Let's call the little one Blin, who one day, when his mother was taking him to the garden, it seemed to him that her eyes were filled with tears.
His mother was trying to hide it, but Blin asked him what was wrong.
His mother told him that he had been very upset at work.
Blin remembered how many times he had cried when someone or something had upset him:
— Did you trip over the chair? Look, mom is beating the chair!
— Did you hurt yourself with your skates? Grandpa is beating the ground!
— Who made you upset? Dad is beating you!
But what about work? Could he beat it?
He thought and thought, and after they walked a short distance in silence, Blini grabbed his mother's hand tighter to get her attention and said:
"I'm small, I can't beat the work that bothered you, but can I hug you?"
Mom leaned over and hugged her little boy tightly. Every thought that was running through her head seemed to be drowned out by that hug. The boy's little arms around her neck were the best answer to any worries.
This is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever heard, sad and full of hope at the same time.
A little boy like Blini, with his simple words and pure heart, shows us how wrong we, the adults, are.
After every mistake we rush to find the culprit and punish him violently, often without turning our heads to the one who suffered it. We think we have accomplished our mission when we punish the other, when we comfort without realizing that, in fact, we are influencing our little ones badly.
For every encounter with evil, small or big, we often find the shortest path and become evil ourselves.
— Did he hurt you? Hurt him too!
— Did he kill you? Kill you too!
This, while they are little... Because then, when they grow up, we are the ones who punish them for behaving badly with others.
But why is that, my dear? Where did they come from? Who taught them to behave like this?
It is our fault. We are teaching them to be violent. Often with words. Have you noticed how violent we are with our vocabulary?
Well, no word of ours when we want to be the parent who condemns the violent, never has the weight of the example we give when we speak thoughtlessly and act wrongly ourselves.
No criticism is worth as much as an action.
And no child deserves to struggle to receive the love and empathy of adults. It is we who must answer them, unconditionally.
