricycle. Really, this blog could be called Lessons from Ashlynn. I always talk about emotional intelligence, and I really wish it was talked about or even acknowledged at IEP meetings because it’s a real thing and people with it make this world a better place. Seriously. I would posit that most people need lessons in emotional intelligence, even adults….including me.
If you follow my fb page, you know that I won this award, a media award from ASHA, which is the governing body over ALL speech pathologists and audiologists nationwide. ASHA is basically our American Academy of Pediatrics. I unabashedly felt the need to publish it on my fb page. I would love to go to the national conference in November, but I probably can’t; but really, if I think about it, it’s just vanity, or lack of humility, that makes me want to be there so bad…..and that’s when I take a lesson from Ashlynn.
She just does her thing whether people notice or not, and I seriously feel like the biggest A-hole for thinking I need to go to some conference to be recognized. Oh Ashlynn. Here we are. You teach me lessons again and again and you are only six. Humility is probably on my top five virtues I admire in people. Honesty and integrity being up there too, humility is admirable to me and Ashlynn has it naturally. Keep it up my young chickadee. I’m so proud of you. I love you, I admire you, and I know you are destined for great things.
