Building Trust and Personal Relationships

There's a student in my classroom that has been distant towards me from the beginning. Let's call him Robert. I couldn't ever figure him out. Some days he would smile and wave. Other days I felt as though he did not want to participate in class or interact with me.

The past week or so, Robert has definitely started to warm up to me. He joyfully takes part in class activities and is more responsive to me when I talk with him or ask him questions. We've talked about his family, taste in music, interests, etc. It has taken a lot on my part to not impose myself and force a relationship but for him to open up to me naturally. I try my hardest to develop personal relationships with all of my students. While Robert may have taken more time and effort, I still wanted to create a relationship and build trust between us.

This morning, some of the kids in his class claimed that he had a girlfriend in a neighboring class. The kids thought it was all in good fun and laughed and kept making it a point that she was Robert's girlfriend. They were speaking vernacular for most of it and I couldn't understand, but Robert seemed as though he was not liking how his friends were treating him. All of a sudden the room got quiet. I walked behind the classroom cupboard and Robert was on the floor covering his face crying. I immediately got down on his level and began to comfort him. Heather and Emily were in the room at the time and were helpful in that they took the other children in the room and did activities with them and even removed them from the room to take their attention away from Robert and me.

I was scared the whole time that Robert would be unresponsive and would refuse to tell me what or who had upset him. I was not sure if he would be distant towards me or be willing to talk with me. After 10 minutes or so I calmed him down and asked him what was upsetting him. I told him that I cared about him and wanted to help him and that if he didn't tell me what was wrong, I would not be able to help him. After several more minutes of weeping and silence on my part, Robert suddenly started to explain to me what was wrong. He told me that his friends were lying by telling everyone that he had a girlfriend, and he told me the names of the classmates that upset him. He said he was embarrassed and mad. He even told me he wanted to fight them. When I told him that he cannot fight them, he asked me why. I told him that if we use physical violence on his friends, we will not get anywhere. It will only make the situation worse. However, if we speak with his friends and explain to them what they did, they will know exactly what they did wrong and can learn from the experience and think about the people and feelings they are affecting with their behavior. After some explanation, Robert agreed not to fight his friends. I figured that since most of these kids have not been exposed to dealing with conflict resolution, I would give Robert the option of being with me or not when we approached his friends. He told me he did not want to be present.

I was nervous to talk to the boys because I haven't had much experience with resolving conflict between classmates or friends. I knew that I wanted it to be simple yet effective. I grabbed the boys that Robert named between break and asked them about the situation. I wanted to spark some sort of empathy or perspective taking when bringing up and discussing Robert's situation. To put it simply, we discussed how Robert may have felt when they were telling people he had a girlfriend. We talked about how they would have felt if they were Robert or if someone made a lie up about them. After our discussion, I reminded that Robert was their friend, and they agreed that they should treat him like one too.

The rest of the day, Robert was great. He participated and interacted with his classmates and was very friendly to the friends that had upset him earlier. I reflected on the situation, and I think it took a great deal of trust for Robert to be able to explain his feelings and thoughts during the ordeal. He could have easily shut down and ran off without talking with me or allowing me to help him. I think that since I made a strong effort to build relationships with all of my students including Robert, he felt that he could trust me with his emotions and the situation. I'm glad that I was able to make a breakthrough with Robert. And because of what happened today, I think that our relationship will be stronger and the trust will be even greater. This definitely proved to me the importance of building trust and personal relationships with each and every one of my students.