Things My Kids Teach Me

My children keep on teaching me.
My daughter just ran crying into the kitchen.
“My brother bit me when I tried to…” her four-year-old speech became garbled as she posited
thoughts on why her little brother, age 2, bit her.

My husband is grabbing ice.
I look at her wound and apologize that she’s hurting. I ask her how we can help? She says she wants ice, an apology, and, for her little brother, a teether because his teeth are probably hurting.

My children are teaching me today!

When someone is hurting, you hold them first. You help them first. Then you acknowledge the pain caused. Her little brother had to apologize for his actions.

Then you focus on healing. She’s four, and she can see through her pain to think about what her little brother--whom she loves dearly--might need.
She assumes the following: because I love him and he loves me, he would not hurt me for no reason.

Surely there is something hurting him if he hurt me this way. She assumes this much and asks if we can heal him too,
As if she knows that addressing his pain is the best way to ensure that he doesn’t hurt her again.

If a four-year-old knows this so intrinsically, could it be that love and empathy and healing and diffusing hurt is our very nature?