I'm just getting things done...

[elfs]

Well, I spoke with the placement officer for the local school district and they said that it was too late to try and transfer Yamaarashi-chan to a higher-performance school for the year. The only one reasonably within reach had recently acquired new territory that had filled up their program for the year, so it's the local or a private school. There are a few, but I don't know what we could do for transportation yet.

Kouryou-chan is eating like a bird, and it's showing in her behavior; she's been cranky the past day or so. She didn't each much of the stir-fry last night, although Yamaarashi-chan ate all of hers. This morning when I went to fill their lunch boxes for camp I discovered that Kouryou-chan hadn't eaten her sandwich yesterday at all. No lunch, no dinner... she ate a huge breakfast this morning, asking for double the usual raisin bran, I packed her favorite kind of sandwich, and dinner tonight's her favorite (tortellini with home-made marinara). They provided Nutri-grain snack bars at the Y, even, and she seemed to like those. I'll get calories into that kid one way or another.

I'm a little worried about the new neighbor kids, especially the oldest boy. The evangelical family to the West are also SCA types, and the boys take out their agression with junior boffers and wooden shields. The boy from the East, on the other hand, seems to take delight in crippling insects, pulling the wings off flies, and making them do his will. He enjoyed my expression when he described how he'd broken a butterfly's wing so "it could be my pet." Icky. I hope it's just boy stuff, but I never did anything like that.

And I am Mr. Housework. I vacuumed the upstairs rugs, took a crevice tool to all the moulding, dusted everywhere. And when I had the living room floor cleared I did a GTD thing: I took all the miscellaneous paperwork from the kitchen, that had been piling up everywhere, and I sorted it. Scheduling stuff (local catalogs of events, summer guides), magazines, printed recipes, stuff for Omaha to sort (actually quite small), stuff the kids produced, coupons, and take-out menus: each got their own folder. I'll have to wait until I get home to label the folders properly: Kouryou-chan used up all the tape in the labeler. I found the cat's rabies vaccination paperwork from last month and put her new tag on, only two weeks late. I found the paperwork from my MSA and called them about the latest account transaction, and they admitted they'd made a bureaucratic mistake in sending me a check and renewed my direct-deposit. And Covad, the local DSL reseller that supports Speakeasy, came out and finally (finally!) hardened our line (we have to pay an extra $5 a month for the privilege because we're too far from the POP for a standard line) and after two years I'm actually getting the 1.5Mb/s I was promised.

Comments

Public Education.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Just curious .. but have you had trouble with your local public schools?

Re: Public Education.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

No, not particularly. I just want better for my kids than the one-size-fits-all, most-common-denominator style education that the public schools deliver.

Re: Public Education.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Well, if there aren't other options, then becoming an active member of your local public school is the next best thing. Many schools have a 'Community Action Committee' or CAC that meets with the Board of Education, and is made up of volunteers from the community who help provide direct input on what the community feels the school needs to be doing.

You can always run for school board, and give direction there.

Parents as Teachers and PTA are also good places to get involved and improve the opportunities for your children, as well as make your public school a better place overall.

The enemy of a Great School is a School that's Good Enough.

Re: Public Education.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Depends on the school; sometimes being involved is enough, sometimes it's not. Though I've been thinking that the way to fix America is first to subvert the public school system.... use the very thing that's been used to lobotomize Joe Sixpack to make his kids smart. It seems to be working on Mercer Island... I can give you a contact if you wish. (Warning, he's very hardcore Libertarian and makes me look like a wishy-washy moderate. :)

Re: Public Education.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Well, you can't make any difference if you just sit at home and talk about it.

As for mine own part, I'm already on a School Board for the local Public School, and I'll probably run for a second term.

However, Missouri has some interesting requirements for schools and boards of education. There's a minimum of 16 hours of education you must do, plus you're encouraged to continue that education each year so that over a course of a 3 year term, you'll have 40+ hours of education about ..well, education.

Re: Public Education.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Most excellent. Keep it up.

Often what I do here is agent provocateur, simply spreading memes and getting folks to think. If I can get three or four others better placed to go "hmmm" and actually do something, that's better than me going it alone. Now, of course, it doesn't pass the Kantian imperative... but I never claimed to be perfect. I Kant. :)

[(Anonymous)]

I know I'd be worried about the boy from the East. It's one of those behaviour quirks which is a bad sign.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Yup, seconded--it's a standard precursor to sociopathic behavior, for one thing.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

You mumbled something about moving a bit back, Elf... the more I see the more I wonder if waiting it out is going to be a Bad Idea.

If you decide to, say the word; we've got lots of resources (save the long green itself)....

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Kouryou-chan is eating like a bird, and it's showing in her behavior; she's been cranky the past day or so.

