Last Friday was our town’s annual Christmas parade. My son and I walked the parade as part of his school’s Cub Scout pack. It was cold, but all the kids had a great time. We walked in front of a fire engine who’s driver enthusiastically honked that ultra loud, make-your-eardrums-bleed, emergency horn every couple of minutes. It kept the kids awake.
I thought little more about the parade until I got a heartwarming phone call from my wife yesterday morning. While she was dropping my son off at his classroom, one of the other moms came up to her and told my wife how much she thought of my son. She had just moved her slightly Autistic child to the school a couple of months ago and was impressed at how caring everyone was towards her son, my son especially. Her son is still involved with the scouts at his old school, and was marching with his old pack someplace else in the parade lineup. She told my wife that she and her son were behind a fire truck that just kept blowing its siren and horn and that all the noise was a little more than her child could handle.
Towards the end of the parade route we all started disbanding and moving off to the side of the street, and we suddenly had a mélange of scouts from different packs milling about the sidewalk. I lost sight of my son momentarily but had instituted a buddy rule at the beginning of the parade, so I wasn’t too worried. Sirens, lights, and marching bands added to the cacophony as we stood aside to let the large vehicles go by.
Little did I know that while I lost track of him my son saw his new classmate in the crowd and came up to him and held his hands over his classmates ears until the noise subsided. My son remembered his new classmate’s Autism, and how loud sounds affected him. I’m not sure if what he did helped, but the fact that he thought of someone’s anguish, in the middle of all the revelry, and even refrained from watching the sights to help someone else makes me proud of him. The child’s mother expressed her gratitude to my son, and my son took his place by my side, never once telling me about he had just done.
When kid’s are well behaved the parents can take the credit, but I don’t think compassion is something that can be taught. You either have it, or you don’t.
Wow, what a great story. He obviously has compassion. But I would suggest that while compassion is an inner characteristic, I think it can be fostered or hindered by a person’s upbringing.
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@tom –
I was merely trying to say that if someone has no compassion there is no way for them to “learn” to have compassion. If someone has an iota of compassion it can be nurtured.
Thanks for commenting. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family Tom.
Ok, that choked me up just a bit, Mike. Wow. What a wonderful boy you have. You are obviously doing something right!
Lovely. They amaze you sometimes don’t they. If we only all could keep that sense of compassion you find in the wee ones.
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@SWC –
Don’t get me wrong, he’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he does things that warm the heart from time to time.
Thanks.
@Treemama –
Life would be a lot easier if we grownups took some time to look through it through childrens eyes every now and then.
Thanks for dropping by.
You can’t teach compassion, but kids definitely follow the examples that parents set for them.
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I truly believe, as demonstrated by your son, that children are very caring and compassionate by nature. It seems it changes as we grow up….too bad for us older folks, eh!
@Beth –
My son has a decent sized circle of friends and we’ve had them over at our house numerous times. Most of them have similar values, but there are the few that are starkly different. I know all their parents, and know their personalities. Amazingly enough the kids who’s attitudes I don’t care for are “Mini Me” versions of their parents. But is it Genetics, or lack of teaching them values at home? I don’t know the answer to that one.
…..who are you calling old!