- Taco bell dog spoke Spanish; and/or
- Whoosh.
How about unruly fat kids? What do you use on them?
Yeah! They’re the ones whho tyope l9ikee tyhis!!!@
Kinda looks like they are. 
Exactly why I have a hard time guessing kid ages. Since height can be a crapshoot (in 7th grade there was a kid who anyone would have guessed to be at least 20), you can only really go by development or maturity. Since my niece is the only kid I’ve been around from infant to toddlerhood, I only have a development yardstick up to her. Munchkin X seemed to be able to speak in longer sentences than the niece. I found out later he’s around 3 and a half.
This is all made complicated by the fact that my sister seems to have a lot of friends with really slow kids. One of their friends has a 5 year old who talks less than a 3 year old, and before they moved they had another friend with an infant who would just stare with wide vacant eyes and could barely keep its head elevated at the same age where my niece was giggling and grabbing things and watching movement and calculating squares of primes.
No, it’s because unruly kids have an advantage: they’re smaller and they move fast. Shooting a fat person is like taking candy from a baby. Well, maybe more like taking a present away from a screaming kid. Still, it’s not as sporting.
I’m gonna guess it was #1. I’d forgotten that the Taco Bell dog spoke Spanish.
No argument here, but what I get from the OP is not a well mannered kid, but a kid out of control*. What is it with grandmas? But that’s another thread…
*or a kid with behavioral issues or a kid on meds/off meds or a kid who… we don’t really know. 3 and 1/2 is not the same as 4, so now I’m willing to give the kid more slack (it’s not the kid anyway, it’s how he’s been taught to behave). My kids never had “meltdowns” like the one described. They would have no more grabbed a present at someone else’s birthday party then than they would now, so I am using the yardstick I know.
Twinkies will calm them right down, IME.
I think that what happened in the OP is a case of a kid who’s poorly socialized, with a grandmother who isn’t particularly good at controlling him, in a situation where there are too many other little kids. Little kids really don’t need huge birthday parties, and especially they don’t need a LOT of other little kids around. The old “age in years=number of guests” formula is a very good guideline. And it’s a good idea to keep preschoolers’/gradeschoolers’ birthday parties especially small and uncomplicated, because after you have a pony AND a bouncehouse for the birthday party, how do you have a smaller and less elaborate party next year? Most kids are happy to have a couple of games and some cake and ice cream at that age. Anything more tends to get them wound up, it doesn’t really make them happier.
Nope. It’s always the kid’s fault. Stupid breeders and their crotch droppings should be shot.
I’m coming down on the side of “this kid is out of control.” Every preschooler has the occasional meltdown, but this was multiple instances of misbehavior in one period of time. He had a tantrum getting there, he ran around the house without asking permission, he ignored directions to stop inappropriate behavior, he had a tantrum over not getting a present, he tried to steal a present, and then he had a tantrum leaving.
Are you folks defending him and his caregivers really saying this is normal behavior?
I work with autistic preschoolers who have behavioral problems, and not a single one of them would have ever acted like this (post-therapy, anyway). If you tell them to cut that shit out, they cut that shit out, because they’ve learned that if they don’t, the immediate consequence will be to be removed from the situation. It’s clear to me that this boy does not experience any consequences for his behavior.
Well, Yee-ikes, and maybe this will help give some long term perspective wierdaaron: My earliest birthday party memory is one at age five, lo, back in the 60’s… was all and good, many presents had, until I unwrapped one present, a Liddle Kiddle doll, and neighbor girl Brenda proceeded to go ballistic and throw a hissy ass tantrum : " I want the Liddle Kiddle, I want the Liddle Kiddle!!!" and have a 4 year old meltdown. She grabbed it from me and ran off, and her mom went and dragged her home.
Even at age five, I remember thinking, basically, WTF??, more at that age, just, Yikes, why did that happen? It was my first instance of seeing crap crazy selfish. “Brenda” then became a code word in our family of “batshit crazy selfish”. “Well, are you having a problem here? Are you being a Brenda???” Enough to silence any bullshit.
