running with scissors

I suppose I haven't yet mentioned that I often watch two beautiful, funny, caring, behaviorally challenged seven year old children. Their family situation is rather unique, extremely so in fact, but I won't trespass on their privacy by providing all of the complex details. Suffice to say that they are adopted, biologically unrelated African-American children who are now happily settled with a married couple--finally. With the instability and trauma of their early lives has come consequences. They are hesitant to attach to people, which makes sense; they test you, see if you will yell, speak condescendingly, or leave. Sometimes they thrive on conflict. One will pick up a mere scrap of conversation, twist it to melodramatic proportions, and try to get things to escalate. (When I, or some other unfortunate adult, tries to correct the situation, usually the other child will jump in to defend the offending one. "You're being mean!" "Why are you talking to him that way?" "He just wants to be left alone...jeez.")

Perhaps the best example I have of conflict-mongering comes from a few weeks ago, when I noticed that the little boy had gotten a haircut. When I asked him about it, he seemed to get frustrated. He went over to the CD player, and turned the volume up to 25. "Why are you frustrated with me right now?" With only the slightest hint of a whine, he responded, "Because no one is supposed to notice my hair. It's just for me and my family to notice." Rather puzzled, I decided to drop the whole thing. "OK. Well, will you please turn the music down?" He responded negatively, and covered the volume dial, just daring me to try to pull his hand away. I didn't, but repeated the request. "I don't like you. I'm frustrated with you...I'm going to cut your neck off." My face showed only mild surprise and amusement. "Oh really?" "Yes. The next time we go ice skating, I'm going to wait until you fall. Then, I'll take my skate and cut your neck off." I've been threatened before, but never with a beheading. It took some strength not to laugh. I had to put on my serious, adult face. "Even so, I still need you to turn the music down. Also, I can tell that you don't want to be around me right now. Your sister and I are going to the other room. When you're ready to be around me, you can come too."

Five minutes later, he hopped onto the couch, cuddled next to me, and asked me to read him a story. No prob bob.

Fortunately, their erratic behavior does have occasional natural consequences. Quite honestly, I never wish for these consequences to come; I rarely think about it. But when they do come, I suppose I'm somewhat grateful for them. As the children have learned to trust me, we seem to have fewer and fewer bad days. Wednesday was an exception, however. After diligently completing their math lessons during the first forty-five minutes, they became hyperactive, deranged monkeys for the next hour and a half. They weren't interested in reading Hatchet, the Gary Paulsen classic, as indicated by the fact that it took us an hour to finish two short chapters because one of the children was more interested in throwing trail mix around the room, chasing the dog, telling bathroom jokes, laughing hysterically, and asking questions about everything. I finally sent him to his room, telling him quite blatantly that I was frustrated with him, could no longer take interruptions, and needed him to go calm down elsewhere. While he eventually complied with this request, within five minutes of his return, he, and his sister, wound themselves up again. I finished the chapters and announced a trip to the park. Surely some running around would do them good.

I was kind of sort of wrong. A wrestling match broke out between them after an all too brief period of normal play time. Twice I asked them to stop, telling them the second time that if I had to say it again, we would leave. When they knocked over an innocent two year old while rolling around in the mulch, that was it. "OK ya'll. It's time to leave." I started walking. They know it's business time when I start walking. The boy started crying. "I'm really sorry. Why can't we stay longer?" I explained to him, but he continued to whimper. Then they tried the physical blockade technique. Both stood in front of me, put their palms against my stomach, and tried to push me back. The girl said, "I'll keep you here all night if I need to." When I informed her just how inappropriate this was, and how easily I could get away, they extended their palms to me in a gesture of goodwill and said, "Well, can't we just talk about this like reasonable people?" "Sure," I said, "I like reasonable people."

Of course, our conversation resulted in my firm insistence on immediate departure from the park. Realizing they had lost, the little boy tried one last act of defiance. He stole the children's book that I had been carrying under my arm, and began running around with it. His sister thought this called for a game of keep-away, and began yelling at him to give it to her. She was so busy running, yelling, and looking at him, that she didn't notice the large tree looming in her path. Before anyone knew what was happening, she ran, full-tilt, into it. She immediately began screaming and collapsed into my arms...and then onto the ground. All of the suburban housewives with their tidily clad children turned to look at me, a white woman with two unpredictable black children. I didn't look back, but picked up the screaming child, handed the little boy her discarded blue jacket, and began the trek towards their house. Everyone was suddenly very sober. My initial medical assessment was just a minor scratch above the eye. However, when I set her down at the house, I saw that a large lump had begun to grow right at her browline. I was shaking a bit, and almost started crying when she did. As I ushered her into the bathroom to apply the dreaded hydrogen peroxide, I told her not to look in the mirror. Unlike most children her age, she agreed with me. She knew it would only make things worse.

At any rate, all of the mischevious rebelliousness stopped the second that she smacked into the tree. One of her parents said to me later, "I secretly wanted to say to her--that's why you're supposed to listen to the babysitter!" But that would be like saying, "I told you so," and the kids are smart enough to know that isn't fair.