Tag: the boy

Alright, ‘graft’ may be a little strong.

The boy left the Easter Bunny a note:

Thank you for all of the little gifts.

And he signed it from himself. He left it along with a glass of water (the Easter Bunny doesn’t drink milk) and some carrots (which might be left over from Christmas when we had them for the reindeer- hopefully, the Easter Bunny doesn’t know). The assumption that he’ll be getting gifts is almost a bit too much.

I can’t say he behaved particularly poorly today, although there was one period where I blew my stack at both kids, more for affect than anything. The Wife has asked them to put their clothes away. Seems simple enough- not a lot of room to over interpret or misinterpret that request. Well, 40 minutes later of banging around, screaming and slamming doors, their clothes still weren’t put away. The Wife asked them a 2nd time and is was final door slam where I stepped in. I gave them 10 minutes to get the clothes put away and the dinner table set. If they couldn’t get those done, they were both going to bed early. Also, any more door slamming and they went to bed early.

No more door slamming, clothes put away, table set; all with time to spare.

Maybe he was trying to cover his bases.

The boy has tests each week for math. Each week, the Wife or I try to work with him so that he’s ready for the tests. Emphasis on try. Now that he has free time, he’s somewhat selfish about it and would rather spend it playing than spend it going over math. Now, it’s not like we’re asking him to spend hours and hours on addition and subtraction. Rather, we’re just trying to help him polish off his skills. Some extra questions here, a few minutes there. That sort of thing.

Well, a couple of nights ago we had him take a practice version of the latest iteration of his math test. It’s a 4 minute test where he’s got a goal of answering 100 problems. The Wife set him up with a practice test and set a timer for him and off he went.

He grumbled and snarled the entire time. He didn’t want to be doing it. It was stupid. On and on and on. Finally, when it was done, he commented “I can’t wait for my sister to be in the 2nd grade so she’ll have to do this.”

Nice sentiment, huh?

Of course, the only problem with his train of thought is that the lass won’t hate it. She’ll love it. When she gets homework now in kindergarten, she comes home, sits down and starts doing it. When the boy made his obnoxious little comment, she turned to the Wife and said “Mom, I like school work.”

The boy continued to insist that things would be different once she was there. I’m pretty sure he’ll be wrong.

That seems to be the mindset of late. Everything is focused through himself. If he doesn’t like something, then no one will. If he thinks it’s stupid, then it obviously is. It’s most prevalent where his sister is concerned, which I expect to some extent.

More than anything, the Wife and I try to ignore his outbursts. Some of his statements are so ridiculous that I, try as I might, cannot hold back the urge to correct him. Even so, he just digs his heels in and plows forward with whatever he was thinking. On occasion, when he takes things too far(a little too belligerent or too smart a mouth- whatever), he ends up in the hotseat with some kind of discipline.

Somewhere along the way, he’ll come to terms with his myopia. Until then, all we can do is wait.

Way back in December, I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret and mentioned the boy was interested enough to read it.

Well, it wasn’t always easy and it definitely took a little bribery along the way, but the boy finally finished the book tonight. Our final carrot for him has been he had to finish it before we’d let him see the movie. When he started today, he had about 100 pages to go. Fortunately for him, the majority of them were pictures and he managed it.

When it was done, he was all smiles from ear-to-ear. He’s quite proud of himself for getting through it. The Wife and I are too.

Now the trick will be getting him to try another one.

The boy and I had the afternoon to ourselves today. The Wife took the lass shopping. She gave the boy the option to come along, but he politely declined. What can I say? He’s a quick study…

So he and I had a pretty easy day, in all. A little catch with the football (Nerf- the other ones hurt his hands still), a little playing with the dogs, a little playing on the Wii and the next thing we knew it was dinner time. So I took him to Wendy’s, where he ate a triple-decker burger and fries and drink.

Then complained about a belly ache later that evening.

The lass and the Wife were gone almost until bed time. Considering it’s 45 minutes to their destination, that makes for about 7 hours worth of walking around and shopping. Personally, I say the boy chose well; even with the belly ache.

We didn’t find out about it from the boy though. We found out from the Mother of the boy’s friend, who wanted to email us because she was so happy with the what the boy did that she wanted to make sure we knew.

