WICHITA, KS — The first day of school can be overwhelming for any child, but especially so for kids on the autism spectrum like 8-year-old Connor Crites, a second-grader at Minneha Elementary School in Wichita, Kansas. He was sitting alone, crying before the morning bell rang.
What another 8-year-old, Christian Moore, did wasn’t a grand gesture. Just powerful. It was a simple act of kindness that smoothed the rough spots and put Connor at ease. Christian consoled the crying boy, then took his hand and they walked through the front door together.
That was on Aug. 14. The two boys have been inseparable ever since.
Proud mom Courtney Moore shared a photo of Christian and Connor on Facebook.
“It’s an honor to raise such a loving, compassionate child,” she wrote. “He’s a kid with a big heart; the first day of school started off right.”
Connor’s mother told Wichita news station KAKE she worries her son will be bullied — something that happens to one in three U.S. school children — because he has autism. Kids on the spectrum are especially vulnerable to bullying, according to a study by the Interactive Autism Network.
The organization found in a 2012 study of 1,167 children ages 6-15 with autism spectrum disorder that 63 percent had been bullied at some point in their lives.
“I fear everyday that someone is going to laugh at him because he doesn’t speak correctly, or laugh at him because he doesn’t sit still or because he jumps up and down and flaps his hands,” April Crites told KAKE.
To Christian, Connor was just a little boy who needed a friend.
“He was kind to me,” Connor told the news station, saying later that the tears of trepidation turned into “happy tears” when Christian took his hand.
The world could learn a lot from these two boys, Crites said.
“It doesn’t matter color, it doesn’t matter gender, it doesn’t matter disability, and it doesn’t matter anything. Just be kind; open your heart,” she told the news station. “It’s what we need in this world.
“One act of kindness can change someone’s life, can change the world. That’s all it takes.”
Moore’s Facebook post has been shared, liked and commented on tens of thousands of times.
“In a country now so distorted my racism bigotry and antisemitism, it [is] nice to know life only changes once we are adults,” wrote Anthony Williams, of Jacksonville, Florida. “We should all learn from the babies and live our lives through their eyes. Wow.”
“This shows the world how we can love each other,” wrote Katherine Pauline Armstrong of Las Vegas. “Just ask a child.”
Added Bilal El-Amin, who lives in the Bronx in New York City: “Today, I’m gonna use this, Today, I’m gonna do the same. … Hatred is taught. And all [people[ aren’t the same. We must love, laugh and live!”
There are thousands more comments, all written in the same vein.
For the two 8-year-old boys, it’s quite simple.
“Be nice!” they said in unison in the KAKE interview.
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