Adults Ruin Everything

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adults, child safety, easter egg hunt, fail, how not to do an easter egg hunt

Grown ups are no fun.

We have known this since we ourselves were children.

But it is sometimes impressive to see how great they are at ruining a fun time.

Take the Easter Egg hunt we went to today.

We thought a community Easter Egg Hunt sounded like a fun time, and since entry donations support a local woman’s shelter, we also thought it sounded like a good cause.

The place was packed. Swarming. We were a little surprised. PH had to drop us off and park a klick up the road.

I got Owl registered and we found our way to the section for ages 3-4. I thought it was smart of them to divide it by age group so that big kids wouldn’t be snatching from little babies.

When we got there I discovered that “hunt” was a bit of a misnomer. The playground area had been roped off and little bags of chocolate eggs were strewn willy nilly over every horizontal surface within the small boundaries. I realized it would be less of a hunt and more of a grab-what-you-can. Think of the Cornucopia Blood Bath in The Hunger Games.

I positioned Owl close to the ropes, handed him his basket, and quietly advised him that if he was having trouble getting any candy, he should head up the playground equipment because the kids would probably scramble for the stuff on the ground first.

They started the count down. 10… 9… 8…

When the count go down to “go!” something strange happened.

I had been expecting all the kids to rush in and mob the playground.

Instead, the adults standing around the edge all grabbed their kids’ hands and shuffled in, creating a solid wall that Owl couldn’t get past, and sweeping up all the candy like Roombas so there was nothing left for the kids behind them.

I directed Owl to dodge between a pair of adults and try to get in front so he could actually, you know, hunt for Easter eggs.

He disappeared beyond the wall of adult bodies.

The adults had zombie-shuffled across the entire field, and it was packed with adult and small child bodies. The playground equipment was in complete gridlock, with children wedged into every available space and practically overflowing around the edges. None of them were my son. None of the kids around the base of the equipment were mine. Nor could I see him around the edges of the play area.

Now, I don’t usually worry too much if I lose sight of Owl. I may suffer from anxiety, but I also trust my kid and for the most part I trust other people. Owl knows he’s not supposed to go out of my sight and he isn’t the type to completely disappear. He doesn’t leave the general play area without permission. So when I lose sight of him it’s usually because he’s behind something or under something and simply out of my sight line.

But in this densely packed environment, with adults and kids swarming everywhere, I could see how easy it would be for a child to get snatched.

All About Tantrums – A Holistic View of Tantrums At All Ages

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adults, All About Tantrums, attachment parenting, babies, books, child development, crying, discipline, emotions, independence, Karyn Van Der Zwet, older children, parenting, reviews, tantrums, teenagers, toddlers

Karyn Van Der Zwet, who you will see on my blog roll as Kloppenmum, came out with a new book recently, and she kindly sent me a copy to review.

All About Tantrums is probably the only book out there that really is ALL about Tantrums. If you Google books on tantrums you will come up with a lot of books about TODDLER tantrums.

But Karyn’s book isn’t age specific.

In fact, it gives multiple levels of advice based on the age of the tantrumming person, from 9 months old to teenagers to YOUR AGE. That’s right – her book has sections dedicated to ADULT tantrums as well, and what to do when you have one.

What Karyn does is break down the word “tantrum” into (I counted them) 15 tantrums with 35 sub-categorized tantrum types. And she not only describes what each one looks like and how to tell one from the other, but how to deal with each and every kind.

It sounds like a lot of information, but it’s actually insanely helpful, because I’m betting that every kid doesn’t throw every kind of tantrum. Chances your kid only throws tantrums over a couple of things on the list. And when you realize that you’ve been following generic advice which would work great for, say, an Intentional Tantrum (subtype Entitlement Tantrum), but that your kid is actually throwing a Brain Pain Tantrum (sub type Has To Be Done Tantrum), you realize you’ve been handling it all wrong.

Even if your kid doesn’t throw tantrums, it’s a great explanation of why kids do the things they do.