Marissa, the Oncoming Storm

I always wanted to raise an assertive child who wouldn’t let people walk all over them.

So we can check that one off the list! And then add to the list ‘teach tact when dealing with others’. I can tell we’re on the verge of a ban from our local indoor play centre, and that’d be really hard to explain to Marissa. We’re not officially banned from the kids party venue over in Campbelltown, but after the last party I think a few of the parents were giving me daggers as I left with her, and parents talk to each other.

Marissa isn’t a bad child! She’s just very forceful. If they’re playing a game of intergalactic dragon-riding fighter pilots in the playground, Marissa just has to be the leader of the squadron, and she won’t stop until she gets her way. In some ways it’d be easier if she was getting physical, because we could tell her to just plain stop. But she’s just…assertive.

The aforementioned birthday party venue incident was the point at which I decided that something might need to be done. First off, Marissa made every single child stand in an orderly queue before they could go to the table to get food, and snapped at anyone disobeying her system. Then when it came to pass-the-parcel, she enforced a no-tolerance policy to anyone holding the parcel for longer than their specified time, and woe betide any child who so much as glanced at the person controlling the music during musical chairs.

It all just needs to be in order, whether she’s at play or in school. On the one hand, I’m pretty sure Marissa is going to be the most iron-fisted Prime Minister Australia has ever seen, coming down hard on any child in any given indoor play centre, Sydney and beyond. If they set a toe out of line it’ll be dealt with. That child scares me.

-Jemma