Finding Diana

Anyone who has young children, boys or both knows that feeling that starts in the back of your neck and turns into full blown panic when you are at a public place or someone else's house and they start to act wild.  The wrestling, the screaming, the intense demands on you to deal with a Pokemon issue, all cause you to feel like you should somehow whip out the duct tape and cover their mouths and hands. 

I feel responsible for trying to make sure my boys don't bother anyone else or break anything, but that is like trying to contain sand in a mesh bag.  It is a futile effort that leaves me angry and exhausted.  Yet, I cannot let them run wild.  Guaranteed - they will break something or someone.  I try two different approaches - proactive and reactive.  Proactively, I explain to them why they need to behave and what the consequences are.  They of course, ignore me.  I plead with them to act, and I use the word act for a reason, like normal human beings.  I tell them that if they fight they will get thrown off the plane and I will not get off with them.  It doesn't necessarily work.

Reactively, I try and explain that if they keep throwing a rubber ball around, it will break something or hurt someone. I take the ball away and before I can slip it into my purse, they have found a way to make a plastic bag into a weapon.  There is a reason why MacGyver was male. 

I talk in hushed tones telling them not to stand on furniture.  I  am not above giving them a small pinch to not throw straw wrappers in a restaurant or talk to loudly in my mother's condo.

Just so you know I don't expect them to be in straight jackets, I give them outside time.  I have them play where they can release their energy in an appropriate place. I bring lots of electronic gadgets on the plane along with plenty of snacks.

I understand that the nature of a child is not to be confined and restricted.  But if I don't teach them proper social norms, how will they ever function in the real world.  And worse, they will need to move back home after college. 

So I continue my struggle with letting boys be boys and not being sued for assault with a deadly weapon when one of those bouncy balls "accidentally" knocks out a senior citizen's teeth.