Tuesday, February 20, 2007

In Praise of Structure

Today TinyTuna is enjoying her fifth day of President's Day. I'm thinking it's not so much President's Day as Groundhog's Day, as the mobius strip known as days off from school hasn't stopped since last Thursday. Add onto that four days at camp, and she's going to have to wear a nametag tomorrow and reintroduce herself to all her teachers.

It has been an unbelievably difficult re-entry for TinyTuna once she got back from camp. I expected tired, but I didn't expect the degree of uncontrolled Satanic behavior that erupted. The weekend was an absolute struggle complete with crying jags, yelling and privileges flying out the window faster than you could say BUT MOM!!!

When TinyTuna finally regained her composure yesterday, I explained to her that were I a parent that didn't care how their child spoke to them, we wouldn't have had any of these problems. Too bad for her that I do care ... A LOT. Arguments over every direction that comes out of my mouth? Not tolerated. Crossed arms, eyeballs rolling across the floor, hips jacked to the side in righteous indignation? Not tolerated. Yelling at the maternal unit? Not tolerated.

The result of the weekend included the computer being taken away, the gameboy being taken away and the television being taken away. And yes world, she missed the first episode of Amazing Race, which sent her into a fireball of rage (until she fell asleep on her bed, fully clothed, ten minutes later).

I don't know for certain what caused Beelzebub to boil over, but I'm thinking 7th Grade Camp had a lot to do with it. It's not like she hasn't been gone for days at a time before -- she did two weeks of music camp last summer, plus a week of camp with her church youth group -- and both times she returned just fine. I think the difference here is that 7th Grade Camp was nothing short of Camp Hormone and Social activities from dawn until dusk. Throw 150 twelve-year olds with no other goals than eating, sleeping, waiting for the dance on Wednesday and talking about each other from dawn until dusk, and (in TinyTuna's case) you've got a recipe for disaster. This child functions the best under a structured setting, working towards a concrete goal that is something other than telling your best friend to go tell their other friend that a certain person you know might like the friend's friend.

Or something.

For the sake of TinyTuna's social life and standing amongst her peers, I'm glad she went to camp. For GreenTuna's sanity and order in the household, I'm grateful we all survived the weekend exorcism, and I hope not to have to repeat it for a long, long time.

2 comments:

bozoette said...

Good for you. Fear not, you will weather the hormone storm, and so will TinyTuna.

lifeonhold said...

Hahaha, your BUT MOM! brought back so many memories! Good times!