6 Year-Old Tears

Kate came home from School today in tears.

She threw open the door, walked into the house and chucked her backpack across the room.

The first words out of her mouth were,

"It's all your fault!"

I couldn't get any more information out of her for about 5 minutes. Kate gets really quiet when she is angry. She boils for what seems like hours until the tears seem to pop out of her face.

The tears break my heart.

And then I get frustrated and mad.

"Kate, I can't help you if you don't tell me what is wrong."

I finally decide to give her space and I leave the room.
5 minutes later I check on her.
I can't find her.
I look everywhere.
When I go to her room I find her under her covers crying.

Words don't really work with Kate. You have to give her space and time. She is stubborn but also sensitive. She has a hard time communicating her emotions.

I slip into her bed behind her and wrap my arms around her. It is all I can do to just keep my mouth shut. A few minutes pass and she turns into my hug. The tears are still coming.

"Kate, what happened?"

"They all made fun of me." She continued to tell me that some of the kids teased her about her leg-warmers. The kids were suppose to dress silly today, for Dr. Seuss. When I dropped her off at school there were plenty of other boys and girls dressed in mix-matching, funny clothes too. I didn't think that we had gone too extreme and I sort of thought that she was adorable.

I probably messed up the next part by telling her that the other kids were probably jealous of her, or hadn't seen leg-warmers before. I told her that the boys that teased her probably thought that she was cute, and the girls probably thought that she was pretty. I told her that there are lots of ways that kids tease other kids and the reason is never what you would think.

I then told her that there will  be people that come into her life that won't like her.

They won't like who she is, what she looks like, what she does, or what she stands for.

I told her that there will be nothing that she can do to change the way that these people may view her and that she shouldn't waste her sweet tears caring what they think about her. I told her to figure out who she wants to be and to be it.

And then I gave her an extra tight hug, looked into her eyes and told her that her family will always love her. I told her that we will always love who she is, what she looks like, what she does and what she stands for. We will be right here. I told her that her Heavenly Father also loves her more than she could possibly imagine. I told her that she is safe here at home, and that she can tell me anything that troubles her and I will try my best to help her. I told her that her true friends will always have her back, they will always love her and they will always be kind.

Kate, the world won't always love you. 

But I will.