Little actors - or the this is not my child effect.

Every parent can relate - the kids act entirely different for people outside the home then they for you.

This usually goes something like this - the kid refuses to eat cheese, then he goes to grandma's house and he can't get enough cheese. According to grandma it is his favorite food on the planet.

You take the kid to the park, and he is afraid of the slide. You head to a birthday party and you explain to everyone that the kid won't go on a slide, and then there he is going down the slide - head first, no less.

The kid heads off to preschool and you warn the teachers he won't nap without his bed. You pick him up and he is still sound asleep on the floor on a thin cardboard like mat.

The babysitter comes over and you tell her to watch the kid closely as he is hitting his brothers. When you come home two hours later she lets you know that he was a complete angel the entire time. 


You get my point. Sometimes when this happens enough, you think that the people around you are liars. Grandma is senile, the preschool teacher is just being polite, the babysitter really needs the $5 an hour you are paying her. No one wants to admit that the kid is really a pain-in-the ass. Except sometimes you witness this with your own eyes.

You have the - this is not my child, what have you done with my child, where did you get this alien you replaced him with - moment. This is a perfectly natural reaction. It is like when your kid is sick, but the moment the doctor comes in the fever is gone, the cough has dried up, and the kid who hasn't stopped crying in days is suddenly calm. Then the doctor checks him over and announces that the kid is a perfectly healthy child, and then gives you the "you have lost your mind" look.

Perhaps that is the truth, perhaps we have lost our minds. I tend to think it is an evil plan the children hatch to make us doubt our sanity and to make us seem like whiners. I mean think about it - if we are constantly telling people about how "difficult" our child is, but the rest of the world sees this super easy angelic child, we seem to be helpless incompetent whiners. I mean this mom can't even handle this lovely little boy - she seems to think he is handful with all of his picky eating, no sleeping, argue and dislike anything mom says child - but he seems fun and sweet to me.

Kids plot this I am sure. Perhaps they know the outside world won't be as kind to them if they knew what they were really like, or perhaps they just want mom to seem crazy so know one will believe her when she tattles on them. Either way, it is a frustrating thing.