What the Heck is My Kid Doing? Children’s Inscrutable Behaviors and Recreational Pastimes.

Can a Child’s Interest in Athletics, Music, or Other Recreational Pastimes Help Explain Her or His Inscrutable Behaviors?

I’ve heard stories about parents observing their kids engaging in some unexpected and, perhaps, bizarre or unusual behavior that is followed by a parental Q&A about why the kids did the observed behavior. To this day, my mother shares with others a story from my childhood that left her, at the time, with a feeling of shock and dread. It was a momentary escapade I had around age 10 when my mother found me holding a makeshift glider (made from a large piece of linoleum nailed to a couple of wooden boards) while standing on top of our backyard shed, preparing to jump off. Yes! I attempted to do this. And while my mother stopped me from taking the plunge by yelling from the top of her lungs, she still questions me today on how I ever came up with such a crazy idea.

This childhood event never evolved into an interest in jumping off of a mountain cliff with an actual hang glider. It did make me realize, as I got older, that I enjoy a sense of adventure in the outdoors. It also led me to the following question when I became a father: Are the unexpected behaviors of children…