I heard the desperate, exasperated voices before I even entered the coat room. J and E were standing just a few feet apart. E was pointedly ignoring J, primly pulling right side out the sleeve of a purple sweater. J, meanwhile, was standing there, arms stiffly held at her side and angry disbelief clear on her face. She could barely sputter out that E was wearing her sweater she was so distraught. I looked at E and she earnestly told me she had found the sweater in her bin.
"No she didn't!" J shouted. I turned and asked her if she had worn a sweater that day and when she said no, still insisting that that one was hers I suggested that maybe she and E had the same sweater and hers was still at home. It would not have been the first time that happened to one of the children at our school. J thought about that for a bit and I asked E one more time if the sweater was hers. She affirmed once more that it was and I saw another one of my fellow teachers nodding from the hallway where she had been watching.
So I sent E off to the bathroom to change, and J lost it, whimpering and hiding herself in her snowsuit hanging on the hook. I knelt beside her for a second, telling her that we could check with her mom when she came to see if they could look for the sweater back at home. She kind of ignored me and I let her be sad while I helped the other go homers get dressed to go home.
Then E came back in and the first words out of her mouth were, "It's my sweater." That pushed J over the edge. She cried out "No it's not!" and started actually crying. I chastised E, letting her know that we had already solved the problem and she didn't need to bring it up again. I nudged her back in to the classroom and then helped J into a separate room where she could calm down without disturbing anyone else (or being bothered by E again!).
When I got the other children dressed and mostly ready to go I fetched J and said I wanted to show her something in the classroom. We tiptoed in to where the children who stay for lunch were having group time and I whispered at her to look at L and Q. "Do you see what they're wearing?" She covered her mouth but I could still hear the giggles. L and Q were wearing the exact same dress and J thought it was just hilarious.
J was actually so cheered up that she completely forgot to ask her mom about looking for the sweater when they got home and I let the subject drop. The two other adults in the classroom let me know that E had also told them that the sweater was hers and we all figured it had been a misunderstanding and that it was over with.
Not the case. E goes home after lunch and I was really surprised to see her standing in the door with her dad during nap. She apparently had broken down in the car with her dad, howling about how she had stolen J's sweater. E's sobbing and guilt was so bad that her dad actually turned the car around so they could go back and return the sweater to J. All us teachers just nodded when we heard this, and directed her to hang it on J's hook since she had already left for the day. E was obviously feeling guilty enough we didn't need to say anything more to her.
Today when E came home she sought out J right away and apologized. I missed hearing the actual apology but I did see the results. The two of them were inseparable for the rest of the morning. They worked together, they ate snack with one another, they read books with each other. Then later I found them in the coat room where E was putting on that purple sweater once again...the sweater we had discovered had actually belonged to J. I asked why she had it again and J piped up, "I want to give it to her!"
Absolute forgiveness. This wasn't prompted or even hinted at by any adult. This was J's pure desire to show E her forgiveness about the incident of the stolen sweater. She had completely and utterly forgiven E for her selfish actions. Children are so amazingly capable and kind.
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