Interpretation of Parental Behavior

During class I have spent a lot of time thinking about the real life examples of both successful and disfunctional families that I have experienced. I was reminded of a second grade boy from my practicum by our discussion about sarcasm and the way that children can misunderstand the meanings of the things their parents say. During a small group activity, this particular child was refusing to do his work. This wasn't an unusual problem until he started talking about how he would rather be dead. He kept saying things like, "In heaven I wouldn't have to do homework. And my mom would like it if I died." As disturbing as this was, I wondered what could possibly make this child think that his parents wouldn't be devastated if they lost him. He told me that he had overheard his mom say that she hated him and she wished he was never born. I discussed the situation with his teacher, but I truly wished that I could have talked to his family about the problem. As we covered in class, children under age nine aren't fully able to tell when a statement is meant to be taken seriously or when people are simply are speaking out of anger. Parents need to be careful about what they say around their children, because one can never tell how the child will interpret their words.