Well, if I ate 25 percent of my body weight per day, I'd be cranky too. :-)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

What's with the Pink, anyway? One is curious...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with pink? I like pink! No, seriously, it's an affectation; pink is one of my favorite colors, although I could never wear it.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I think you could pull off the odd pink buttondown.... but then, what do I know about guys and fashion....

"Just boy stuff" or "Budding sociopath"?

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

I would _not_ dismiss the neighbor child's behaviour as harmless. Intentional cruelty to small animals, despite the common tendancy to dismiss it under the "Boys will be boys" clause, is _not_ a standard part of any child's (male or female) _normal_ psychological development. Children begin to develope real empathy around 18 months old. By the time they're old enough to be running around outside, it should be _well_ developed. He should be aware that other creatures feel pain. Either he is not aware, which is highly unlikely and pretty rare, but possible, or he is aware and does not care or enjoys the fact. There're also cases where a group of children will act as catalysts for such behaviour within their group, each daring the others to greater 'taboo-breaking' activity, but that doesn't sound like the case here, since the child is doing these things at his own instigation for his own enjoyment.

Think about it...I doubt that you, as a boy, tortured small creatures for fun. I know that neither my husband nor my father did so, nor does my son show anything but pity for things that are hurting. In fact, the only men I know who claimed to enjoy hurting things as children were quite creepy as adults, too.

Not sure where I was going with this...just have a pet peeve for seeing deviant behaviour dismissed as 'being a boy'. Boys aren't any more cruel and thoughtless by nature than girls are, and such activities aren't acceptable for them, either. I'd also keep a really close eye out...as has been stated by others, this is a great big red warning flag. This behaviour usually progresses up to things like mice and squirrels, cats and dogs, and sometimes even humans. A lot of times, the person takes up hunting or finds some other socially acceptable ways to express their desire to cause pain and suffering, and just turn into your everyday, ordinary asshole who kicks the dog, spanks the kids, and maybe knocks the wife around a bit, but sometimes they move right on to torturing and killing humans instead. The best thing you could possibly do for the kid is watch him, an the instant he moves up to a small animal, call both the SPCA and your local Child Protective Services...that'd get him in counciling, and maybe he could be helped, and in the meantime, I wouldn't let your girls be alone with the him.

Best wishes,
Velvet

Re: "Just boy stuff" or "Budding sociopath"?

[kavri.livejournal.com]

Although children develop empathy, being cruel to insects is not terribly deviant, especially as an incidental, as opposed to continual, activity. Also, children, as a form of acting out, may be mean or cruel to animals in brief incidents. I realize this isn't the case with the East boys...but I felt Velvet's brush went a bit broad...I grew up with four older brothers, and we did our fair share of killing ants, feeding other insects to spider webs, and even a bit of frog tormenting/torture. We had our fair share of family dysfunction, but none of kick the dog or torture people, and we're all pretty much warm-hearted bleeding heart liberal types.

And, I do think, that between boys developing growing levels of testosterone, and the prevalent socialization as to what 'male' behaviour should be, that yes, boys are both nature/nurture, more attuned to agressive behaviours that can be acted out in that way.

I do strongly agree with you that it is a situation that needs monitoring, and that escalation does call for some sort of response.

As I mention in my comment to the post, what I think is of grave concern is the outwardly stated aims of the boy for control and ownership, and his pleasure in seeing others feel discomfort. Those aspects, on their own, are enough for me to be concerned about him exhibiting socio-pathic behaviour.

The East boys behaviour...

[kavri.livejournal.com]

I think THE most noticeable and worrisome thing about their behaviour, is not the torturing of insects per se. As you mentioned, this kind of behaviour is not always problematic, however, there are a couple of VERY significant differences....

... The boy is not just interested in examining/killing/deconstructing the insects. He was doing it so he was "making them do his will." and so "it could be my pet." These are aspects relating to control, power, and acting out. I may have been cruel to some insects in my childhood, and subconsciously there may have been a sense of power, but, I wasn't self aware of it to 'want' to be hurting insects to satisfy a 'need' of owning/kiling them.

... The fact that he "enjoyed my expression when he described how he'd broken a butterfly's wing so "it could be my pet" means he is also looking to see how his behaviour is viewed, and is taking pleasure in his behaviour causing discomfort to others. If an adult had come by and watched or questioned my behaviour, I, knowing it wasn't 'right' would have felt some measure of shame or regret for my actions.

I do agree strongly with Velvet that it is behaviour to be monitored, and that watching for escalation to larger beings (mice, birds, frogs) is important. I would however, perhaps investigate what options are available if you come to a place where you need to take action. As I'm sure you can appreciate, you want to tread carefully before making enemies of your next door neighbors, and possibly have to deal with retaliation.