Forgiveness

"We call a child's mind "small" simply by habit; perhaps it is larger than ours is, for it can take in almost anything without effort."
-Christopher Morley

My friend's nephew, who is three, is soon to start pre-school. Prior to this he had been regularly spending his afternoons with my friend's two year old son.
The younger child is quite lively and has unfortunately been known to injure the three year old in a moment of playfulness. The older chap will consistently defend his friend, however, when things get out of hand.
"He didn't mean to bite me," the child will urge; or "he was just playing, really."
My friend claims that all the other children in the family shrink into a corner when they see the smaller fellow coming for a visit- he is a perfectly delightful baby and superbly smart but I am merely recording what his mother has said.
Her nephew, however, takes all the energetic beating-about with good humour and he sticks up for his little friend.
He recently went along to his would-be school to spend the day in order to get acquainted with the environment and other children, so that come September it might feel more natural.
The boy felt it his duty to alert the teacher to his demanding schedule.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but I can only come to school in the mornings. I babysit. He bites me- look!" and he proceeded to show the teacher a mark on his elbow as evidence of his daily duties.
That fellow possesses something that is in short supply among grown ups.
The power of forgiveness is endangered. One might well argue, "but it was a child that bit him, who didn't know any better."
Certainly- but the injured party is only three years old and hardly expected to be conscious of the fact that it was an accident.
We are indeed guides and role models for children- but sometimes we can learn from them too.