KIDS!!

Please bear with me today. Forgive the typos, atrocious grammar and excessive use of exclamation marks and ellipses.

I am still recovering from a brutal attack in which my consulting rooms were trashed by Attila the Hun and Helga the Horrible – each cunningly disguised as innocent, cherubic three and five-year olds. Mom made the appointment for herself and the two kids : Mom had a problem, but the kids came for routine checkups and referrals for hearing tests. That should have set alarm bells ringing at the start – these kids were not droopily sick, but healthy, energetic youngsters.

As I opened the door to admit them, there was this tornado effect of two young bodies sweeping past, running races with each other to see who could scramble onto the examining couch first. Mom looked on with a benign smile, admiring how healthy and active her children were. Having prised them apart from the fisticuffs (over who REALLY got there first) I sat them down in the patient’s chairs, glared at them, and tried to get started. Mom suggested we deal with the kids first – okay, let’s do that. Elder one first – fairly co-operative, got done quickly while younger one tore around the room pushing a doll in a pushchair making vroom-vroom car noises at full blast.

Then it was his turn: instant metamorphosis as I picked him up and sat him on the bed. Cute, smiling, impish, but with a twinkle in his eye that I should not have misread. Once done with him, I sent them both back to the play area in the waiting room where there are toys and other patients and staff: a safe area, but unfortunately, right outside my non-soundproofed door.

Two sentences into consulting with Mom, our ears were assaulted by screeching from the waiting room: fearing an injury of some sort, I burst into the room, only to find a battle raging between Attila and another child over who got which toy. Deep breath, retrieve Attila, bring kids back into my room for the sake of international relations, then try to proceed.

Okay, next tactic to try: watch them carefully and try to ignore the din. Nope, no good either.  As Mom went into the examining room, the terrorists followed. Take it from me; it is well-nigh impossible to conduct a rational, thorough examination in the presence of two whirling dervishes, who are everywhere at once, poking fingers into electric outlets (damn, the power was out!)opening and shutting cupboard doors, leaping up and down on chairs and literally throwing toys at each other.

I lost it when Attila tossed an expensive – and brand new – medical instrument on the floor, littering the carpet with its pieces. I doubt that any child has been so quickly grabbed by an adult, forcibly sat in a chair, and told that if he moved so much as a muscle he would be in deep trouble. Attila was suitably subdued – no doubt partly by the shattering sound of the equipment disintegrating and my swift – and loud, reaction to it. That lasted for about three minutes, when he slooooowwly slithered off the chair, and went to lie down on the carpet and stare out of the window at the passing cars. Yeah, or so I  thought. I overlooked the large, expensive pot plant near the window where he was parked.   

When Mom was ready to leave, she went to pick up her dear, quiet, well-behaved child. That was when we discovered that he had, handful by handful, emptied the soil out of the pot, and when the saucer under the pot could hold no more of the soil, he had silently smeared it all over the tiles, carpet, walls and his clothes. “Oooh, you are naughty today my son.”

 Shutting the door behind them, I took a deep breath, rendered the necessary first aid to the poor plant, then tried to reassemble my broken machine, which I soon realised would need more professional repairs. Deciding that by now I needed an urgent caffeine infusion, I headed for the kitchen …………..Mom and the children were still trying to restore order in the waiting room play area, under the “we-are-not-amused” stony stares of the patients who had been forced to endure the children earlier. How long they took I shall never know, as I fled the scene PDQ.

I have never come so close to infanticide as I did today, not even with my own hyperactive ADHD baby who never slept more than two hours a night or 20 minutes at a time during the day.

Parents, why are you so afraid to discipline your children?   I don’t mean physical punishment, spanking or the like.  I’m talking about teaching kids from infancy about boundaries, gentleness and ways to behave appropriately. Yes, let them shout and scream at play on the beach, in the park, or in the garden – that’s the stuff of childhood, and yes, nothing can come close to the sheer, gurgling delight of a child’s happy laughter.

But there is also such joy to be had from seeing a child who is happy within himself, comfortable in the presence of others, and who does not use banshee wailing to attract attention as he dashes from one scene of wanton destruction to the next like a windup toy. As irritated as one gets with the child, this sort of thing is the parent’s fault, plain and simple.

I’m not advocating CONTROLLING a child. I am saying “Love your child. Love him enough to show him you love him – give him your time and attention. Love him this way and he will be a happy child, who will become a responsible adult, who will one day show his children that he loves them too.” THIS IS NOT SPOILING A CHILD – THIS IS RESPONSIBLE PARENTING.

 These “wild” children are often simply bored, or desperate for a parent’s attention: the detached, bemused attitude of their Mom today spoke volumes. The more she ignored them, the harder they tried to get a rise out of her. Not only did that not work, but they were not reprimanded for their inappropriate and destructive behaviour, so how will they ever get the message that it IS inappropriate? And so they will naturally keep doing it, and trying even harder to be noticed.

The point that really saddens me though is that as maddening and disruptive as these children’s behaviour was today, this is the imprint they will carry. And one day, they will be adults…….with kids of their own…………………

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