Wash your mouth out with soap.

Every afternoon when I work at the ramp, a child always comes to me telling me all about a crisis that they are in. "He's not sharing." "He hit me." "He called me a ........"
When it comes to the "not sharing" crisis, I usually start by asking, "Did you ask him for it?" A lot of the times the crisis is resolved by just reminding the kids to ask each other to share and say "Por favor."
"He hit me," can usually be resolved by reassuring the kids that it was probably and accident or telling the offender that fighting and hitting is not allowed. At the ramp we have fun and play... we don't fight.
"He called me a....." is usually where I run into problems. Part of the problem is that I have only learned so many curse words in Spanish. They don't teach you those words in high school. Sometimes the problem is that I don't actually know when a child is using a "bad word." I can usually pick up on a verbal fight when I hear the phrase, "Your grandma!" Insulting someone's grandma is a pretty big offense. I have found that solving this crisis is a little more difficult for me. I often don't actually hear the insult and have to go of the word off the offended. And what do you say to that anyway? It stumps me a lot of the time. It's not like I can just haul them into the bathroom and wash their mouth out with soap. I hardly think that would solve the problem. I tell them that here, at the ramp, we don't talk like that. So I tell them that saying bad words is sin and that this place is a place where we glorify the name of the Lord. We glorify Him with our actions and words. If they can't do that, they cannot play at the ramp. 
A few weeks ago, a little boy says, "LIZZZZZZZZZZ! That girl gave me the finger!!!" I did not actually see this happen so I told him to calm down and remember that he was responsible for himself and his actions and to pay her no mind. I told him that he is not to give her the finger back because that's sin. He turned to me and asked, "So you never say bad words?" I told him that I honestly try not to. But in all honesty this morning I hit my elbow really hard and I said a bad word. I don't normally curse. Like I said, I honestly try not to. But it makes me think, I tell kids almost everyday to glorify the Lord in all their actions. But I think what it really comes down to in the end is this: Do I glorify the Lord in everything that I do? 

The Finger.

Today Yalixa, one of the little girls at the kindergarten I work at, did something kind of funny. She said, "Excuse me teacher. This weekend I hit one of my friends." The teacher responded with a look of disappointment and told her that we don't hit other people. Yalixa said, "But teacher she gave me the finger." The teacher said, "Oh that's just terrible! You should have told her mother instead of hitting her." Yalixa said, "Her mother doesn't care." Her teacher replied, "Well then you just tell her you don't play with mean children." At this point classmate Britanie decided to chime in. She put her hand like this

motioning to the pinky and index finger and asked, "Which finger did she give you?" Yalixa responded and said, "No, no. It was THIS one....." and showed poor little Britanie which one it was.......