Empathy

I had some particularly special students back in my hey day as a fourth grade teacher.  On several occasions, I had parents come and sit with their child to curb some sort of misbehavior or lack of effort.  This usually proved to be quite effective.  Let's face it, no fourth grader likes to have their mother at school with them.  Not.  Cool.
Yesterday, I got a huge slice of empathy for those parents.  Reese has a little aggression problem.  We go to counseling every couple of weeks for it.  I usually get pretty excited at lunch time if we haven't had any hitting/biting/kicking/throwing toys at people/pinching/drawing blood.
We knew sooner than later we might have an issue at school.  And that time came.
I went to pick the kiddos up on Monday and Reese's teacher looked at me and said, "We had a little bit of a problem today".  My heart sank.  She proceeded to tell me he hit a boy in the face three times (admitted to it and apologized) and was running kids over with the bike, even when asked to stop.  I told her we are working on it at home and I was sorry.  I probably didn't appear scandalized enough and the poor teacher may have thought I wasn't taking it seriously.
The truth was, I was mortified.  Nobody wants that to be their kid.  Reese tells me all the time about other kids in his class hitting and now there are kids going home and telling their parents about Reese hitting.  I cried the whole way home.  My sweet little boy.
Reese and I had a long talk about not hitting and that he needs to listen to his teacher.  I told him his teacher loves him and wants him to be a good listener.  He wrote a card to his teacher telling her he was sorry and he knew he had to go back today and tell her sorry and give her the card.  He mentioned it several times over the last few days, and I knew he was mulling it all over.
After I got home I thought about those parents sitting with their child in my class.  I probably judged them too harshly (although I don't really remember).  I hope that people can see that parents really are trying their best to teach their children lessons.  I don't know what miracle I thought was going to occur by having those parents sit with their kids.  Because no amount of me sitting with Reese at preschool will keep him from hitting at this point.
I have much greater empathy for the parents of children who misbehave in public.  People say all the time that children are on their best behavior outside of the home (particularly at school).  But not always.  I am very blessed to have children who generally behave very well in public (I have never had a grocery store meltdown...knock on wood).
There has been no hitting at our house since Monday evening.  I am hoping that this is the start of a new chapter for us.  I love my sweet little boy and pray that he learns to express himself better.  And I pray for all those parents who struggle with trying to help their children learn life lessons, even when it seems that it isn't working, and even when it seem impossible.