Apparently, his friend has been having some trouble with other kids, mostly consisting of name calling. In this particular instance, they were all playing a game together when a couple other kids started in on the boy’s friend. The boy told them to knock it off or they’d stop playing the game. That ended it.

It’s a strange combination of amusing and frustrating that we found out like this. We ask him about his school days everyday, and mostly we might Just as well be asking him questions about special relativity or imaginary numbers. Guess it just didn’t rate that, on one of those days we asked about, he’d stuck up for a friend. Even so, we’re not going to get too bent out of shape in this case.

For all the time spent correcting him here at the house and when we’re around, it’s still never a sure thing how they’ll behave when they’re on their own. It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised.

We’ve been having trouble with the boy getting enough to eat. At least, that’s what we think. Not that he doesn’t eat well, but invariably when he comes home from school he is extremely bitter and irritable. Almost every time, having him eat a little bit when he gets home is enough to take the edge off and make him, well, tolerable anyway.

In an effort to get a little more protein into him, the Wife picked up some Chobani yogurt and Grape Nuts to see if he’d enjoy eating that. Now, he eats yogurt and likes oatmeal so it seemed plausible. When he tried it though, he quickly shook his head a said it was too bitter.

Since I’m the “Mikey” of our household, I ate the rest of the yogurt concoction. To my surprise, I found it sweet, not bitter (it was a peach flavored yogurt). I noted how sweet it was to the Wife and said I found it hard to believe he could find a problem with it. She basically gave me the “What do you want me to do?” response.

Shortly thereafter, while perusing the Intertubes, I came across this article from Popular Science and found enlightenment. In a nutshell, as we get older we lose taste buds so our sensitivity to taste goes down; kids, on the other hand, are particularly sensitive to bitter flavors which is a natural defense against eating poisons or toxins.

What are the odds of coming across an article on taste? Further, what are the odds on coming across that article after having an exchange involving that very topic?

After revealing that he wanted to play in the hockey tournament, I thought there might be a rejuvenation of hockey interest. But after practice this morning, the boy once again hates hockey and can’t wait for it to be over.

Even the weather up here isn’t this fickle.

For once, it was someone else’s kid I called to the carpet today, rather than the boy.

Not that I’ve had to correct the boy in front of other kids often, but I’ve never been afraid to let him know when he was doing something wrong and he should knock it off, like now. Those moments tend to have a long tail when it comes to correcting behavior.

In this case, there’s a little bit of history between the boy and his antagonist. In fact, I suspect that the boy has been targeted as a measuring stick of sorts. He’s much larger than, well, everyone in his class basically. I went through something similar so it’s easy to recognize.

Fortunately, the boy is mild-mannered and conscious of “not getting in trouble” so he typically turns the other cheek or walks away from the situation. While I consider that to be the best response on his part, it has a negative consequence: it encourages the antagonist to keep pushing. Walking away is interpreted as weakness. Couple that with the fact that kids are crafty enough to know how to time their attacks for when no one else is looking, and, well, you get what we had this morning.

It started during warm-ups on the ice. I noticed the boy take a tumble, but his head whipped around immediately and he locked eyes with another kid and I knew immediately that the boy had been taken down deliberately. I was on alert now.

Luckily, the two of them were separated for most of the practice, purely by happenstance. But towards the end, all of the kids were brought together for the drills and, with the increased opportunities, the other kid started taking his shots. I saw a couple of pretty clear slashes and pushes, which the boy simply got up and skated away from. Finally, after a third time the boy went and told the head coach.

But things came to a head at the end of the drill. As the kids were skating to the bench, the antagonist skated up behind the boy and took a batter’s swing at the boy’s legs with his stick. Not just one, but a couple of swings. None of the coaches saw it.

Now I was hot and started walking over to the bench, which was on the other side of the ice. By the time I got there, I’d cooled off and decided I’d hold off saying anything. But then the Wife came up and said she saw the boy get “punched” in the head by the antagonist. She said the boy simply got up and went to the other side of the bench.

I immediately turned, walked onto the bench and in front of all the kids, and coaches, called the kid out. I told him that the coaches may not be seeing what he was doing, but I did and I better not see him slash the boy with a stick of punch him in the head again. I made sure the antagonist understood what I was telling him, then stalked off the bench.

