K is for Kids Say the Darndest Things

Many years ago, more than I like to remember, Art Linkletter had a daily show that featured a segment called Kids Say the Darndest Things. Having worked with kids, also for more years than I like to remember, I can attest that that is true.

Here are some of my experiences with kids:

I was testing a little girl, around 4 years old. The expressive language portion of the test had a series of questions: What runs? What flies? What cuts? etc. After about five of these, the child put her hands on her hips and glared at me. "Don't you know anything?" she asked.

Just yesterday I was in the midst of a session with one of my favorite four-year-olds when he announced, "Some people call my mother Jody, but that's not her real name." "What is her name?" I asked, expecting something like Joanne. Instead he said, "Her real name is Mommy"

When my first romance novel came out, a boy I was seeing for stuttering therapy and working to slow his rate of speech said, "Miss Thelma, I heard you wrote a love story, and I know how it goes. He says, 'I love you,' and she says, 'Say it slowly.'"

Then there was the kid I ran into a couple of years after I finished working with him. "Hi, Miss Thelma," he said. "I haven't seen you in a long time. How old are you now, about a hundred?"

I once tested a first grader who was suspected of having a learning disability. I asked him what was the hardest thing for him in school and he said, "Math." "Why is math hard?" I asked. "Well," he said sadly, "I ran out of fingers."

And finally there was a child who only said a few words when I began working with him but who was progressing nicely. One day the school director stopped me and said, "Well, J. has certainly come a long way." I was sort of preening when she added, "I was in his class the other day and I asked him if I could see the picture he was drawing. He looked over his shoulder and said, 'F... off.' I'm absolutely sure I never taught him that.