"I really do NOT feel sorry for you."

Yes. I do, indeed, say these words to my students on an almost weekly basis. Okay, not weekly, maybe monthly. How many times can you direct a child to do right, and still, they will do wrong? Some examples from my teaching career:

"Child, you need to keep your arms and legs untucked from your oversized T-Shirt... your arms and legs are there to help protect you if you lose your balance and fall." (After correcting this behavior several times a day over the course of a week): Child goes to music class and proceeds to squat on his chair, tuck his knees into his shirt, and then pull his arms into his shirt, looking like a rock waiting to be pushed off a hill. Well, child loses his balance, and goes head first off the chair and onto the hard floor. Hello goose-egg bump and a need for stitches. "I told you that you needed your arms and legs. I really do NOT feel sorry for you."

I am helping students with their writing assignment at a back table. An excited student asks for more lined paper for the creative story they're writing. I go get more paper. I return to a table with a boy crying because he cut himself. "How did you cut yourself while you were writing?" fully knowing that he had to have been fooling around to get cut. Well, he and his friend thought it would be fun to break their pencils while I was helping the other student. Unfortunately the pencil breaking didn't go as smoothly as planned and it cut him across the palm of his hand. "Pencils are a tool for writing, not a toy for breaking. I really do NOT feel sorry for you."

The YEARLY accident that happens no matter what grade or group of children you have: Students sit in their chairs tipping them so they are balancing all their weight on the front two legs or the back two legs. "Remember, all four legs on the ground." It doesn't matter how many reminders you give. At least four times a year, you hear a loud THUD and then crying. "Yes, when you don't sit on the chair the right way, you CAN fall. I really do NOT feel sorry for you."

"You cut yourself while playing with scissors?"
"You took out a chunk of your face from falling into a bookshelf while playing chase during library time?"
"You hit someone and they hit you back?"
"You tripped while running down the hall?"
"You stepped on a tack while you had your shoes off in school?"
"You pinched your skin in the binder rings after purposely opening and closing them to annoy your neighbor?
"You don't feel that good after eating chalk dust?"
"You stepped in cow poop while fooling around during the tour?" (At Dairy Expo)
"You feel bad because someone responded to the "Yo Momma" joke you said to them with a different "Yo Momma joke? You can dish it but you can't take it?"
"She's looking at you again?"
"She said you have brown hair? You DO have brown hair. What's the problem?"

I REALLY DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR YOU!
BTW, I am writing all of this with a smile on my face. It's always funnier looking back.
Happy Tuesday! =)