Reconciliation

I work with 3, 4, and 5 year olds on a daily basis, 25 of them to count. There is a three year old boy named Zack that I get to come in contact with everyday. From the beginning, I noticed that he doesn't seem much like a normal little boy. He's extremely quiet and seems to hold in a lot of feelings. One day, he had a brief but intense screaming fit with me after I asked him to go use the bathroom after his nap, so as not to have an accident. He just sat on his nap mat and at the top of his lungs went "AHHHHH!!", it was obviously anger filled. Oh, and he threw his blanket at me too. I didn't react right away, but I told him that its not allowed to treat someone like that. A few months went by without anymore outbursts. Until last week, at lunch I asked him to finish eating his food, instead of playing with his food, and he looked at me and said "I don't like you", again, I tried not to indulge it. The next day, he was playing with his food again and lunch had ended so he didn't have time to eat his dessert, so I said "Zack, you can put your cookies in your lunch box and eat them when you get home". He looked at me, raised his hand like he was going to strike me and angrily screamed "THAT'S NOT NICE!!". I literally stepped back from fear of a three year old. I walked away to gain composure and later talked with him about it. I told his teacher and she immediately said "Well, we are not having that, I'm going to have to write a note to his mom and ask her not to put cookies in his lunch anymore because he's acting violently with the teachers". This alarmed Zack's mom and she instantly wanted to help in this situation. Zack's punishment was no cookies in his lunch for a week. And the next day he brought me a book from home with drawings he drew and this photo was the last page. It melted my heart and I wrote him a note of forgiveness. We hugged. One of the teachers read him the forgiveness note since he left it in his lunch box and she told me later that he said "you know, I actually do love Ms. Naomi". Now he just looks at me across the classroom and smiles and waves. Its a totally new dynamic and its amazing to see that growth in a small child. What an inspiration!