Thursday, December 18, 2008

Mortification

Mayhem.....

There are no words....

except maybe 'beat him with a stick'

Havoc had is kindergarten Christmas program last night. We all went to the school auditorium, sat around with about 70 other families (many with kids younger than Mayhem), waited for the show to start & then watched the 45 minute show.

Except Mayhem.

He climbed around on me & DH & on his seat. He crawled under the seat They were flip up seats so he played with that incessantly. He talked almost non stop. He jumped, he wandered back in forth (we had him in a seat between us).  In short he did everything he possibly could to make sure we were looking at him, rather than the stage.

Because it can't not be about Mayhem.

It was mortifying. Other kids his age & younger were sitting in their seats just fine. Only one child was removed by parent. What the hell is with my child? 

(We didn't remove him because he didn't actually appear to be disturbing anyone but us, not being loud, not kicking any seats, just rattling back & forth between us like a pinball, and just once I would like to see more than 4 minutes of Havoc in a school program. )

I don't get any comments from his teacher or the bus drivers about him not being able to sit still (though I do hear about whining) so he must save the special behavior for us. He sits through movies fairly well. I'm left assuming that this is some sort of display of jealousy that we are not focused on him. Tonight we tried the 'just ignore it approach'

He went straight to bed when we got home, without a snack or a story.  I don't know what to do about it anymore...

Some pictures from the program

 school program-1a

school program-3a

Havoc is the number 7 

school program-15a

5 comments:

The Four Week Vegan said...

Has he had much practice at this sort of thing? Really sometimes learning to sit at a performance is a task that requires practice. Talk to him before hand and explain the behavior you are expecting, explain what he should expect to see, etc. Really for little boys especially this can be hard. He probably could not really see very well from his seat and so he started playing around.

I used to refer to myself as the jungle gym for my boys. There were times in church people would come up to me after church and giggle at how the boys would literally climb on me. So, I get it. The were under 3 at the time.

You may not hear about this from school because at school he is engaged in the activity, he knows what is expected of him and what he should expect in return.

Boredom and unknown expectations can cause poor behavior. Also, bring along something for him to do if the need arises (books, coloring books, etc.).

They do get better at this type of thing. Hugs.

Deb said...

he sounds like he was probably bored. not that it excuses his behavior, but i think it is really tough for them to sit through something like that. i feel your pain. and actually, i feel his. i sat through a band concert last night and i was climbing the walls, myself.

Jenni said...

Havoc was looking GREAT up there!

Maybe Mayhem is just a little punchy because of the holiday madness? I know I am...

Aunt Becky said...

My guess is also that he was bored. And I can see this being my future with Alex when we have to sit and watch Ben perform at some point it time.

*sighs*

Pass the Xanex, man.

Anonymous said...

Ugh, that is so frustrating, isn't it? And I know everyone has probably told you that you're lucky he saves that behavior for you guys instead of sharing with everyone at school.

But that doesn't make it any easier.