I spent the morning in my kids' gan (preschool) earlier this week.
Oh my goodness. It was like a prison yard scene from a B movie. Except that they didn't give us guards any tear gas to keep things under control.
I should note that the much-adored Ganenet was not there, which is why I was there - they needed two parent volunteers so that the assistants would be legally allowed to keep the gan open in her absence. So hopefully things are better under her watch.
***
In related news, I had a realization regarding labels for kids.
I always found it strange that there are these super-generic disorders for kids. Like, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, which has symptoms like "Actively refuses to comply with majority's requests or consensus-supported rules," and "Performs actions deliberately to annoy others." Literally every symptom I've seen for that one could easily describe 100% of toddlers. So why not narrow the definition of "disorder" a bit to something less uselessly vague?
But now I get it. These are the your-child-seems-to-be-possessed disorders. These are the labels you can use when help is desperately needed for reasons that can't be described in a sufficiently professional way.
There's no technical term for "Your child is sweet and cute and smart and fun, it's just that 50% of the time she appears to be channeling the spirits of the greater demons." So you call it ODD or something else that's vague enough to apply to any poorly behaved child, yet professional-sounding enough that the state will cough up extra money for treatment.
There are a couple of kids in my kids' gan who I believe could use an ODD diagnosis or two.
***
I don't want to give the impression that D is constantly running around naked and using bad language or anything. It's really only like ten percent of the time. Usually she's only half-naked, and is more interested in ferreting out hidden ice pops than in expanding her younger sister's vocabulary in bad directions.
But that said, I have another Dani story to share.
This one takes place as D's friend M is visiting. M comes here once a week when her mom works late, and not infrequently spends her first twenty minutes or so here upset that her mom isn't here, a feeling she expresses by sitting on the couch boycotting the fun.
So M was sitting on the couch not playing.
N: M, do you want to come play with us?
M: No!
N: We're playing babies.
M: No!
D (sympathetically): M, do you want to say bad words with me? Like poopy, peepee, penis?
Oh my goodness. It was like a prison yard scene from a B movie. Except that they didn't give us guards any tear gas to keep things under control.
I should note that the much-adored Ganenet was not there, which is why I was there - they needed two parent volunteers so that the assistants would be legally allowed to keep the gan open in her absence. So hopefully things are better under her watch.
***
In related news, I had a realization regarding labels for kids.
I always found it strange that there are these super-generic disorders for kids. Like, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, which has symptoms like "Actively refuses to comply with majority's requests or consensus-supported rules," and "Performs actions deliberately to annoy others." Literally every symptom I've seen for that one could easily describe 100% of toddlers. So why not narrow the definition of "disorder" a bit to something less uselessly vague?
But now I get it. These are the your-child-seems-to-be-possessed disorders. These are the labels you can use when help is desperately needed for reasons that can't be described in a sufficiently professional way.
There's no technical term for "Your child is sweet and cute and smart and fun, it's just that 50% of the time she appears to be channeling the spirits of the greater demons." So you call it ODD or something else that's vague enough to apply to any poorly behaved child, yet professional-sounding enough that the state will cough up extra money for treatment.
There are a couple of kids in my kids' gan who I believe could use an ODD diagnosis or two.
***
I don't want to give the impression that D is constantly running around naked and using bad language or anything. It's really only like ten percent of the time. Usually she's only half-naked, and is more interested in ferreting out hidden ice pops than in expanding her younger sister's vocabulary in bad directions.
But that said, I have another Dani story to share.
This one takes place as D's friend M is visiting. M comes here once a week when her mom works late, and not infrequently spends her first twenty minutes or so here upset that her mom isn't here, a feeling she expresses by sitting on the couch boycotting the fun.
So M was sitting on the couch not playing.
N: M, do you want to come play with us?
M: No!
N: We're playing babies.
M: No!
D (sympathetically): M, do you want to say bad words with me? Like poopy, peepee, penis?
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