name
Jedi Master
I don't know where this fits, so I put it here.
yesterday at my GFs place I was morosely surfing cable-tv and somehow happened upon a report of two german au-pairs in the US on pro-sieben (a cable channel). i normally switch away from this kind of stuff, but the kid in this report caught my attention. let me explain.
when I switched in, this nice german girl perhaps 20 y/o was explaining to the camera crew about the vicissitudes of being an au-pair. she had been sent shopping with the family car and the son of the host family, aged about 8-10. all the while the girl was talking with the TV people and shopping for this and that, this kid was doing *weird* things in a *weird* way, definitely not normal and far removed from the kind of pestering which i know from normal kids.
the poor german girl was shouthing "bradley stop that !" every two sentences. i think the camera guy also found him strange because he was all the time following the kid. let me tell you some of the stuff this kid did:
- running up and down the supermarket aisles with no discernible reason but in a way completely different from the kind of playful running and hiding i've often seen when kids want to play.
- after the au-pair put him in the seat of the supermarket cart, the boy got out like 10 times only to seat himself again in fast succession until the girl said something.
- the boy then went to a heap of pots with cover, and started a sequence of lifting the cover of a pot, sticking his other hand in, taking his hand out, putting the cover back, a couple of times and then doing the same stuff for another pot until the au-pair would say something.
- taking everything the girl put in the cart, throw it on the floor and put it back into the cart, everything in very fast succession.
- throw himself on the floor, do two or three strange contorsions, stand up, throw himself on the floow and do another set of weird contorsions, repeat ...
- run around the shopping cart grabbing it from all sides
in another scene, from the sandbox behind the house of the host family:
- make sand patties and throw them at the au-pair and his little sister until told to stop it
- kick the au-pair for no reason, run away, and approach her from behind to kick or hit her again, repeatedly.
in yet another scene, the german au-pair was baking pizza for the family, obviously trying to make friends. the poor girl, who obviously had not much idea of cooking, did everything with no help from the family mother, who kept looking at her with an expression i've only seen in police beating up people. it appeared to me that the dough (a ready/made pizza bottom) and other ingredients in the US behave somewhat different from what i've seen here. at the first try the whole pizza apparently melted thru the grill instead of becoming brown, falling on the bare heat element below. at this point the glare of the house wife became observably more intense, and the camera showed the boy sitting at the table, holding a plate in one hand and a fork in the other, entitledly and angrily looking at the au-pair like "where is my pizza ?". the father somehow appeared at the kitchen door and gave the whole scene a stamped-on hateful smile of somebody acquiescing to it all only because of TV presence.
the camera later cut to the second (successful) pizza of the au-pair. the house wife ate her piece with obvious disdain, the boy nibbled on and threw his piece away. at the end of the report the girl left that host family because, in her own words, the boy overburdened her. more than the obviously hateful characters which were the two parents, i was shocked by the behavior of the boy. through all of the perhaps 20 minutes i followed this, not only his weird behavior but his obvious inability to connect with other people, be it parents or the au-pair were the salient features. as an adult i've often come into contact with kids and can only say that my experience is that it's pretty easy to come to amiable terms with them.
but i've NEVER seen any children like this, anywhere. while to me it was obvious that the boy was definitely insane, everybody in the report would just kid about that "cute little rascal", oblivious to how scary and abnormal his behavior was.
does anybody have an idea what this kind of behavior can be ? is this something that happens often in the US ? has anybody seen such a behavior in children outside of the US ?
/shocked
yesterday at my GFs place I was morosely surfing cable-tv and somehow happened upon a report of two german au-pairs in the US on pro-sieben (a cable channel). i normally switch away from this kind of stuff, but the kid in this report caught my attention. let me explain.
when I switched in, this nice german girl perhaps 20 y/o was explaining to the camera crew about the vicissitudes of being an au-pair. she had been sent shopping with the family car and the son of the host family, aged about 8-10. all the while the girl was talking with the TV people and shopping for this and that, this kid was doing *weird* things in a *weird* way, definitely not normal and far removed from the kind of pestering which i know from normal kids.
the poor german girl was shouthing "bradley stop that !" every two sentences. i think the camera guy also found him strange because he was all the time following the kid. let me tell you some of the stuff this kid did:
- running up and down the supermarket aisles with no discernible reason but in a way completely different from the kind of playful running and hiding i've often seen when kids want to play.
- after the au-pair put him in the seat of the supermarket cart, the boy got out like 10 times only to seat himself again in fast succession until the girl said something.
- the boy then went to a heap of pots with cover, and started a sequence of lifting the cover of a pot, sticking his other hand in, taking his hand out, putting the cover back, a couple of times and then doing the same stuff for another pot until the au-pair would say something.
- taking everything the girl put in the cart, throw it on the floor and put it back into the cart, everything in very fast succession.
- throw himself on the floor, do two or three strange contorsions, stand up, throw himself on the floow and do another set of weird contorsions, repeat ...
- run around the shopping cart grabbing it from all sides
in another scene, from the sandbox behind the house of the host family:
- make sand patties and throw them at the au-pair and his little sister until told to stop it
- kick the au-pair for no reason, run away, and approach her from behind to kick or hit her again, repeatedly.
in yet another scene, the german au-pair was baking pizza for the family, obviously trying to make friends. the poor girl, who obviously had not much idea of cooking, did everything with no help from the family mother, who kept looking at her with an expression i've only seen in police beating up people. it appeared to me that the dough (a ready/made pizza bottom) and other ingredients in the US behave somewhat different from what i've seen here. at the first try the whole pizza apparently melted thru the grill instead of becoming brown, falling on the bare heat element below. at this point the glare of the house wife became observably more intense, and the camera showed the boy sitting at the table, holding a plate in one hand and a fork in the other, entitledly and angrily looking at the au-pair like "where is my pizza ?". the father somehow appeared at the kitchen door and gave the whole scene a stamped-on hateful smile of somebody acquiescing to it all only because of TV presence.
the camera later cut to the second (successful) pizza of the au-pair. the house wife ate her piece with obvious disdain, the boy nibbled on and threw his piece away. at the end of the report the girl left that host family because, in her own words, the boy overburdened her. more than the obviously hateful characters which were the two parents, i was shocked by the behavior of the boy. through all of the perhaps 20 minutes i followed this, not only his weird behavior but his obvious inability to connect with other people, be it parents or the au-pair were the salient features. as an adult i've often come into contact with kids and can only say that my experience is that it's pretty easy to come to amiable terms with them.
but i've NEVER seen any children like this, anywhere. while to me it was obvious that the boy was definitely insane, everybody in the report would just kid about that "cute little rascal", oblivious to how scary and abnormal his behavior was.
does anybody have an idea what this kind of behavior can be ? is this something that happens often in the US ? has anybody seen such a behavior in children outside of the US ?
/shocked