On turning into my mother

A few weeks ago I got the assignment to be a primary teacher at church. My class is the 6 & 7 year olds. I've got two kids who are a handful, luckily they've only both been there on the same day once so far. I've yet to have more than 4 kids there at a time; I don't know how my mom manages a class of 30 of them all day every day. Loving teaching first-graders is not the way in which I am turning into my mother.

It's the voice. The you're-in-trouble, I'm-deadly-serious whisper voice. Have you heard it? Do other moms do that too? Or just my mom? Turns out, without any practice at all, I have mastered it. The kids in the primary never saw it coming. It works, too!

Episode one:

Last week my handful-boy was in top form. He had been rude to me all throughout the lesson, and I chose to ignore it. My handful-girl was there and was going on and on about something. The boy was tired of listening to her and decided to tell her, rather rudely, to stop talking. Now, I won't stand for that. I won't let them be mean to each other. So, I turned toward him, leaned forward, and said in the firm whisper voice, "I'm the teacher here. I am in charge. I will take care of the other kids. It is not okay for you to talk to her that way." Then I went on with the lesson. He put his head on the table and cried. I didn't say any more about it. He seemed genuinely happy to see me this week. So I guess we're good.

Episode two:

My handful-boy was giving the talk in sharing time this week. He was stumbling over some of the words he was reading; he's six, remember? Well, a few kids in the class behind us, the 7 & 8 year olds, laughed. It happened once, and I did nothing. The second time they giggled at his reading mistake I turned around in my chair, leaned toward them (hmm, maybe the leaning makes a difference), and whispered at them, "It is not nice to laugh at him when he messes up reading. You need to stop it right now." They both looked at me with wide, silent eyes and nodded. 

Yup, I'm turning into my mother.