Question for mothers or fathers...Lias kids behavior.

[Antigone]

This sounds like a daily to-do list for Sevy; she is a female Calvin :doh: . This is the reason why we do not think a sibling is a good idea for her. My brother and I pretty much did everything on that list, and we had three cousins to join in on the fun with regularly too. Our poor grandparents, who were the ones watching us during the day, must have been so glad to see us go home. :pray: We used to jump off of the roof of the barn down on an trampoline, and see if any of us could leap over the small creek on the other side of the trampoline on the same bounce. It was usually hit and miss, but no one broke anything. The wonders of living on a farm :D Needless to say, our grandparents didn't like the idea of all 5 of us in the house at once; we were always shooed outside to play. Something usually happened to somebody on rainy days when we had to stay in. Usually it was Grandpa in drag, he would fall asleep on the couch and the kids would give him a makeover (and this was fundie Grandpa, too :lol: . Markers and other "dangerous" items were always hidden when we were around. We did stupid, dangerous things and got yelled at for them, but being kids, we never thought things through.

As for the farm, the animals weren't really fair game, since we had cows, chickens and dogs. The cows and chickens were fenced in, and we had more fun things to do than try to mess with the animals- we did enjoy helping milk the cows and gather eggs :) privileges were revoked if one of us broke a rule. :naughty:

(and yes I had fun with the smileys today!!) :whistle:

[nutella addict]

Hahaha totally normal as far as I know, and there were only three of us! Once when I was at a friends house we made a blanket fort, snuck scissors into it, and gave ourselves haircuts. When the (shallow) creek by my house would freeze my sister and I would play on it all the time even if the ice was cracking - and my Dad was usually with us when we were smaller and helped us get *out* of the ice *after* the fact. And once when I was old enough to be left home alone with my siblings for half an hour while Mom ran to the store (I guess I was 10 or 11?), we (sister who was 9 or 10, brother who was only 6 or 7) took every pillow in the house and stacked them up in the living room right under the loft-part of the second/first floor, and jumped off with umbrellas like Mary Poppins. No injuries, I forget who told. Mom was *furious* and it was a year before she left us home alone for so much as 10 minutes again. And that doesn't even make mention of all the things my mischievous brother could do if we turned our backs on him for even 30 seconds - once my dad snatched him up just as he was about to pet a gigantic snapping turtle who would've had his whole hand off. And a childhood friend of mine, the oldest of two, tried to make a zipline in his backyard by putting a hanger on a clothesline while playing outside - he broke his arm. Oh, and even when we were older we'd jump off of roofs or trees onto the trampoline. Hey, we all made it to adulthood!

[Kaylee]

Sounds normal to me. I could see my son doing some of those things (we've already caught him in the washer & he loves coloring on himself, so why not the dog?), and I could see myself doing them as a kid.

When I was young, I did a lot of stuff that probably could have made that list:

• Going up on the roof to have privacy while taking on the phone
  Riding my bike down a huge hill with no hands (then slamming a sign post)
  Climbing the fence at daycare and walking home (5 years old, about 1 1/2 miles)
  Making "flamethrowers" with Aqua Net & a lighter
  Skateboarding on the (really cool steep, multiple surface) roof of a local school
  Digging "man traps" (pits with sharpened stakes) in the yard
  Playing "war" & shooting eachother with real bb guns
  Catching live snakes & snapping turtles
  Booby-trapping my door so things fell on people's heads if they opened it
  Trying to make fireworks out of gun powder and pvc (yeah, closer to a pipe bomb)

...and that was before age 14, and doesn't include the stupid crap I've done as an adult

[urban explorer]

My brother and his friends got this pretty sweet balloon launcher.They would go into the golf course and use eggs and pelt the golfers and there carts, even after the cops came around asking questions that didn’t stop them. It seemed like a big adventure.

He didn’t like one of our neighbors so he would put dog crap in a bag and light it, the guy would set up a chair under a tree and watch the kids because he didn’t know who did it.

Kids live in the moment no time to sit and think what the consequences might be, even his poor sister who had to protect his ass from getting in trouble with the police and the parents.

[sableduck]

totally normal.

and you have to remember how kids think...going through someone's pockets when they are sleeping isn't necessarily stealing. A typical kid may not want to take anything, but is just curious about what is in there.

