As a teacher, I can tell you that five and six year olds are for the most part just plain selfish. Aren't we all though? I try to encourage and praise acts of unselfishness and gratefulness that I see in my students. The other day they had P.E. and I decided to have cold Capri Sun's waiting for them when they came back from P.E. because they are always thirsty. I usually just let them drink water. When they came in and found their Capri Sun's they actually said thank you! I gushed with praise. Finally, a glimpse of unselfish behavior. For once they thought of someone else. There was a brief silence after I praised them. Their conversation follows:

"Well, I said 'thank you' first."

"No, I did."

"Nu-uh, I said it first."

As you can imagine, it escalated from here. For the love of Pete, does it matter who said it first? So their brief bout of gratefulness was followed with a stellar first grade "I'll take the credit for every good thing that happens, whatever you say I can top it" performance. I guess I'll take the good and leave the bad.

Mrs. Robinson