Our children know how to support their peers!

Feeling very apprehensive about this task.....

I am currently on camp with the grade 5 and 6 pupils from our school, and I have spent the past hour in tears! Let me explain.

I joined a group of 20 grade 5 pupils at one of the ‘leadership’ tasks. The task was to get the whole group across a ‘river’ of mud, from a wooden platform to the bank on the other side, using a rope which is dangled in the middle of the ‘river’. The first task, obviously, is to get the rope, and then to get everybody, individually, across the river while hanging off the rope.

Immediately 4 children took over and problem solved their way to making a ‘rope’ out of shoes and laces. This was then flung several times until it wrapped around the rope, and brought the rope to the platform. The next task was then started – to get everybody across the river on this rope, without anyone falling in or landing out of a roped circle on the opposite side of the bank. Also, if someone fell off the platform while all this was going on, everybody had to start again.

Now, why was I in tears? I know we teach our children to be compassionate, not to make fun of anybody at any time and to be encouraging, but when you see this in action, without any prompting from any adult, then it is very moving!

Encouraging their group to give it a try......

Celebrating another successful trawl through the mud

Some children found the task very easy and they jumped on the rope without thinking and flung themselves over the river. Others however, reacted differently. Some told themselves they’d be fine and after a few seconds of collecting themselves, jumped over the river too. Others found the task completely unnerving, however, and refused to even try. One child in particular made me cry. She at first refused to go, saying that she was fat, and she had weak arms and so couldn’t go across. I think part of it too, was that she didn’t want to let her team down as, if she fell in, the whole group would have to start again. The children on the other side encouraged her so beautifully that eventually she clung to the rope, jumped off the platform…….and fell straight into the mud! Not one child laughed, or made fun of her. She was devastated however, and burst into tears. We tried to coax her into trying again but she insisted that she wanted to change her clothes and then come back. She did this, and eventually we managed to get her onto the platform again after everybody else had gone across. The pressure on her was enormous……everybody waited on the other side and shouted encouragement but eventually she agreed to cross, only after several of the children had told her how she was often the one who encouraged them, that this time it was her turn to be brave, that if she fell in again it would only mean that she would get muddy, and that nobody would laugh at her at all. Through all this I cried……the children said amazing things to her…things we as adults model for them daily.

She breathed in deeply a couple of times, and, after some coaching on how to jump, how to swing, and where to land on the other side, she jumped! And landed perfectly - in the rope circle, and caught by the children who were all cheering her on…..and I cried again! Our children are amazing!