Kids time

Now that I'm off work for a while it's kids time! I'll probably be teaching at a kid's camp for a while and I'll be visiting the Jacksons which means Alex and Justin will be my play buddies for a while.

I don't like kids. I LOVE them! I don't like teaching them because it doesn't take them long to realize that I'm a pushover and they can take advantage of it. THEN I have to do something I hate: I have to play the bad guy. And after showing them how much you love them, discipline is tough. I'm like a big, purple Barney to kids. They usually love me! But Barney is only a half hour show, isn't it? There's a reason for that! It's make believe. You never see one of Barney's little buddies having a temper tantrum. They never punch him in the nads or pull his tail on the show. They never cry when he shows another kid more attention than them. And Barney never gets tired. He never says, "Go away kids I don't feel like singing right now." They never bug him while he's chowing down on the carcass of a sabertooth tiger or a caveman. He never growls at them when they bother him while he's dropping a Barney bomb in the woods somewhere. Barney is make-believe.

I usually find the little foibles of childhood to be the reasons I like them so much. Kids haven't learned to be fake yet. That's mostly what I mean by "foibles". When they say things like, "You have stinky breath." Or they stroke your arm hair like a pet. Or they want a red crayon but another kid won't give it to them so they cry. They say what they feel; fart when they need to; get angry when they're pissed off; and they show extreme joy and happiness at things that please them because almost every pleasure in life is pretty new to them. This is the kind of non-regulation of nature that makes me love kids. And so often I will smile at behaviour that would anger other grown-ups they know. I guess it's because I don't want to discourage it. Especially if they're really young kids. I want them to be kids for a while. Maybe even retain some childish behaviour throughout their lives. But I know this won't happen. Also, I have vast reserves of patience because I don't have kids of my own. So I tend to encourage them to be kids more than to behave.

Now the negation phrase: Having said that; however; that said; on the other hand; buuuut; you choose your favourite, adults nowadays aren't doing ourselves any favours to make dealing with kids easier. In fact we're making it more difficult all the time. We try very hard to create these consequenceless, sterile, safe, morally neutral environments that are pretty similar to Barneyland. I think we're just setting our kids up for a bigger crash when Barney finally shows his teeth.

What is Barney anyway. He's a T-Rex, right? Not a creature I'd want to make angry! Just imagine one morning Barney's baby wakes him up three hours before the alarm clock and is teething. He tries for a few hours to calm the kid down and finally it gets back to sleep. Beep beep beep beep! His alarm goes off and wakes the kid up again. Now Barney has to go to work. His wife is grumpy too from lack of sleep and now they have a crying baby to deal with during their morning routine. Not only that but Barney didn't wipe the scum ring off the bathtub after draining it last night. Mrs. Barney says she can't understand how the bathtub ring could be so red in colour when they live in the brown soil part of town. Unless he had business over on the red soil part of town with, umm, hmmm, his young, sexy secretary, who lives over there! So they have an argument over breakfast. Barney is late and the boss gives him shit because it's not the first time this week. His secretary ignores him as he arrives because he WAS visiting her and THEY had a fight too! Then during the taping of the "I love you, you love me" song one of the kids steps on Barney's tail. He turns on the kid, opens his toothy mandibles of death to snake-like capacity and utters a gutteral blast of sound that blows her hair back and makes her face wet with fang slime!

THAT's how a kid feels when I finally have to put my foot down and discipline them. I hate to do it. I try to keep my exposure to children short enough so that it's not required. But it's getting tougher to do. Camps are getting longer and kids are getting so shut in and overprotected that this eventuality comes much sooner in the relationship.

I've said many times that if I don't have kids of my own I won't be disappointed because I don't think society will allow me to raise them the way I want. For instance I think of myself and one of my best friends growing up named Grant. We were both very sickly kids. My friend's family doctor said he was allergic to everything. I'm not sure what the doctor said about my symptoms but I was always sick. My Mom says I was always underweight and it was impossible to keep any food in me. Hard to believe but I'm not kidding.

Both my friend and I would be overmedicated and maybe living in plastic bubbles if we were kids today. But our parents decided that if our bodies couldn't build up immunities, we'd die. Either was preferable to a life in a sterile, germless environment. NO WAY they'd even have that option today. That's tantamount to child abuse, isn't it? Maybe even manslaughter or murder!

I'm happy to say that both Grant and I are healthy as horses today. I can't remember the last time I had any health trouble that wasn't a cold or hangover. Same with Grant. We found the cure, folks! You know what it was? It was "Get the hell outside!" That's what it was. Both Grant and I LOVED sports, camping, hiking, swimming anything we could do in the germ-infested outdoors with other germ-infested kids. More often than not we did it UNsupervised! Though I didn't know Grant until high-school, our childhoods were spent outside naturally increasing our antibodies and white blood cells.

People are all paranoid nowadays about their kids' health. They are too often given medicine that is supposed to help but I believe it only prolongs the health irregularity that the body would naturally eliminate if it were untreated. I'm not going to say that it's a massive money-making conspiracy by doctors and drug manufacturers, but I do so love a good conspiracy theory!

And worst of all there just aren't many kids whose parents prescribe the tried and true medicine known to me as "Get the hell outside!" The fewer parents that send their kids outside, the less fun it is to be out there. And the more of an outcast the kids are going to be. While they're talking about playing soccer and trading Pokemon cards, most other kids are talking about playing FIFA 2K10 and trading magical items online.

The worst thing about this in my opinion is the social growth the kids are missing. In video games if you cheat, you win more easily! In a person to person social situation if you cheat there are consequences. This is just one of many very valuable lessons that kids can't learn in the classroom. They need to be learned in social interaction with REAL other kids in REAL life, not real time.

And think about the parents! Or at least the supervisors of the kids. It gets them out of their hair for a while. It allows the kids to expend their energy in more productive ways and it gives the supervisors and kids time away from each other. This increases guardians' patience with the kids and vice versa. It just makes it easier for everyone!

I have to admit I'm seeing a few more kids in Korea playing outside but not as many as there should be. Parents just don't trust kids outside on their own. Germs, child abduction, traffic accidents or other play-related injuries - these are smaller risks than robbing your child of the chance to develop personality. In MY opinion.

But rather than tell their kids to go outside and play, parents here tell their kids to get out of the house and study. That's what they want out of the kids camps. What I want is to try to infuse as much desperately needed PLAY into the camps as I can. I just hope I can find a camp at which I'll be able to let the kids play without having to growl at any of them. I think two weeks is the magic window for this situation. But the camps all seem to be a month now. This has me worried.

Anyhoo, here's hoping kid season will be a success this year.