The coaches separated the two of them after that. But the drama wasn’t over entirely. The antagonist’s Dad had seen me and wanted to know what was going on. I told him what had been happening and he asked if it was “going both ways” meaning he thought the boy was giving as good as he was getting. I told him “No” in no uncertain terms. Overall, he was upset I hadn’t said something to him before saying something to his son.

It was a fair point, but I wanted the shenanigans done. I’ve never had a problem with other parents correcting the boy, and I’ve generally not hesitated to correct other kids. This situation was different because of the public nature and the forcefulness with which I’d acted.

Did I handle things well? I think I’ll save that for a post later today.

So yesterday, after his martial arts class, the boy informed my he wanted to participate in an upcoming tournament. I mentioned this to the Wife a bit later and she was in shock. Why?

Because when I picked him up from school so I could get him to his class on time, he started whining about “wishing he could go tomorrow.” This isn’t unusual, per say, because he likes being picked up from school. So he uses the pretense of class to get picked up, then carps about going to class in hopes that he can have the best of all worlds.

So when we got home, he started dragging his feet and continued whining, claiming he wanted “to go to class tomoooorrrrooooow.” In a fit of exasperation, I threw my hands up and told him to go ask his Mother. The Wife came downstairs a few moments later and we rehashed everything and she decided that he could just go tomorrow.

Cue the tears.

Now he was crying because he’d be too tired tomorrow, so he really did want to go now. By this point, it was looking entirely probably that we would be late to his class, and we told him so in a vain attempt to get him to calm down. But that only made him cry more because he was so sure he’d have to to “a million-billion push-ups” when he got there.

To cut to the chase, I ended up taking him to class last night. Culminating in his asking to participate in the tournament.

So this morning comes along and we double check with him about the tournament, since his whims change faster than the weather lately.

His response?

No.

Why?

Because there’s a hockey tournament that day.

In recent weeks, the boy has been noticeably less enthusiastic about hockey. The behavior manifests as a nonchalant attitude while skating that’s infuriating for me to watch. Not just me, the Wife gets annoyed with it as well. Not only is he not trying, he’s not even trying to try. He’ll skate past the puck without even realizing it; he’ll even be skating in the wrong direction compared to where the action is going; he’ll just skate in circles out on the ice not even trying to help his team. The violations are numerous.

Of course, there’s nothing I or the Wife can do. What’s more, I’m not sure there’s anything we should do. I keep reminding myself that he’s only 8 and not all kids are made the same about this stuff. My concern is that he’ll develop the habit that it’s OK to just pack it in when things are hard. But there’s a world of difference between and 8-year old and a 16-year old, and there’s no guarantee that the boy he is now will be the teen he is later. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself (I’m pretty sure it’s true in my case- and I doubt I’m unique).

After his games this weekend, I asked him what was going on. He stated flat out that he didn’t like hockey anymore. When I asked him “Why, what had happened?” (he was the one who requested to play this year, we didn’t push him) he stated he didn’t like wearing all the pads and that he still got headaches. I found the last part incredible- we’d spent a small fortune on a top-of-the-line helmet for him because his noodle was too big for the regular helmets, which even the guys at the hockey store could see were too small for him. He hadn’t complained once all year about headaches, until now.

As to the not liking pads, well, that’s about as 8-year-old a thing to say as I can imagine.

I was shocked at his statement and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. One thing which occurred to me is there’s one sport he always asks to play, but we can’t because I don’t have access to a court anymore. He always asks to play racquetball. I started teaching him how to play a couple of years ago when I still had a membership at the Y. I’d take him and the lass, hand them one of my spare racquets and we’d play around on the court. I think the implication is pretty clear.

If I’m right, then that portends good news for his martial arts. I’ve been taking classes at the school as well so it’s something we’ll both have in common. But it also means that stuff like baseball and hockey will never be of much importance to him. It’s also an indicator that we’ve made the right call not having him join youth football for the time being. I’d hate for him to get a sour taste in his mouth about football.

So, while it’s disappointing that he’s not enthused about hockey, clearly it’s not the end of the world. He’s had a chance to learn something about himself, and the Wife and I have also learned a little about him and sports. Besides, next November is a long time from now, and he could always change his mind.

STOMP!

We had just start on our way to school this morning when the boy angrily stomped his foot down. Then he lamented how he forgot a picture for his “Share Day” and how he always forgets to bring in something for his “Share Day.”

