It may not be Festivus yet, but I’m feeling a need for an early Airing of Grievances. If you haven’t had direct personal contact with Nathan, you’re off the hook, but the rest of you – teachers who smiled and laughed at him when he ran through the hall at school, the lady working the register at Target who let him scan stuff and hand people their receipts, the umpire who didn’t call him out because he “should” have made it to third base safely but didn’t because he stood on second base for an eternity, and the man at the gym who grabbed his hand and ran with him on the track?
I’m talking to YOU.
I get it. He’s cute. He’s funny. His smile is infectious. He gives fantastic hugs. He has a way of making you feel like the most special person in the world. But you are creating a monster.
The Target Lady: A Case Study
Several weeks ago, Nathan and I were in Target. It was fairly early in the morning and the store wasn’t very busy. The very sweet lady at the register smiled at him and when he tried to squeeze his way into her workspace, she let him. He helped her scan items and handed me my receipt, and she opened the drawer where the stickers are kept and let him pick one (or twelve). He was having so much fun he didn’t want to leave! But we did.
The next time we went to Target it was busier, with more registers open and more customers trying to check out. Nathan promptly joined one of the ladies in her workspace behind the register, opened the sticker drawer, and reached for…pretty much everything. This Target lady was less friendly and more bewildered. I apologized for him and got out of there as quickly as possible, which is to say…not very quickly because once again, he didn’t want to leave.
Not long after, we went to Sam’s Club. While we were waiting for the customer in front of us to complete her purchase, Nathan ran around and jumped between the employee and the cash register. Like the first Target lady, she was amenable to having a “helper” and I hung back and hoped for the best while simultaneously evaluating what the best course of action to produce the least amount of ruckus would be.
What I didn’t anticipate was the customer paying in cash, which meant the cash drawer opened right at Nathan’s eye level. The employee asked him to step back just as I darted around to extricate him from the situation. His motto is YOLO, so I bet you can guess what happened next: he stuck both hands in the drawer and FLUNG. Coins went flying everywhere. I grabbed him by the hand and walked him back around to our cart, my head hung down in shame.
All thanks to the sweet lady at Target.
The truth is that I’ve known how these things would go for a long time. Early on I would let things slide or laugh at things I knew I shouldn’t. I mean…he’s Just! So! Cute! and he does everything with wild abandon and a joy of spirit that’s irresistible. If his own momma can’t resist his charms, no one can, amiright?
http://www.likecool.com/Gear/Pic/Childrens%20leash/Childrens-leash.jpg
Hey Andi. Would some type of “Leash” help Nathan? That why he wouldn’t be able to run and explore.
In theory, yes, but we’ve tried that and it’s more trouble than it’s worth!
Okay I understand
How is SK liking virtual school?
I’m curious about Sarah-Kate’s name, is her first name Sarah and her middle Kate? Or is Sarah-Kate her full given name? Did you and Mr.Andi have trouble deciding between the name Sarah and the name Kate, so you two decided on both? I’m sorry if this feels like too much of a personal question, I have read this blog for about 4 years now, and I am just curious.
She loves virtual school! I plan to do a post on how it’s going once we get a little further into the school year. Re: her name, we are natives of the American South and double names are not unusual down here – Sarah Grace, Mary Kate, Anna Beth, etc. – and most of the time (and in her case), it’s the first and middle name (or some variation of – Anna Beth might actually be Anna Elizabeth and Mary Kate might be Mary Kathryn). It wasn’t a matter of having to choose “Sarah” or “Kate” – we just liked “Sarah Kate”. Makes me crazy when people try to call her Sarah!
I’m glad she likes virtual school!
Sarah-Kate’s initials (SK) are the same as the abbreviated name of the province I live in. I live in Canada
Ha! We call her “SK” often.
We’ve had the same problem with our little man- any time someone lets him “help” or do something special he expects it every time and throws a huge 2 year old tantrum when he doesn’t get his way! Of course when the loving doting grandparents are part of the problem… 🙂
Yes, we know about those grandparents (and other grandparental types!) Nathan doesn’t usually throw a fit – when he sent the coins flying, he had a huge grin on his face – but it’s still not good.
What’s YOLO?
You Only Live Once
My oldest daughter loved to help bag groceries when she was little and was actually quite good at it. She also used to pretend to carry the cross out of the church (at a time when for some reason we didn’t have altar servers) and I had to let her do it once she got to the altar steps because an attempt to stop her at that stage would have been very unedifying! I used to try to stop her beforehand, so she took to sitting elsewhere after Holy Communion. Fortunately the priests were understanding and she eventually became, and still is, an altar server. With my youngest daughter I used to warn people not to let her do things they wouldn’t want her to keep doing. Unfortunately she developed some very undesirable habits because she finds even negative attention rewarding and it has limited her options now she has left school.
I know you’re going to hate me here, but how about not allowing him to “squeeze his way into her work space” in the first place. It never should have happened the first time. YOU allowed that. It’s your job as his parent to stop inappropriate behaviors that you know are wrong or could become a problem in the future, in the first place. Getting around to the backside of the checkout at a Target takes more than a few steps. It’s not appropriate for ANYONE to be near an employee and the cash drawer at a store….EVER. You’re blaming the wrong people here. It sounds like you allow him to do things in order to avoid “a scene”. I’d rather see a parent teaching their child good manners even if they are screaming in a store, than allow them to get away with bad behavior. As you have shown, it will only come back to haunt you in the future.
I tend to avoid engaging with first time commenters who come right out of the gate with a personal criticism based on the tiny sliver of my life that they see described here, but in this case I’ll bite because I think there’s a bigger point worth making (I’ll get to that in the next paragraph). I agree with you that it’s inappropriate for him to go behind the register in a store. I don’t laugh at him. I tell him to come back. I use my most commanding voice to say “STOP!” and “NO!” I grab his arm or his shirt or whatever I can reach (which is often nothing but air because he’s too quick, or because there are people or things in my way at the moment I try). I punish. He is too big to put into the child seat of the buggy, and usually there isn’t room to put him in the main section (assuming that was a safe option, which it isn’t). My options are to never take him into any store – which all but guarantees he’ll never learn to behave as he should – or to keep practicing until we get it right. Time and time again in other situations my corrections have been greeted with “Don’t worry about it!” and “What he’s doing is fine!” and “No one minds! It’s not that big of a deal!” (one example can be found in the link in the very first paragraph) and that was the entire point of this post: to remind people that good intentions can sometimes create unintentional problems.
But before you judge me for my perceived bad choices, consider this: The day he “helped” the Target lady wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her – she is often working when I go into the store. She is unbelievably kind, unassuming, friendly to everyone, seems from my observations to be a model employee, and radiates a sweetness of spirit that is incredibly rare. Before he squeezed behind the counter that day, she had been engaged with him – even calling him by name – and it was obvious to me that it gave her a lot of joy to dote on Nathan and “show him the ropes.” Perhaps you think it was rude of me to allow him to do what he did, but in the moment it felt a lot more rude to rip him away from her, stealing joy from a woman who was simply being kind and loving to my son in a world where kids like him are so often pushed to the margins.
Would a squeeze ball help Nathan?
Do you mean the small ones to hold in the hand? If so, he wouldn’t hold onto it. He does have a chewy that is for a similar (sensory) purpose.
Yes. Try tying it to his pants with a string. (I’m the kid who hacked a compass [the one for circles] with a pen and a pencil on the spot.)