these kids

[maevele]

really love to push me. HQ has his best buddy over for the weekend, and that's all good, wev. We had picked a few berries from the part of the mulberry tree that hangs into our yard, and then me and pobo went inside, leaving the boys playing out. I made it clear to his buddy not to go picking them fom the part of the tree that is in the neighbors yard, because I am on shaky enough ground with the neighbors since the mooning. so they decided to entertain themselves by going into the other yard to get berries, and chuck them at the neighbors garage. I find out because once they were busted, HQ tore into our yard to tell on his friend, although he had aparrently dared him to throw the berries. So I go out, and neighbor dad is all "MY GARAGE!" and I'm like shiiiiiiiiiit. "I'm so sorry, they are in so much trouble, CLEAN THAT UP NOW"

So, yeah, once I finally got the truth out of these kids, HQ had thrown one berry, not AT the garage, but had indeed dared dude to throw the berries once they realized they made a mark, so is just as culpable, and is in extra trouble for trying to pass it off as all his friend's fault.

Normally that would be it for sleepover weekend, kid would be at home by now, but it's rhythm and fucking booms, and they live like 4 blocks from the park where they do the big foofoorah, and like fuck I am going to drive through my version of hell just to take one of these little vandals off my hands. So I just chewed them out and made it clear they would be grounded and done with the sleepover if I could drive on his side of town to take him home.

but they still can not tell me why. They are 9 and 10 year old boys. do they know why they do things?

Comments

[dharma_slut]

NO they don't know why!

years back I took daughter to visit a little boy that was her friend. I was sitting inside with boy's mom, and we heard a crash, and hollering.

Little boy had ridden his tricycle off the end of the porch, landing in the trashcans. he was crying, and three women-- one of whom was only three years old-- were standing on the porch looking down at him, saying "Why did you DO that?"

[jesse_the_k]

Oy.

I didn't know mulberries were human-edible. (In my youth they'd fall to the grass, ferment, the bluejays would eat them, then drunkenly buzz the cats. Good times.)

[maevele]

yeah, you can totally eat mulberries. I didn't know it either until I was hanging out at one of the housing coops that had mulberry trees. They aren't particularly delicious berries.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

Honestly, at that age it seems like most of the time they really *don't* know. Like, the decision happens and then they do it and later on they're like "yeah, that was dumb, don't know why we didn't realize. . ." IDK, I see it pretty much all day at the library. :)

[eriktrips.livejournal.com]

You'll drive them nuts asking why. There is no why. At least, when i was a kid, doing things just because I had the idea and it seemed fun/sneaky/bad/exciting/interesting/scary was all the why that was needed to act.

I've not studied child development but my own arrested development suggests to me that impulse control is pretty much lacking before, oh, 16 or 17 years of age at the earliest. This is an entirely unscientific claim, so ymmv.