Yesterday was a real eye opening day for us. For years the GS has had its share of poorly behaved children. We’ve taken them in course like everyone else. In fact it came to be a kind of rep we had – “Take the child to the Garden School; they will turn him around.”

Last year we had perhaps the worst child we’ve ever had. We tried everything. The child came to love us, but still would not cooperate. Not wanting to give up, we fought like tigers for the child and then realized that because all the work we did for the child at school went down the drain after 5:00, there was nothing real we could do for him. He came in every morning freshly ready to assault the day, and although we got a lot of lip service, we didn’t get any results.

On Monday, on the spur of the moment, we took two beautiful, sad little kids in. We took them to the pool, to the playground, and to a birthday party. At the end of the day, the energy and time given to these children was so disproportionate, every teacher reported the next day that they had failed to sleep over the care that would be expected the next day.

“How fair is that to the good kids?” I asked. Everyone just stared at the next teacher. “If it were a week of struggle, perhaps it would be worth it, but I see a whole school year spent in formation,” I said to myself. “If we had the staff, it would be worth doing, but suppose it goes like most of these situations,” I mused, “And the support from home becomes a liability as well?”

So often with problem children the problem begins and remains with the parents. Nearly everyone can care for an infant, but the skill to handle a toddler is absent, and the preschooler suffers dramatically because of it. The parent looses heart by the time a child is five, and the behavior is way out of line.

The Garden School is a place where children learn. Learning involves early character, discipline and a desire to listen. We can’t build that after the fact especially if there is no back up, no home life that steers a child in the same direction. If we’re struggling to get a child into the starting position too long, what’s the point?

We could turn the GS into a place for the terribly behaved, the lost, the lonely, the abused, but at what cost and with what assistance? We’ve turned plenty of kids around, and Milestones got the grant. We organized and developed a whole different early childhood order and the Joshua Academy got all the attention.

The Garden School has its own direction. We’re a place where children build the kind of independent study habits that leads them to be leaders and builders of the next generation. Sometimes a child who got off to a poor start will fit in and change, but those who don’t are too much of a liability.

This year, we have not a single poorly behaved child enrolled at the school and I’d like to keep it that way. It will be an exciting year for us.

The pictures are taken by Miss Kelly. She is a fabulous photographer. See how close we were!!