I volunteer to help kids with literacy. I showed up on a recent day and was asked if I’d be willing to work with a special needs child because the specialist had to call out. Happy to do so I soon found myself in a secluded part of a hallway listening to a little boy read about a tour of an ice cream factory.
The nature of the program means the volunteers and students find places to sit together which may be in an overcrowded room with a cacophany of voices or in a hall where students changing classes walk by.
At one point he looked at me and asked “Why so many screams?”
This was after watching him struggle with the fact he was trying to form the thought. Telling him to take his time seemed to help him relax and articulate what was on his mind.
Why So Many Screams?
I immediately picked up his concern over the word scream but also knew he lacked context. I quickly explained it was a childhood rhyme.
I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream.
I suspected my explanation didn’t fly because he wasn’t familiar with the rhyme so I quickly explained it was something kids would call out when chasing the ice cream man. This necessitated I explain what the ice cream man was.
And why kids would be chasing him.
I admit – I have not seen or heard an ice cream man in all the years I’ve lived in this region of the country but that didn’t stop me from telling this sweet boy
“I’m old. When I was little in Michigan my friends and me would chase the ice cream man – you could hear him coming by the music in his truck – yelling “I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream.”
I watched him think over the honest explanation then slowly nod. And then he smiled.
A beautiful smile that lit up his features.
He said “I can’t wait to tell my mom.”
I don’t know if his mom is a translplant from another part of the country – maybe a place where she grew up hearing the telltale sound of an ice cream truck coming in her direction – but it reinforces my belief that we need to share stories with our kids
and grandkids …
I saw first hand how the lack of knowledge confused and alarmed.
We need to tell our stories
To share wisdom and give context.
And to reassure.
Elizabeth Maxim 