Literally No Headache

"Did I really give you a headache?" one of my students asked this morning.

I looked at her confused. "What do you mean?"

"When I said reading so much was giving me a headache, you said my complaining was giving you a headache."

I had forgotten our exchange in homeroom earlier in the day. "No," I told her, "it wasn't a real headache; it was metaphorical, like yours."

"What does that mean?" she asked in alarm.

"Your headache wasn't real," I explained. "You were comparing the feeling of doing something you really didn't want to do, in this case reading, to having headache."

She shifted her eyes away.

"And I was doing the same," I admitted. "I really didn't want to hear you complain about something that wasn't real."

What I was saying was not a surprise to her; she knew what I meant in homeroom, but she was put out by my tone. When I was thinking about it later, though, I realized that her reaction was part of a pattern. The kids this year seem more fragile than in the past, less able to take negative feedback, whether it is constructive or not. 

Maybe it's because before this year started, the last time they were in a regular classroom was 4th grade, when they were nine. Middle school? Is a whole different dynamic; we expect the kids to have a bit of a thicker skin. 

But they don't right now, so I'm going to have to be more mindful of my sharp tongue (at least for a while).