“Why Don’t Your EyeBrows Go Like This?”

Over the summer, I got to hang out with a pretty awesome group of schoolagers. During their rest time one day, two of the kids were having so much fun playing together, they were having a hard time following the rule to use quiet voices.
For these two particular kiddos, playing happily together for any length of time without incident was kind of rare. I was grateful no one in the room was bothered by their volume so I could go with my gut; I wanted to reinforce the healthy play in their relationship more than I wanted them to whisper.
Throughout rest time, I visited with these two every so often for some support and coaching in playing excitedly with quiet voices.

Upon my third approach, one of them looked into my eyes with sincere interest and asked, “How come your eyebrows never go like this?” He furrowed his brow.
“Are you asking me why I never get angry with you?”
“Yeah,” the other chimed in, “Why don’t you get angry with us?”
“Hmm…,” I considered the question, “I can’t think of a time lately when there was reason for me to get angry with you… Can you?”
They looked at each other, shook their heads, and looked back at me. “Just when we make mistakes,” one of them shrugged.
I responded with surprise and curiosity. “Do you think that when you make mistakes should I get mad at you?”
They both quickly answered, “No.”
I was relieved they knew it. “Right,” I affirmed, “Because they’re just mistakes, right? That’s when you need me to help you. If I got mad at you, you wouldn’t know how to fix that mistake next time.”
“Yeah! If you don’t help us, we don’t know what to do next time!” They grinned at each other with liberation.
Then one more thought occurred to them, “Then why do other grown-ups get mad when we make mistakes?”
I had to think carefully. “I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “You’ll have to ask them.”