Thursday, October 10, 2013

Tiny Tyrant

Do not make the mistake of thinking this kid is crying.  This is not about crying children in public. I've had a crying child in public while pushing a grocery cart full of watermelons, thank you very much.
This kid is screaming.  Hence, my story.
I was at the library today doing research for my other blog, ReadAroundSue.  It is nice and quiet and I get a lot done in the time I allow myself.  Plus the little ones come in for storytime and they are just so funny.  Well, most of them anyway.  One pulled his mom all the way to the storytime area.  Another little one was late because his folks couldn't find his shoes.  Little stuff like that just tickles me.
Then, after everyone(including shoeless Joe) got settled, here comes trouble with a capital T.  I'd say he was somewhere between two and three but I'm guessing closer to two because the star of his show was NO.  NO,NO,NO.  Louder and louder and louder as his mom and grandma tried to pull him away from the computer.
I'm starting to pay attention now cause I want to see what they do next. It looked like Grandma was in charge.  She said, OK if you won't leave the computer we're going home.  Let's go.
Three guesses what Tiny Tyrant said.
She walked toward him and he kept yelling his favorite word and then she just threatened him again.  She took no action and Mom just faded into the background, looking scared.
Nobody went and picked him up.  Nobody sat next to him to explain. Nobody tried to tempt him to go to the story time.  They just kept yelling and  threatening and doing nothing.  Tiny Tyrant just kept yelling NO.  Wonder where he learned that?
What would I have done?  I would have gotten that kid out of there and out to the car and home again.  Maybe I'd try next week.  Maybe I'd go early and let the kid use the computer first and then have story time.  He was little, he didn't have much of an attention span.  He would have been bored in five minutes.
Heck, I finally tuned them out and I don't even know what happened.  Suddenly they just weren't there.  Don't forget I was a kindergarten teacher when kids still had playtime.  I can tune out  most anything and concentrate on the task at hand.
Poor Tiny Tyrant. He's in charge. And he's too young.

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