STOMP!STOMP!

I sat quietly by for the moment, trying to judge the situation. The boy has a long, storied history of a temper that he either can’t, or simply refuses to, reign in. It can start out very benign, no more than a tad bit of frustration. Five minutes later he’s in the corner for smart-mouthing one of us. Or worse.

STOMP!

He wasn’t showing any signs of getting out of control, but the stomping was getting on my nerves, frankly. The words formed in my head like they had so many times before “Stop doing that- it won’t accomplish anything” and the many variations thereof. But this time, I held them back. I was suddenly curious, would he continue? Would it get worse?

STOMP!KICK

Now he’d kicked his backpack. We were about halfway to school. He hadn’t whipped himself into a frenzy yet. Plus, another thought came to mind: what if he’s just doing it for attention? What if he’s just trying to provoke a reaction from me just for some kind of weird emotional satisfaction? That might explain the “slow burn” nature of what he was doing.

He reached forward and roughly opened the glove compartment, perused the contents for something, didn’t find it and slammed it closed. Hard, but not too hard. Could have been comment worthy, but he clearly had restrained himself.

STOMP!KICK!

If he’d been a linebacker, there would probably be a hole in the floor at his feet. I was tempted to tell him he’d smoosh whatever he had in his lunch box but I didn’t. We were at the light just before the school. All I had to do was a right, 200 feet and I’d be turning in to drop him off.

He didn’t stomp or kick anymore. We arrived at the drop off and I told them both to have a good day. The boy roughly picked up his backpack and rushed out the door. He muttered some barely intelligible, dark words about how he couldn’t have a good day. The lass was her usual chipper self, all enthusiasm to be going to school. The boy had a frown etched on his face that was almost comical because of how mad he looked.

SLAM!

So does that count as passing?

EPILOGUE:

I was at the doctor’s when the boy got home. I talked to the Wife and asked how the boy’s day went. She told me when she asked him he replied “Superb.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Do you know what that means?” he answered, “It’s a synonym for ‘good’. I prefer ‘superb’ because it sounds better.”

Superb.

UPDATE:
I’ve modified the title to this post because it wasn’t obvious I was alluding to the saying “Nature abhors a vacumm,” which means that Nature tends to fill a need for something, somehow. So to with kids.

One of my more unusual talents is card magic. I learned a handful of pretty high quality illusions when I was in high school and I’ve retained the mechanics, if not the polish, ever since. These aren’t the mathematical variety of tricks where a selected card gets moved around enough to the point where it’s possible to locate the card. These are actual close-up illusions.

Most any kid is fascinated by magic, mostly because they’re still naive enough to believe it’s real. The boy and the lass belong in that category. I’ve done a number of my simpler illusions for them and they immediately want to know if I can make cards vanish and reappear and teleport and all that other stuff. Afterwards, they spend about 15 minutes repeating the what they’d seen me do, but obviously without the same results.

At which point they always ask me to teach them magic.

I’ve always declined them for a simple reason: once they learn the art of illusion, then the magic is gone. It sounds tedious, but even as an adult watching “magic” is entertained by the illusion, precisely because it seems like magic.

But once an understanding of the basic techniques are attained, the effect is gone. Instead, what is seen is the logical result of the techniques used that a layperson has no idea to look for. I’ll never forget shortly after learning some of the initial techniques watching a local magician perform a trick. I noticed something that no one in his audience did. Afterward, I went home and based on that one thing was able to completely reverse engineer the illusion.

Anyway, my point is I didn’t want to ruin magic for the boy and the lass at so young an age. Unfortunately, events have transpired that forced my hand a bit.

One of the boy’s classmates has been “teaching” him magic. I don’t know where this friend learned these tricks. The boy was then trying to duplicate whatever his friend had shown him. In the process, he was missing all of the little details that make a piece of magic believable. The Wife took me aside and pointed said “I know why you don’t want to teach him, but he wants to learn so badly that he’s getting stuff from another kid. You might want to teach him something so you can show him the right way to do this stuff.”

I realized, much to my chagrin, she was right. The boy had decided to fill his desire for knowledge from a different source. My denial of any knowledge was actually working to his detriment because he was learning all the wrong things about magic.

