Retail Balls Award: Caring For Monsterous Socio-Hellspawn

Katiedid and Mama Bear get Retail Balls Awards for how they dealt with very scary hellspawn:

Katiedid here, not with a tale for myself, but for my mom, whom I will refer to as Mama Bear.

Mama Bear works as a home daycare provider, so I have plenty of knowledge on hellspawn. I know it's not technically retail, but I have to admire Mama Bear for being able to stay patient all day with five small kids all screaming for her attention and messing up her house.

We get a lot of great kids, we get some kids who are hard to handle but Mama knows how to deal with them. The kid that we got a couple years back was the scariest child I have ever had to meet in my life and I have to nominate my Mama Bear for a Retail Balls award just for putting up with everything this child did over two years and still somehow being able to care about her.

Alright, let's start at the beginning, I'll call this girl Baby Socio, because I am damned sure she was a sociopath.

We got her and basically all hell broke loose. She threw the most incredibly amazingly frightening tantrums I have ever seen in my life. I'm talking screaming, throwing things, throwing punches.

When Mama Bear had to put this girl on time out she couldn't just send her to a corner, because Baby Socio would try to destroy anything she was in contact with, including the wall, so Mama Bear had to put her in a high chair, in the middle of a room.

It got so bad with her in the beginning that Mama Bear stopped going out with the kids to the mall, the market, play dates, everywhere, because this child's temper was so unpredictable, and Mama Bear didn't want her hurting someone.

Strangely enough, for awhile, she got better. Mama Bear worked with her, figured out how to prevent her temper from exploding and tried to teach her that hitting was not okay, that we use our words when we are angry.

For awhile, things were alright, but then... we don't quite know what happened, but she began to spiral downwards again. She became weirdly possessive of Mama Bear and got angry if another child had her attention.

She started having her frequent blow-ups, even going so far as to casually strike out at the younger kids, a couple of 1 and a half year old boys, if they got to close to her when she was getting mad.

Things came to a boiling point one day when we went to the local market for veggies and other local yummies. She had a meltdown while Mama Bear was trying to get her to sit on the toilet and go pee. Mama Bear had to hold her while she had her tantrum, pinning her so she couldn't run away.

Baby Socio screamed 'I'm gonna pee on you!' a couple times while the rest of us waited for her to calm down.

Once at the market everything seemed alright, she was acting good again, but then we went into the mall to have a look around. Baby Socio had to be warned a couple times not to touch things, until Mama Bear finally said that we were leaving and she wasn't getting anymore Timbits for snack, because she was being naughty. Que second meltdown of the day.

This one wound up with Mama Bear having to pick her up and physically carry her out of the mall, screaming and kicking, while I walk the stroller with the little guys in it. I don't know what Mama Bear would have done if I hadn't been there to deal with the stroller, to be quite honest, the possibilities scare me. So we're walking out of the mall while she's screaming 'OW YOU'RE HURTING ME!'

Yup, this kid's clever enough to understand she'll get a response from that, but my Mama Bear didn't care, she needed to get this child home.

We got out to the car, got everybody buckled in, and were just out of the parking lot when Baby Socio unclips herself from the carseat.

Mama Bear has to drive back in and spend five minutes making sure she will not touch her seatbelt again.

I was honestly thinking that if we couldn't get her to listen, I was going to have to go back there and make sure those belts stayed on, and if I did that, I was going to get hurt by this child, I just knew it. Fortunately, the only thing she did was scream some more.

I remember being the most shocked I'd ever been in my life when Mama Bear turned to me, and whispered over the screams, 'I'm done.'

She was going to stop taking care of this child, something I'd never seen her do. But Baby Socio was hurting her, she was hurting the other kids, and Mama Bear didn't need that stress.

So by the end of the week, Baby Socio was gone and Mama Bear was significantly less stressed. I still don't know how she managed to stay sane with Baby Socio for two years.

--Katiedid

 

Comments

[Spritzy]

I wonder if Socio was being molested at home. Lashing out, particularly with the potty situation, sounds very suspicious of that.

[Ada]

Yeah, I'm really worried about what was going on in that kid's home life. The fact that she started improving and then degenerated again... Very worrying. She doesn't show all the symptoms of sociopathy as I understand them (mainly that she seemed to develop a relationship with your Mum, although maybe not?).

I feel really sorry for the kid, and for your Mum. There's not much she can do during the day if the cause is still right there hiding at home. Hope her parents got her help.

[lamer]

I have to admit, this sounds like one of the little girls at my son's daycare. She bites, she hits. Unfortunately she's also my friend's niece. In her case, it was bad parenting. We were at my friend's daughter's birthday party. I was setting up with my friend and my husband was wrangling the baby. This horrible little monster tried to poke my son's eye out with broken kiddie sunglasses, succeeded in hitting him with a ping pong paddle, and tried to hit my son with her (very hard, hard soled Mary Jane). I yelled her name- that's it. Mom got PISSED. She constantly tried to hit my son at daycare, mom did nothing. The mom lost her job for fucking around and not working. My day care provider had enough. In the contracts every parent signs, if a child is not in her care, you have to still pay to hold their spot. She doesn't hold any parents to this, but this was her out. When my husband quit his job, she held his spot for no charge (funny enough, husband got a job that week). I'm thrilled the little monster is gone. Her mom, too. What a bitch.

[Katiedid]

@Spritzy & Ada. There is more to the story, but I am not technically supposed to talk about it and we don't have total proof, but I do agree that it was partly her home life that was the problem

[The Last Archimedean]

Where's Olivia Benson when you need her? She'd find out what was happening with Socio. SOMETHING isn't right in that child's home life.

[Nocturnesthesia]

Ugh, I used to babysit a kid that was like that. Terrible (though not abusive) parenting I think was 90% of the problem; he could have been slightly retarded or had a learning disability but since no one ever made him do schoolwork during his formative years it's impossible to tell. Really unfortunate was that he could be such a sweet kid sometimes but the ease he had in manipulating his parents to get him out of any sort of consequences makes me bet he's probably an asshole adult.

[AnonymousRHUr]

Sounds a bit like a younger version of my psycho poops his pants still age the age of 10 years old step-nephew. (Also still wets his bed.) Kid's a total psycho who's always pulling knives on people and threatening to kill everyone because "they're stupid." But his drug addict mom thinks he's a perfect angel and won't hear a word against him - even when he's threatening to kill her.

I hope the girl got help and won't grow up to be like step-nephew Pants Pooper.

[Skittles]

It sounds like a kid who has no real parenting at home at all. The obvious attachemnt to your mom was because your mom put boundaries there for the child and she realized that this meant you mom cared about her. There is likely some abuse going on as well. You may be able to file an annonymous report with your local Ombudsman's office. To have it investigated.