Rainy Days and Fridays

I just finished another week of summer art camp at the local art center. I teach cartooning to kids for an hour and a half each day. It's always different for each session. Sometimes the kids are all about the same age; sometimes I'll have everything from an 8 year old to a 15 year old. Naturally, it flows best if the kids are all similar in age.

I've always said that kids are kids and that there's just about nothing that a kid could do that would really, really tick me off. They can be rambunctious, hyper, talkative, quiet, whatever. I try be easy-going with them and adjust the agenda to meet the needs and interests of the group that I have for that particular session. After all, they are just kids and are still learning how to be human beings.

This week, however, I met a little girl that I have to say I truly disliked.

I've never met a kid before that was so rude and mean. Kids can get excited about something and get overly talkative, but they do listen when I call out for their attention or to quiet down for a few minutes. When I asked for attention this time, this little princess listened to about five words and then turned away and did her own thing. When I was talking directly to her, even if I was right next to her (and at one point I placed my hand on her shoulder) she would still ignore me and go on talking or not do what she was supposed to be doing. She wouldn't follow instructions or directions. She also made really nasty comments to another one of the other kids. This girl was about 8 years old.

On top of this there was a drama queen who whined about how she never got good grades in art class at school, how she couldn't draw, etc. Said that she couldn't even draw a circle. I told her if she wanted a perfect circle, then to use a compass. But no cartoonist drew characters with perfectly round heads. She got huffy when I didn't play the sympathetic adult, but came 'round in the end. (She played the "I'm adopted" routine with one of the other instructors there.)

I'd be curious to see what kind of family life some of these kids have - do they act this way at home? Or are they perfect at home and their parents don't have a clue? I suppose it's some of both.

The art center has asked me to teach a preschool age class. I haven't worked with kids that young since the Kiddies were in the nursery class at church. So, I'm going to take some education classes at the local community college and see if I can get some ideas and confidence.

The thought of going back to school at my age was exciting at first. But when I went over to register, all I saw where youngsters. Now it seems a bit daunting. I got to thinking that I'd be almost twice the age of most of the other students, but someone told me that HACC has plenty of "older" students. LOL. We'll see.

In about an hour we'll be making the trek up north to retreive Kiddie B from Girl Scout camp. We finally got the thunderstorms last night (still doing some raining right now), so I wonder if they got rain up there, too. It's a two and a half hour drive up, so they could easily have different weather. Tonight is start of the new Stargate SG-1 season, so we need to get back in time for that (yes, the recorder is set, too). And still later on Kiddie A insists that we get to Borders to pick up the new Harry Potter book at midnight.

Then tomorrow will be packing for both Kiddies to go to Band Camp at Penn State for the week, starting Sunday.

And yesterday's post -- I TOLD you it was a WHINE!