A UK teacher has shot to Internet fame over the past few hours for the unique and memorable lesson she gave to her children.
Relax Kids is a school specifically designed to cater to the needs of anxious and stresses children.
Their website states:
“4% of children between the ages of 5 and 16 suffer from an emotional disorder such as anxiety or depression.”
They state that their lessons and strategies help work as anger management tools.
“Relax Kids’ strategies mimic clinically-proven anger management and mitigation treatments such as therapeutic exercise and yoga, breathing exercises, and mindfulness exercises. These can be used as anger management tools, ways to help at moments of meltdown, or methods to make time-outs constructive rather than punitive.”
One of the Relax Kids teachers is receiving massive amounts of praise for her simple yet effective lesson. Taking to Facebook the teacher began writing:
“Today in one of our classes I introduced the children to two apples (the children didn't know this, but before the class I had repeatedly dropped one of the apples on the floor, you couldn't tell, both apples looked perfect). We talked about the apples and the children described how both apples looked the same; both were red, were of similar size and looked juicy enough to eat.”
She explains that she asked the children to start saying mean things to the fallen apple. She writes:
“we passed the apple around the circle calling it names, 'you're a smelly apple', 'I don't even know why you exist', 'you've probably got worms inside you' etc.”
“We really pulled this poor apple apart. I actually started to feel sorry for the little guy.”
The other apple was praised and adored. Afterwards, the teacher held up the two apples and on the outside they both looked similar. The bruises on the apple that had been repeatedly dropped were not too evident.
Then she cut them open and showed the children the damage inside.
“The apple we'd been kind to was clear, fresh and juicy inside.”
“The apple we'd said unkind words to was bruised and all mushy inside.
I think there was a lightbulb moment for the children immediately. They really got it, what we saw inside that apple, the bruises, the mush and the broken bits is what is happening inside every one of us when someone mistreats us with their words or actions.”
“When people are bullied, especially children, they feel horrible inside and sometimes don't show or tell others how they are feeling.”
The teacher goes on to remind us that we can raise a generation of considerate and kind children by being mindful of our own words.
“We can teach children that it's not ok to say unkind things to each other and discuss how it makes others feel. We can teach our children to stand up for each other and to stop any form of bullying, just as one little girl did today when she refused to say unkind words to the apple.”
“More and more hurt and damage happens inside if nobody does anything to stop the bullying. Let's create a generation of kind, caring children.”
“The tongue has no bones, but is strong enough to break a heart. So be careful with your words,” she says.
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