Paid subscriber issue: What a kid's behavior assessment reads like

Everything's perfectly normal unless you checked any of these boxes

I was filling out a new patient form at the dentist yesterday thinking how the patient history form basically says “Has there ever been anything wrong with you and have you ever taken a medicine?” It reminded me of some of the forms I filled out for my son prior to his ADHD diagnosis. These are disconcerting because for a while they seem to describe every kid before describing your worst nightmare and you worry that maybe it is some sort of thought experiment to make you connect the dots or to trick you into seeing how it’s just a quick tumble from a tantrum to juvenile detention.

It basically goes like this:

Questions about your child

• Has your kid ever had a nightmare?

• Does your kid have strong preferences about food?

• Has your child ever argued with you?

• Has your kid ever acted “weird”?

• Has your child ever been sick or pretended to be sick?

• Has your child ever raised its voice? Have you?

• How many times?

• Does your child dislike sitting still for long periods of time?

• When you put on the TV while your child is doing homework is your child able to maintain absolute 100% focus on the homework or they are a hopeless distracted mess?

• Does your child express resistance to tasks that he/she perceives as boring or hard or scary?

• Does your child cry when they are hurt, tired or scared?

• Has your child ever been disorganized, even one time?

• Has your child ever drawn on something they shouldn’t have?

• Has your child ever lost something?

• How many times?

• Like more than two?

• Does your child prefer playing to homework?

• Has your child ever cut off a pet’s ear?

• Has your child ever set fire to a pet’s ear?

• Has your child ever struggled with tying his shoes?

• Has your child ever spoken in a voice you’d describe as ‘creepy’ even if it wasn’t on purpose?

Questions about your pregnancy (if you gave birth to your child)

• Did you ever drink alcohol while pregnant?

• Smoke?

• Smoke cannabis?

• Drink coffee?

• Think about drinking coffee?

• Swear?

• Did you sleep on your left side?

• How many times?

• What kind of labor and delivery did you have? Circle one: Nice. Not nice.

• While pregnant, did you ever freebase while base jumping?

• Did you happen to listen to any books about war crimes in the shadow of World War II while pregnant?
  

Questions about how you parent

• Have you ever let your child ever eat sugar?

• Have you ever let your child ever stayed up late?

• Have you ever sent your child to daycare or aftercare or morning care?

• Have you ever dropped your phone on your child’s face while it was a newborn because you were trying to take a picture of its acne to send to your friend?

• Have you ever thrown away something your child brought home or made without consulting them first?

• Have you ever let your child touch plastic?

• Are you able to get your child to do physical exercise and eat vegetables every day in a way that is fun for them and you?

• Have you ever let your child go to school in the morning without brushing its teeth?

• Do you tell your child the lie that is Santa Claus?

• Have you ever used a “loud” voice with your child?

• Do you co-sleep with your child? Is it in a nice way, a desperate way or in a weird way?

• When you speak to your child do you crouch down to their height so that they understand you are a nice person who gets them?

• Every time?

• Have you ever hired another bigger child or even an adult to beat your child up to teach your child a lesson?

• List five fun healthy snack ideas quickly.

• Does your child know how to tip in 2023? They’re not still leaving 20% are they?

• Do you keep it tight or did you give up?

• Have you ever offered to sell your child to someone else no questions asked?

• For how much?

• Have you ever tried telling your child not to misbehave?

• What else do you think you might have done that makes your child the way they are? Space is provided below.

  
  
  
  

  

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End credits

I hope you enjoyed this subscriber-only issue of Evil Witches, a newsletter for people who happen to be mothers.

If you have any questions, ideas, feedback or suggestions for other issues or conversation threads you can reply right to this email. You can talk to other witches on Twitter. Witch Carly runs the Instagram account and you should follow it.

I can use some witch help finding a source for an upcoming issue: have you used or do you know a doula who has ridden shotgun for many hospital-induced births? I would love to chat with them if you know one.

Thank you very much for being a subscriber!

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One witchy thing

— My witchy friend this weekend when I started to get up to fetch a football that our swimming children had accidentally thrown onto the pool deck for the fifth time.