[mnb357]

Yeah, pretty normal, except the stuff which hurts another kid. If my kids are going to hurt one another, I generally have plenty of warning beforehand, in the form of a heated argument. I'm surprised she reads, or lets her kids read "Calvin and Hobbes," though, if she's a fundie. Bill Wattreson went to Kenyon College, which is, *gasp* an Episcopal college, AND, Watterson doesn't claim (or didn't when he wrote the 10 year anniversary book) ANY religious affiliation.

[emmiedahl]

It sounds like the typical stuff kids do when unsupervised, and I bet her kids are unsupervised a lot. Kids don't have the life experience to say, WOW that's a bad idea.

Hurting animals or people and/or playing with fire kinda crosses the line IMO. I am not a real punisher, but I would come down like a ton of bricks on a kid who did that. I would say that annoying your cat is normal, hurting or terrifying them=abnormal. I gave my Maine coon (very furry and fluffy breed) a mohawk when I was a kid and I don't think I was bad or trying to harm it.

[notsocommon]

Using the laundry chute as a slide is great fun, till you fly out the bottom and bust your head open on the door.

Not that I would know from personal experience, mind. :eusa-whistle:

[Rosa]

I forgot about the laundry chutes! We had family friends with this complicated whole-house laundry chute system, one in each bedroom plus a few more. Most of them were too narrow for the big kids so we'd just put the toddlers down them.

[Rosa]

And you know, I see a lot of handwringing about helicopter parents and overprotectiveness and stuff, but the flip side of NOT helicoptering is, shit like this happens. When I was a kid in the '70s in small towns and suburbs, near-total lack of supervision was the norm. The SAHM's all did something together - played cards, smoked, cooked, planned community events, got out the vote, whatever - and the kids were left on their own unless someone got really hurt.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

When my daughter was three, she decided she didn't want bangs anymore, so she cut hers off right in the middle.

Ah, the wonders of the DIY haircut. I remember sitting in first grade (in the classroom!) one afternoon when we'd been left alone to "self study" for a short period under the watchful eye of the also 7-year-old class president, and two girls near me were playing "barber" with their fingers making scissors motions in each other's hair. One of them then said "we should use real scissors," they both agreed, and Girl #1 proceeded to cut a big chunk in Girl #2's hair - some big part of her head by the ear was now pretty well buzz-cutted.

Thing is, I was sitting right there watching this and didn't find anything wrong with it...! I'm sure Girl #2's parents were horrified. She got a proper buzz cut later that afternoon.

Possibly the stupidest thing I've done was, my father rode a motorcycle when I was small and he warned me many times never to touch the exhaust pipe after he had ridden it, because it would be hot. Somehow I had to try this out for myself, grabbed it, and burned both palms pretty seriously. Oh, the pain. And the bandages. But I can sort of sympathize with a kid who tries licking the inside of the freezer.

I also really really wanted some roller skates, and my parents thought they were dangerous for my age. So I tried strapping metal toy buses to my feet. My parents gave in and bought me some actual roller skates.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

- sticking a bead up the nose (twice!) and having to go the ER

...and what is it with stuff up the nose??? A relative of mine used to teach kindergarten and kids would fairly frequently be stuffing things (often parts of lunch, so like a bean) up their noses, it gets stuck, they can't get it out and stay quiet until somehow (infection? Just the bean... rotting? Or?) they smell TERRIBLE, and then it's a trip to go get it removed. Yuck. That's one thing I never did and just plain don't get, but apparently it's common.

[PhoenixFeathers]

Crazy, but normal.

What is encouraging about that list is that despite her fundy-ness her kids don't seem to be robots, being beaten into submission, like some...

They seem like kids!

[clibbyjo]

When my son and his best friend were both 3, they were nicely playing in a "child friendly, waldorf inspired homeschool art room" at my friend's house. The older kids were outside and they built something so we walked out to see it. We looked in the window at the boys(1 minute later) and both of them had a pair of scissors and were cutting their hair. We ran back in and both of them had huge chunks of scalp showing right in the front. We laugh about that now,and how fast they did it.

What is it with the steps? I fall down the things all the time, that is NOT fun! Mine have done the sleeping bags,but I said NO to them sliding down in laundry basket .

[amie]

..........

