June 19, 2018
I spent this day with the Kindergarten students, and it became more apparent that one female child engaged adults with a proficient and higher degree of cheekiness than did the others. Furthermore, there was a moment where two of the boys argued with each other about a trade between them involving toy cars, and my cheeky student stood up, interjected and said, “Guys, there are bigger problems in the world… Like cancer.” After that comment, she sat back down and started working again.
From whence comes cheekiness, or in other terms, sass? I thought about this question for a few hours today and I have come to the conclusion that cheekiness, or sass, is a higher form of social interaction. Why? To effectively use cheekiness/sass you must understand what is being asked or what is happening, and then you must take that data and reformulate it such that it is mildly off-putting for the recipient of your comment, yet still maintains the respect that is due to another human being. The danger of using this is that you walk a fine line between humour and disrespect. My concern regarding this is to what extent is sass social competency and to what extent is it learned behaviour? Is this child simply acting cheeky because of how she has seen interactions at home?
By the end of the day, I recalled some other difficulties in her context: She has an older brother in grade 2 who exhibits many behavioural challenges. Furthermore, in her home-life, many choices and situations are subjected to the whims of her brother because her mother opts to appease him in order to maintain control over his behaviours. I heard that recently, her older brother pulled down her pants and stuffed rocks in it, amongst other things. It was also interesting to hear a comment from my cheeky student herself: A handful of the students were drawing pictures of themselves when they were 1 year-old and what not, and she said that her brother had taken feces and smothered it on her wall when she was younger. I also remember another moment in the class where, when she was not given what she wanted, stated quite blatantly, “I never get what I want.”
Perhaps this cheekiness is actually a coping mechanism that she has developed in order to navigate the situations surrounding, most notably, her brother and, by extension, others who impede or prevent her desires. It is certainly an unfortunate situation that she is in, having an older brother who is more of a tormentor than a sibling who loves her, but I wonder how she will grow from this. It seems that the community of her home-life is highly influencing how she develops as a human being and I wonder how her future social interactions will carry themselves. Will her cheekiness or sass thus become an “I instinctually/automatically act this way,” or will it be an “I choose to act this way.” No one likes a perpetually sassy person, especially when the sass begins to sting and hurt, like a dull knife poking at one’s side until it breaks the skin. It seems like she needs someone to make her become truly aware that she is loved and that her desires can be met. How this will occur? Only God knows that.