Anyone who has young children, boys or both knows that feeling that starts in the back of your neck and turns into full blown panic when you are at a public place or someone else's house and they start to act wild. The wrestling, the screaming, the intense demands on you to deal with a Pokemon issue, all cause you to feel like you should somehow whip out the duct tape and cover their mouths and hands.
I feel responsible for trying to make sure my boys don't bother anyone else or break anything, but that is like trying to contain sand in a mesh bag. It is a futile effort that leaves me angry and exhausted. Yet, I cannot let them run wild. Guaranteed - they will break something or someone. I try two different approaches - proactive and reactive. Proactively, I explain to them why they need to behave and what the consequences are. They of course, ignore me. I plead with them to act, and I use the word act for a reason, like normal human beings. I tell them that if they fight they will get thrown off the plane and I will not get off with them. It doesn't necessarily work.
Reactively, I try and explain that if they keep throwing a rubber ball around, it will break something or hurt someone. I take the ball away and before I can slip it into my purse, they have found a way to make a plastic bag into a weapon. There is a reason why MacGyver was male.
I talk in hushed tones telling them not to stand on furniture. I am not above giving them a small pinch to not throw straw wrappers in a restaurant or talk to loudly in my mother's condo.
Just so you know I don't expect them to be in straight jackets, I give them outside time. I have them play where they can release their energy in an appropriate place. I bring lots of electronic gadgets on the plane along with plenty of snacks.
I understand that the nature of a child is not to be confined and restricted. But if I don't teach them proper social norms, how will they ever function in the real world. And worse, they will need to move back home after college.
So I continue my struggle with letting boys be boys and not being sued for assault with a deadly weapon when one of those bouncy balls "accidentally" knocks out a senior citizen's teeth.