Even now, four decades later, when I see someone being batshit selfish, I say, " Ugh, What a Brenda !", at the thought of that selfish tantrum kid at a birthday party.
Karma, yep, rocks!
We have something similar, but not to temper tantrums. We have pulling a Helen–Helen, the child who shared, as long as she got the bigger piece, who took turns as long as she was first or got the longer turn etc., who wouldn’t go outside if there was an ozone alert (no, she wasn’t asthmatic) or it was “too hot/cold”, who wouldn’t play if there was a chance of her losing…
Same here. I was more interested in my friend’s libraries than what was going on at their parties.
Wierdaaron…I mean this in the nicest way possible…I understand your pain, but there are some things just not worth complaining about*.
The problem is that the more oblivious, irresponsible, narcissistic, shortsighted, neurotic, needy, spoiled, and/or brainless you are, the more likely you are to have an unwanted child. And don’t forget those who have kids out of obligation, not any desire to nuture a future generation (Quiverfull movement, anyone?). It’s simply vastly easier to be a completely worthless parent than even a mediocre one, much less a good one.
The other problem is that properly disciplining a child is WORK. Knowing what behavior is just harmless messing around and what is inappropriate. Knowing when a simple scolding is called for and when more severe measures are called for. Applying negative reinforcement without just spanking, spanking, spanking (if the kid ever learns to cope with pain, you are screwed). Applying positive and negative reinforcement consistently. Using threats only rarely, and always making good on them. Above all else, never simply “ignoring it”. (Sure, it’ll go away. Just as soon as it gets replaced by something even worse.)
I hate it. I hate the moronic, simpering parents, I hate the lousy brats who will not have the slightest restraints on their behavior until at least the end of high school, I hate not being able to go anywhere without being assaulted by screaming and yelling and whining. I also know that there’s not a damn thing I can do about it and it’s never, ever going to change (Hey, if you can’t teach birth control in a housing project where 80+% of the tenants live hand to mouth every day of their lives, where can you teach it?), which means my choices are to shut myself off from the world or learn to live with the annoyances.
For the record, I don’t have children either. Yes, it’s hard sometimes, but consider the alternative.
- Yes, I know about reality show scoring and elimination systems! I’m working on it! Rome wasn’t built in a day!
I’m not sure what the deal is with folks my age [I’m 41] and their kids. It’s almost as if some of them had the Parents From Hell growing up, got the shit beat out of them for breathing, etc., and they’ve decided that they aren’t going to be like that.
Another thing I’ve noticed is a lot of these parents also treat their kids like they’re an afterthought. Almost as if they had the child for the attention and stuff the parents would get for a year or so, and after the “aww” and “cute” wore off, the kids were just something else in the house to deal with.
Sorry if none of this makes a bit of sense, I’m a bit whacked out on pain medicine at the moment.
It must’ve been different in the old days. My parents were quite strict and i never acted up ever. My sisters son, now 16, never acted up either, and she was quite unstrict. maybe its genetic.
Sometimes somebody will say something that is so simple yet it opens a window to a view you hadn’t seen before. I was venting to a friend who is a children’s therapist about the child of a mutual friend, an out of control brat, and mentioned how I hoped the kid will change since the parents don’t seem inclined to change them. My friend mentioned “Of course he won’t change. A spoiled brat has absolutely no reason to change. They have learned how to work the world to get what they want, something that takes most people a lifetime if they ever learn it and there’s no way they’re going to give that up. In a way they’re doing their job: if I want then, then I do that and I get it, it’s contract with their parents and they’re doing their part of it. If I asked you to voluntarily give up your eyeglasses or walk on your knees- you can see lots of reasons not to, none to do it, asking them to give up what they know works isn’t going to happen.”
Simple observation but it’s what I think of whenever I see a brat: they’d be fools to change, so it’s 100% up to their parents.
Why is Grandma getting involved in calming him down?
Grandma took him to the party.