My niece, usually bright and eager to run off to school, suddenly began to resist.
She looked dull, uneasy, finding countless reasons to stay home.
At first, it seemed like simple mischief — the kind every child tries.

Watching her, I was taken back to my own childhood.
I too had once refused school, not out of laziness, but because of small fears I couldn’t name.
How easily these tender feelings travel across generations, quietly asking to be noticed.

**And now, seeing the same hesitation in her, we naturally started to worry:**
> “After two months of summer holidays, maybe she’s just gotten too used to staying home.”
> “Is she unhappy at school?”

But instead of reacting in haste, my brother chose to pause and listen.
Through gentle questions, she finally shared it — a tiny fear, so real in her little heart, yet invisible to us.

Once he helped her see she was safe, her smile returned.
By the next day, she was happily off to school again, the weight gone as if it had never been there.

**The gentle truth**

How easily we rush to fix behavior,
forgetting there might be a trembling story behind it.
Children don’t always know how to say,
“I’m scared.”

Sometimes the greatest gift we give them
is simply to notice —
to pause, to stay present, to not correct too quickly.

And in that pause, we might remember:
We, too, were once small.
We, too, faced fears we couldn’t name.
Who knows how different it might have felt —
just one gentle soul,
choosing to handle it this way.

— Jayasudha
unspoken, still