So I’ve now begun teaching him one trick. But I won’t allow him to use it on anyone until he can perform it well enough in front of me. That was the deal struck. If nothing else, at least I’ll get to see just how badly he wants to learn. So far, he’s practiced it a little everyday. He’s a little frustrated with my attention to detail, but I just keep telling him that he only gets one shot with a magic trick. If his audience detects the secret to the illusion, there is no second chance.

But even at his young age, it appears children will fulfill a need. With or without you. Best if it’s with you, says I.

The boy was putting his clothes away when I walked into his room before bedtime. I watched him quietly for a few moments as he finished putting his pants onto “clip” hangers. When he finished, I chuckled and said “I remember when you first started doing that how you’d cry and carry on and complain ‘I can’t do it!!'” The last part I mimicked a pained, whiny voice for effect.

“Now look at you. Just getting the job done without any complaints,” I finished.

He smiled and replied “I just did that to get you and Mom to do it for me.”

Brazen!

I chuckled some more and said simply “Yeah- we knew.”

For a change of scenery this week, we took the kids out to an indoor activity slash fun-park place. They’ve got little carnival type rides; games; inflatable slides; games; bumper cars; and games. It’s also got a ticket system where playing the different games earn tickets. The better the game is played, the more tickets are earned. When everything is done and said, the kids can redeeem all their tickets for junk. YAY!!!

But this isn’t about all the games they played or the good time they had or the rides they were on. Actually, it’s not even about the fact that we were at one of these indoor fun parks. It’s about the boy and his inability to accept that he’s going to suck at something the first time he tries it.

Now, to be clear, the Wife and I have no problem with him sucking at things. I suck at knitting and house cleaning. The Wife sucks at woodworking and bread baking. It’s impossible to go through life without sucking at things.

The boy seems to not get this rather banal concept. It was brought into HD-like focus yesterday when I introduced him to ski-ball. Now, you might be wondering how anyone could not have fun at ski-ball. Frankly, until yesterday, I just wouldn’t have thought it possible. That’s why I took him over to play it for a bit. The whole point is IT’S FUN! And just as importantly, it’s fun even if you suck at it.

But the boy proved me wrong yesterday. After showing him how what to do, I gave him 2 tokens to plunk in another machine and play a game. I plunked 2 more tokens into my own machine and started a 2nd game for myself next to the boy. Half-way through my game, I became aware of the fact that the boy was whipping the balls up the ramp at the speed of light, in the process agitating himself into a severe sobbing fit. I stood in amazement and watched him complete his game with tears rolling down his cheeks yelling at the game that it “was STOOPID!!!”

While dealing with his ridiculous tantrum, I came to realize that this is what he does with new activities. He does it regularly in karate when new self-defense techniques are introduced. (I spent this morning working with him on shoulder rolls- he was nearly in tears at several points and nearly quit on me. Fortunately, he finally had some success which led to more success and then suddenly it wasn’t “too hard” and he did 5 on his own. Total elapsed time from start to (successful) end: 10 minutes.) He does it with games on his DS and Wii. The Wife and I can oftentimes hear him upstairs in his room screaming/crying in frustration when Mario keeps biting the big one. He did it when first learning to skate and to play hockey and baseball (No- you can’t hit a homerun with every swing). He did it while learning to read and he’s done it with math as well.

The bottom line is, if he can’t be awesome at “it” right from the word “GO,” he descends into this state of denial, where the game or activity is to blame for his deficiencies at it. Frustration takes care of the rest.

What’s more, unless it’s a DS or Wii game, he will typically choose to avoid the activity for the rest of his life. That’s the point where the Wife or I have to intercede and provide some form of course correction.

The tantrum aside, the most frustrating aspect for the Wife and I is that he’s had enough examples of succeeding after practicing or sticking-with-it that we feel like he should recognize he doesn’t have to act that way. It’s one thing to try something and decide “Meh- not my thing. What’s next?” and quite another to have repeated mental breakdowns because stunningly, he wasn’t perfect on his first try.

It’s tempting to chalk this behavior up to his age and I’m sure it contributes. But he’s been doing it for so long now that I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s just who he is. I’m sure that time will temper his emotions, but more important he needs to learn that first, he won’t be great at anything the first time he tries it; and second, that’s OK.

Thus, his New Year’s resolution. And if he doesn’t learn it this year, well, I’m sure you can guess the rest…