Hyperactive behaviour: A term very loosely used in the current days. Hyperactivity can be described as a physical state in which a person is abnormally and easily excitable or exuberant. I myself use it very often to describe my childhood and my daughter’s. About 9% of kids are hyperactive.
But today I realized the true meaning of a hyperactive child.
Today being a Sunday, as a ritual, we have ice-cream for dessert after dinner. And while sailing (sailors would be aware) we have dinner at about 6:00 PM. But my daughter as every child does at her age, dragged her dinner for an hour or so. And therefore to get her to finish her dinner I promised her the next available enticement to finish her dinner: the chocolate Ice-cream with chocolate syrup topping once she finishes. Whether she completely finished her dinner, is not the question here, but she got her ice-cream eventually by 8:00 PM Oh!! Did I mention this before; it was chocolate ice-cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup as a topping! (Psst: won’t ever forget that). Now experienced mothers would definitely be nodding their head understanding my plight further.
But this after effect was the first for me as my 4 yrs old daughter has just recently taken to ice-cream. While, Khushnum (if you’ve read my earlier blog you’ll know the characters/individuals in concern) and I were chitchatting , which we can do for hours, I realized my daughter was running around, room to room, laughing loudly at the silliest option available and even if it wasn’t silly enough. I assumed, she’s bored and she’s trying to entertain herself. She was running from the officer’s dining room, to the crew dining room, passing weird n funny comments to anyone who’d listen to her or even if not.
She came to me claiming that one of the crew members onboard was the same one with whom we had sailed earlier in the previous ship (which is not the case). When we all tried to explain that is wasn’t so, she started screaming though still in a happy tone. I’ve not known my daughter to do that ever. So I excused it as a one time incident, and asked her to go to our cabin, to which she willingly agreed (I was pleasantly surprised). Soon in a while we heard her shrieking at the top of her voice. Afraid that she might have her hurt herself we all rushed to her and found her jumping up and down the stairs. She was as happy as a kid in a carnival. When asked why she was shrieking, she answered just like that while I was jumping around I thought I’ll scream too.
Phew!!! I wondered what’s got into her. What’s wrong? And Khusnum a mother more experienced then me with her 9 yr old daughter understood my knotted eyebrows and explained that this is the doing of chocolate ice-cream. And this behaviour is hyperactive behaviour. Oh!! Yes, the mystery was solved for me. I could clearly associate.
Let me also mention, my daughter was so hyper, she actually came back to the cabin and in the bargain of not wanting to go to bed she sat and completed a page of her homework. Oh! Yes, she did do that. Some loss, some gain ;)
Hyperactivity can cause kids to act in different ways, depending on who has it. Most hyper kids have problems concentrating and paying attention. Some kids might also have trouble sitting still in class and waiting for their turn. They might yell out the answers before other kids have a chance to raise their hands.
Sometimes they can be disorganized, distracted, or forgetful. They might lose things and have trouble finishing assignments. They may wiggle around in their seats, move around a lot, talk too much, or interrupt other people's conversations.
It's important to remember that everybody does these things once in a while. It doesn't mean that the child is hyper as we all tend to assume it to be.
After seeing a hyper Ira today, I’ve realized that I’m a very proud mother of a normal child, and further on I’m not going to complain about her (this is just a momentary promise, no one is allowed to hold a mother to it). Also I thoroughly sympathize with mothers who actually have to live with hyperactive behaviours day in and day out.
So here’s to Ira, my sweetheart, for teaching me another lesson in life. After all as my mom never forgets to remind me, ‘Child is the father of man’.
But today I realized the true meaning of a hyperactive child.
Today being a Sunday, as a ritual, we have ice-cream for dessert after dinner. And while sailing (sailors would be aware) we have dinner at about 6:00 PM. But my daughter as every child does at her age, dragged her dinner for an hour or so. And therefore to get her to finish her dinner I promised her the next available enticement to finish her dinner: the chocolate Ice-cream with chocolate syrup topping once she finishes. Whether she completely finished her dinner, is not the question here, but she got her ice-cream eventually by 8:00 PM Oh!! Did I mention this before; it was chocolate ice-cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup as a topping! (Psst: won’t ever forget that). Now experienced mothers would definitely be nodding their head understanding my plight further.
But this after effect was the first for me as my 4 yrs old daughter has just recently taken to ice-cream. While, Khushnum (if you’ve read my earlier blog you’ll know the characters/individuals in concern) and I were chitchatting , which we can do for hours, I realized my daughter was running around, room to room, laughing loudly at the silliest option available and even if it wasn’t silly enough. I assumed, she’s bored and she’s trying to entertain herself. She was running from the officer’s dining room, to the crew dining room, passing weird n funny comments to anyone who’d listen to her or even if not.
She came to me claiming that one of the crew members onboard was the same one with whom we had sailed earlier in the previous ship (which is not the case). When we all tried to explain that is wasn’t so, she started screaming though still in a happy tone. I’ve not known my daughter to do that ever. So I excused it as a one time incident, and asked her to go to our cabin, to which she willingly agreed (I was pleasantly surprised). Soon in a while we heard her shrieking at the top of her voice. Afraid that she might have her hurt herself we all rushed to her and found her jumping up and down the stairs. She was as happy as a kid in a carnival. When asked why she was shrieking, she answered just like that while I was jumping around I thought I’ll scream too.
Phew!!! I wondered what’s got into her. What’s wrong? And Khusnum a mother more experienced then me with her 9 yr old daughter understood my knotted eyebrows and explained that this is the doing of chocolate ice-cream. And this behaviour is hyperactive behaviour. Oh!! Yes, the mystery was solved for me. I could clearly associate.
Let me also mention, my daughter was so hyper, she actually came back to the cabin and in the bargain of not wanting to go to bed she sat and completed a page of her homework. Oh! Yes, she did do that. Some loss, some gain ;)
Hyperactivity can cause kids to act in different ways, depending on who has it. Most hyper kids have problems concentrating and paying attention. Some kids might also have trouble sitting still in class and waiting for their turn. They might yell out the answers before other kids have a chance to raise their hands.
Sometimes they can be disorganized, distracted, or forgetful. They might lose things and have trouble finishing assignments. They may wiggle around in their seats, move around a lot, talk too much, or interrupt other people's conversations.
It's important to remember that everybody does these things once in a while. It doesn't mean that the child is hyper as we all tend to assume it to be.
After seeing a hyper Ira today, I’ve realized that I’m a very proud mother of a normal child, and further on I’m not going to complain about her (this is just a momentary promise, no one is allowed to hold a mother to it). Also I thoroughly sympathize with mothers who actually have to live with hyperactive behaviours day in and day out.
So here’s to Ira, my sweetheart, for teaching me another lesson in life. After all as my mom never forgets to remind me, ‘Child is the father of man’.
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