WHAT DO YOU EXPECT??

Aleita's kindergarten class had their Thanksgiving play this morning at her school. The parents (or whoever the kids' guests were) could then stay for lunch with the kindergartener. The play and songs that the kids performed were very cute - - what is not to love about a bunch of little kids dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians? (Aleita was a Pilgrim, which was bad casting in my opinion. Regular readers of my blog and those that know her can agree that she is much more of the Indian variety.) At any rate, she made a pretty cute Pilgrim with her braids sticking out from beneath her little white paper bonnet.

After the performance, the kindergarteners went back to their classroom to remove costumes, then met up with their guests to go to lunch. I discovered that it only takes a brief witnessing of parent/child interaction at your child's school to reaffirm the belief that perhaps you are not doing such a bad job at being a parent after all. The mother that sat beside me at the lunch table had brought a younger child with her who was perhaps three years old. Her kindergarten son and three year old daughter spent most of the time at lunch throwing things back and forth at one another while the mom begged them in a whiny voice to stop.

The parents of the child who sat across from us had packed their child's lunch - and what a healthy alternative they had offered him in place of the cafeteria lunch: The kid had a vat of cheese spread and a roll of crackers. The tub of cheese spread was the kind you get when you order from a school fundraiser - - probably enough for ten people to easily share it - - yet here was this five-year old boy, happily consuming 100 grams of fat in one sitting. Toward the end of the meal, he said to his dad, "I want some of your applesauce," then without hesitation, proceeded to dip his index and middle finger onto his dad's tray into the applesauce and shovel it into his mouth. His dad simply said, "here's my spoon if you want some," as he handed him a utensil to use.

The funny thing is, when I have volunteered in Aleita's classroom, I find that most of these kids are actually fairly well-behaved and pretty nice little kids. When I used to teach elementary school, I often noticed the same thing - - kids will usually live up to whatever set of expectations are provided to them. I had many parents that wondered why their child would behave so much better for me than they would for them. My five-year old is certainly no angel, but you can be sure that if she took her fingers and dipped them into the food on my plate, I would be sure to give her something - though I doubt it would be a spoon.

PERHAPS I'M DOING A BETTER JOB THAN I THOUGHT. . .

Sometimes, as I sure every parent does, I question my ability to rear my children in the best possible way. Am I making the best choices for my kids? Am I too strict? Too lenient? Am I providing them with enough love and guidance to help them one day become productive and happy and well-adjusted adults? No matter how I feel about my parenting skills, there is nothing like a little weekend away with the kids to make me feel a whole lot more secure in my abilities.

When we were on our excursion to St. Louis, we visited The City Museum and the Science Center. We saw small children wandering around with no apparent parental figure in sight. We witnessed unruly kids of all ages being allowed to run wild while oblivious parents looked on - - - running crazy, climbing on exhibits not intended to be climbed on, screaming at the top of their lungs, and in general, just acting the fool.

I have noticed that parents of these type of children have either one of three reactions. Let's say that their child is climbing on a statue that's meant to be looked at - - perhaps it is even behind a roped off area - - When you look at their unruly banshee child and then look at them:

EITHER

1) They don't notice because they are sitting on a bench 100 ft. away talking on their cell phone and not even looking at their kid.

- OR -

2) They refuse to make eye contact and say in a tiny whiny voice to the child, “C’mon sweetie…climb down off the nice statue now. C’mon baby….please? Look – mommy has a cookie for you! Come get the cookie!” The child will scream as the parent pulls him down off the statue, grab the cookie from the parent, then resume his post right back where he was as soon as the parent lets go of him.

- OR -

3) They stare you down and give you that look that says, "what are you lookin' at, bitch?" then after some time, say to the kid, "Let's go." The child then runs to the next exhibit where the kid climbs up on the next thing he isn't supposed to be climbing on or pushes some other smaller child out of the way to get what he wants.

When we went and ate lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory, I witnessed a scene that made me feel like parent of the year. Sitting directly across from us was a family of four. Three of the family members sat in the booths at the table, eating their lunch. The fourth member, a boy of probably 6 or 7 years, sat on the floor UNDER the table. The mother would occasionally make a whiny plea for him to come join them at the table, but he crawled around on the floor, occasionally stopping to chew on a piece of bread. She did finally get him out from under the table, but he refused to sit with them. He stood a few feet away, leaning against the wall instead. After a few minutes of that, he was back under the table.

Yes, I will admit that there are times as a parent when I have a little bit of work to do. . . but I can at least say that when I am out in public with my kids, you won't have to give me the ol' stink eye about their behavior. Feeling down on yourself as a parent? Go visit the mall or a McDonald's with a playland. Sometimes all it takes to make you feel better about your own parenting abilities is to simply witness others doing a markedly worse job than you.