My New Boyfriend

I'd always heard about little kids having crushes on their teachers, but I've never been on the receiving end of it until recently. Recently, I added a first grader onto my caseload. He is extremely anxious, has zero self-confidence, and exhibits a lot of internalizing behaviors like hiding his head into his shirt. He's a bit hard to understand because he also has speech and language issues.

 

Anyway, I was concerned about transitioning him from the aide he was working with in the hall, to me and my office (anxiety about strangers was the issue). So last week, I made it a point to stop by every single day for five or ten minutes when he was working with his aide in the hall. Every single time, he was very shy and hesitant around me. But apparently on Friday he was telling his classroom teacher how excited he was to start with me on Monday (yesterday).

 

Also on Friday? He drew me a picture of a cat and a dog. He labeled them "cat" and "dog" (good thing too, because they look remarkably similar). At the end of the day, he gave me his favorite soccer pencil. I thought: "This is a good sign. Monday will be easy". And it was! He came out of his shell; he was chatty; he smiled a lot; he was highly cooperative. At the end of the day, he gave me a pink heart with a lot of letters on it. I could make out "like" and then my name. There were some other "words" there, and when I peeked at the sheet of paper his teacher had written on for him to copy, I realized he had written "I like you. I like your games."

 

Max better watch out... there's a new man in town, now!!