“I hope you make some more friends”, Mother asks parents to teach their kids kindness after her 12-year-old son cried when no one signed his yearbook

Most parents, grandparents and teachers show kindness to children every day. We give them love and attention. While kindness might seem pretty straightforward to learn, it’s a bit more complex than meets the eye and it’s very important to impart this life lesson to our children. This mom’s experience showed that asking your children to be kind and empathetic can go a long way. “My poor son. Doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better. 2 teachers and a total of 2 students wrote in his yearbook. Despite Brody asking all kinds of kids to sign it. So Brody took it upon himself to write to himself. My heart is shattered.” the young mother wrote on her Facebook profile.

The young mother from Colorado, Cassandra Rider, told KDVR that she noticed that her 12-year-old son, Brody, was not his usual self after she picked him up from school. The young student who is normally cheerful and talkative requested that music be played.

The mom then decided to ask her son about his yearbook, TODAY reports. The sixth-grader was due to bring home his yearbook according to an email she had gotten that morning. She asked her son if he had gotten a lot of signatures. This is the question that brought tears to the young boy’s eyes and he started crying.

The mother reportedly said:

“He said that he’d asked the kids in his class if they would sign his yearbook and some flat-out said no. A couple of his classmates jotted down their names — but there were no messages. There was nothing about how smart, funny and awesome he is.”

The young boy then handed his yearbook to his mother. What she saw broke her heart further. She said her sign had signed the yearbook himself.

“He’d written a note to himself. It read, ‘I hope you make some more friends,’ and he signed his own name.” the mom said.

Ridder believes her son’s interests are much different than those of his peers. He loves chess, fencing, and dinosaurs. Because of these interests he has had a hard time making friends and often sits alone at lunch and plays on his own at recess as well. She says he gets teased for his physical appearance. Kids often make fun of his ears sticking out and that he is extremely thin shares his mother. She noted that her son would cry to her every other day about this treatment, the Washington Post reports.

The brave mom decided to post on the school’s Facebook page for parents of students. She posted a picture of her son’s yearbook which was scarcely signed.

Cassandra reportedly wrote:

“My poor son. Doesn’t seem like things are getting any better. 2 teachers and a total of 2 students wrote in his yearbook. Despite Brody asking all kinds of kids to sign it. So Brody took it upon himself to write to himself. My heart is shattered. Teach your kids kindness.”

The mother shared the picture on Facebook and did not give it much thought after that. On the following day, she received a surprise text from her son, which said: “Facebook this, this is the best day ever.” and it was accompanied by a picture of his yearbook brimming with signatures and well-wishes from dozens of people. 

He got messages written from people in the 8th grade to 11th grade. The messages were both sweet and encouraging, according to the mother. Many of the more than 100 signatures included paragraphs with words of encouragement, advice and even phone numbers. 

One message reportedly said: “Hey buddy, never change, never put your head down,” while another read, “Brody — you are the kindest little kid. You are so loved. Don’t listen to the kids that tell you different.”

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