Wednesday, March 07, 2007

My Drama King

I suppose calling a 6 yr old boy a "drama queen" isn't really a good thing to do. But if the sentiment fits... To be kind to the ever growing awareness of all things girlish and boyish, I'll just say that I have quite a drama king.

I don't think this has anything to do with The Boy's TS. I say this because both his father and I are guilty of the overdramatic rediculousness when things aren't quite going our way. So when The Boy comes down in tears because he asked his friends to play school and they politely said no, well, I have to lay that blame squarely at the feet of The Boy's parents.

He has also taken to speaking (often yelling) his displeasure to the offending person or persons building up the blame in direct proportion to the volume of his voice. For example, if Lil Bro (3 yr old brother) takes a car/truck/other toy from The Boy, The Boy will screw up his face, stand stiff with fists by his side and declare something to the effect of "You just took that truck because you don't want me to play with it because you don't want me to ever be happy and just want me to have no toys ever in my whole life because you hate me!" At which point I'm usually standing nearby thinking....uh, what?! I mean, it's kind of like, take the ball and run but don't just run to the goal line. Keep going until you've hit a whole other state. It's amazing. My attempts at negotiating these communication breakdowns usually result in The Boy turning away from me, stomping one foot and going, "HMMPH!" I kid you not. Honestly, at times I feel like he has his own script writer from really bad kids movies.

I'm sure it's a phase. I just hope it's not a phase that lasts much longer. At these times - especially when he throws a tizzy around non-family - I am reminded that God has surrounded us with some really cool friends. And that the kids in these families are uber patient with The Boy. But we are also surrounded by pretty normal kids that aren't so patient and really have no idea what to do with The Boy and his manic in-your-face friendliness or his hmmph-ing anger. And those kids, you can tell, they have already built up that kind of weird tolerance that kids have for other kids with which they have no idea what to do. Or they're just outright rude to him. But those are few and far between at the moment.

I hate the passive observer portion of being a parent. Where you have to pick and choose when to step in for rescue. I hate having to watch kids grow into those phases where they are just horribly mean and intolerant. The Boy is friendly to anyone. He will try to be friends with almost anyone. This is a good thing in that, if you try to befriend 100% of the people, you have very good chances of finding that small percent of wonderful people who give friendship unconditionally. The bad part of this is, he has to hit the other percent of idiots. And it's that percent that I find incredibly hard not to just whack upside the head. Because it's usually not just my kid they're being rude to. I could write a whole other blog on how some kids amaze me....until I meet their parents and go, ah....NOW I see it. You know the kid who is swearing up and down in your house so you politely tell them that, in your house, swearing isn't ok? And then their mom shows up knocking on your door to tell you that their precious little snot-head is allowed to say any word they want? It's like, were you raised by wolves? No. That would be insulting wolves. Wolves are very civilized and probably don't swear in each other's dens.

That swearing thing didn't happen to me - thankfully. They'd probably have shipped me back up to Boston for what I would have said to her.

Hmmmm...rereading this shows that I have severely digressed. I think you get a small hint of where The Boy gets his drama from, eh?

4 comments:

Stacy said...

I think I know some adults who would have a similar train of thought as Liam upon having something taken from them :)

Beck said...

My son is a dramatic lad, too. We're going to put him in the local theater group next year to give his big emotions an outlet.

Angela Marie said...

I think that it is great that Liam is able to express what he is feeling and using his words so well doing this! Hip hip hoo ray!! I know a lot of children (um, did I mention that I have six grand- children) that just start screaming when they do not get their way!

shhh.... I am also known in my family to be the "drama queen."

Kendra said...

You make me laugh, you little drama queen, you!! he!