My four-year-old son has been going through a “phase” where he throws a tantrum every night. Every. Damn. Night. Tantruming has worked for him exactly never, so I don’t get why he thinks it will get him somewhere now. The funny part is he’s usually screaming what he “wants” to do, and it’s the behavior he…
This morning, it started before I had fully emerged from glorious slumber. “Mom!! He stole part of my sculpture and made a helicopter out of it!!” We’ll refer to the angry one as Big One, and his thieving brother as Little One. Big One had left his tinker toy contraption in the living room, and…
When I started elementary school, my school had an awesome playground. As I progressed through the grades, the playground became increasingly sucky as all the fun equipment was removed because of risk of injury to the users. Incidentally, the only severe injury I ever personally saw was caused by a dumpster lid. But I digress.…
Parent Says: Get dressed.Child hears: Make funny faces at yourself in the mirror. I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials for the Rosetta Stone, that program that’s supposed to teach you how to speak a new language in a short amount of time. I’m considering authoring one of those types of programs for the language of…
In my chosen profession, I work with kids everyday. My particular group is a class of third graders. This is my tenth year teaching the same age group, and I’ve noticed something with increasing regularity. Kids don’t know how to be bored. I’m not talking about valid times where boredom can be expected, like when…
My family takes a few road trips a year. They all seem to end up with the same series of events. Each event is listed by elapsed time in the trip followed by the event. 00:00 Leave the house. 00:05 Take a mental inventory of packed supplies. 00:10 Go back home to retrieve camera (or…
How do kids all know the same behaviors to irritate their parents? My theory is kids get a secret book when they are born called The Child’s Code, and it contains all these behaviors. Welcome to the car edition of The Child’s Code. These are behaviors specific to traveling in an automobile. This is why…
Of course we love our kids, but why do they do those crazy behaviors that make zero amount of sense? Welcome to Part 3 of The Child’s Code, which I believe is a secret book that all kids receive at birth explaining the most annoying behaviors they can perform. I think this is the only…
Welcome to the next installment of what I believe are the guiding principles of The Child’s Code, a secret book that all kids must get at birth. This is how they all somehow know to annoy their parents in the same ways. If you missed numbers 1-5, be sure to read The Child’s Code –…
Kids are annoying. Sure, they can be cute, lovable, even delightful. But a lot of the time, they are annoying. My belief is that around the time of birth, they all received a secret copy of a book called “The Child’s Code” which includes all the behaviors that most annoy their parents. How else do…
Allison Maruska 