[cjsmom]

My son dumped a bottle of shampoo on his head because "I just love the bubbles so much Mummy!" when he was about 4. He was behind the shower curtain while I was removing toenail polish in the main part of the bathroom and chatting with him the whole time. Thankfully, he used his dad's cheap stuff, not my good stuff! I ended up taking him down to the lake 3 days later to swim and swim and swim all day, as there were not enough baths or showers to get it all out and his hair was nastily sticky. Yay for this happening in summer.

If her kids have managed all the things on the list, then yeah, a bit more supervision might be in order.

[Mommy22alyns]

My girls must be really tame. The worst thing they've ever done... my oldest colored on the bathroom wall with bathtub crayon when she was around 2. I couldn't even be upset with her because she'd colored on the bathtub wall a mere couple of inches away, so....

[Feberin]

I think it's fairly normal behavior for kids. All of it together is a bit overwhelming but it's clear that her kids are unsupervised a lot. I don't think it's good child raising to have your kids doing all that but I don't think her kids are super bad or going to grow up to be criminals. I think with the Howelers it's their overall behavior with all of the out of control noise and craziness. And yes if any of the Duggar kids did those things we would be tsk tsking.

[twin2]

When I was little, twin1 and I were playing in the basement. Twin1 told me the dryer was a ride (we had just been to the fair), so I got in and she shut the door. Fortunately mom came down shortly thereafter and let me out.

Twin1 is the smart one.

[bananacat]

If this is, in fact, "typical" childhood misbehavior, why the incessant hand-wringing over the Duggar "Howler Monkeys" for behavior which is downright angelic compared to the misbehavior described in the OP's post? 'Cause I can imagine the collective apoplexy that would stricken FJ if Hannnie hid on the roof during a game of hide 'n seek, took a butcher knife to the kitchen floor, or turned on the dryer while Jennifer was inside it...

I can't speak for others, but the biggest problem I had with the Duggar kids is that they were riding bikes inside a store. I'm extremely tolerant of bad behavior from kids, but I cross the line when it comes to things that are dangerous and things that lack respect for other's property. I know a lot of kids do that kind of thing, but that violates two of my (very few) rules. I generally have very few rules, but the ones I do have are important. Things like rifling through someone else's pockets (especially when they are asleep) or hitting siblings are just unacceptable to me, and I would have never done anything like that even when I was a kid. I don't think hiding on a roof is so bad, but kids should know better than to play with knives or get into the dryer, or else it is the adult's responsibility to make sure those things are not accessible to the child.

I also don't think that lack of supervision is to blame here. Kids should be able to learn self-control and moderate their own behavior even when no one is watching. Of course kids will test their boundaries but they absolutely shouldn't turn into hooligans the second nobody is watching.

[Rosa]

How is a kid going to know playing in a dryer is bad? It's actually not that big a deal if no-one turns the dryer on. It's not hooliganism - it doesn't hurt anyone, it doesn't break anything. The problem is you could get stuck (or there could be real hooliganism - tricking your sibling in and then turning it on. But that's not what was mentioned.)

Nobody has "instincts" about this stuff. We even have to teach kids not to touch hot things. Most people learn by being told or experience or both.

[Crackedeggs]

normal.

Add to that list:

Do not attempt to cook rice by yourself when you are 7.

Do not let the neighbor boy get to you mudwrestle him.

Do not draw on yourself with sharpies. yeah, i know, you can make fake tatoos. just please don't.

Do not let your boyfriend try on your clothes and put on your makeup, and then show me. Please, just don't.

Do not pants your boyfriend in front of your friends.

[jaelh]

Don't try to pop balloons with scissors.

Esp. not near your little brothers face.

You might just happen to stab him in the eye.

[bicyclecat]

My husband and his brother learned a few much more dangerous things the hard way. Like don't put live bullets on the gas stove. Even if you put a saucepan on your head for a helmet. I don't know how they survived that one without burning down the house.

[emmiedahl]

I think the issue with the howler monkeys is that their parents see the behavior and do not try to guide them. I think JimBob and Michelle beat them mercilessly when the cameras are off, and that they have no other strategies. So they cannot beat the kids while America is watching and thus do not react at all.

I am a howler monkey apologist. Sure, they need more guidance and supervision. But, they are just doing what kids naturally do when the adults are not looking--have fun with no regard for safety or other people. They seem to have sweet spirits, just need to be taught.