“Shut the %&$# up!” he screamed at the child.

I was getting in my car two spaces away.

I froze.

I stared.

He turned to me, “What are you looking at?”

“He’s just a baby,” I said.

He slammed the door and sped off.

I wondered what I could have said differently.  I sat in my car for awhile thinking about that child and that father and the interaction that I witnessed. A memory surfaced from my internship.

I provided counseling to about 10 students at one of my internship sites and as my schedule got tight at the end of the year, I combined some of the students into small groups.  My “boys group” decided that they wanted to play an epic game of Phase 10 to end out the year.  It took 3 sessions to get to the final phase.  As we drew and discarded cards the last day, it became obvious who needed which cards to win the game. It was pretty intense and a lot of fun.  Then the student right before me discarded the exact card I needed to win the game.  The other boys screamed and groaned. 

“Why did you do that?  We all knew that was the card she needed,” one student demanded.

Silence.

“Well,” he replied, “Ms. Larson is my favorite person in the world.”

When I shared that experience later at supervision, I remember saying how his statement made me so sad.  It only took 30 minutes a week for 10 weeks to become his favorite person in the world.

Twenty years later, I can still get overwhelmed by how many children come to school looking for someone to notice them, accept them and love them.  And then I am reminded of the oft quoted story of the starfish.

One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.

Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, “I’m saving these starfish, Sir”.

The old man chuckled aloud, “Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?”

The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, “I made a difference to that one!” (https://starfishproject.com/the-parable/)

“Imagine if everyone was able to help just one child who needs to be listened to, needs to be respected, and needs to be loved – we could make such a huge difference for an entire generation.” Kate Middleton

We can all listen to one child.

We can all unconditionally accept one child.

We can all be the “favorite person” to one child.

We can all love one child.

We can all change the world one child at a time.