When You’re Secretly Proud of Your Child’s Terrible Behaviour

Sometimes disobedience is a good thing

Image by author. See heart-warming anecdote below.

Facebook was stalking me with memories the other day and served up the post below from when Conall was two:

We were at the playground and Conall was painstakingly placing sand on a little counter when a much bigger boy — about four — came and brushed it all off. Conall wasn’t sure what to do, but then the boy started putting sand on too so I said “Look Conall, the boy is helping you! You can say thank you!” And he smiled and thanked him.

After a couple of minutes of joint effort, the boy once again wiped all the sand off vigorously. This time Conall just picked up a handful of sand and threw it at the other kid as hard as he could. I told him that wasn’t nice, but secretly I was proud. Sometimes you gotta throw a little sand to make your point.

Eager to avoid a full-on kiddie brawl, I grabbed Conall while the other parent secured her little sociopath, and we fled to separate play structures.

My view on Conall’s retaliatory sand-flinging hasn’t changed. He could have toddled away from confrontation, but it would have been a simple fear response — maybe baby Gandhi had the emotional and intellectual capacity to reason his way to pacifism, but that kind of depth doesn’t run in…