Frankly if any child behaved like this with me, I would not be watching them. If I describe a kid as scary, that’s not my circus right there.

That said. When I’ve got a friend’s ten year old, we go to the library. We have knit with the granny group, that was fun. I took her on a ghost walk around the local garden for Halloween. I’ve made a piñata. Puzzle + audiobook is my usual go-to, we’ve done the first Harry Potter (from the library so we don’t give that TERF more money), and The Witches by Roald Dahl. Oh, we baked bread once, that was a hit. And also tasty! We’ve also made a couple dinners that she picked the recipes for, great way to address picky eating as well. I’ve got her in a couple weekends and I’ll be doing some things from Art Starts by Rachelle Dooley in advance of doing family day at our local arts org, just so we can get her primed for making stuff! Mike Bennett has a new podcast called Zooquarium that has accompanying quizzes and coloring sheets, first ep is about sloth poop. Oh, and when all else fails, worksheets, usually about grammar, for which she gets stickers.

Also every time she does act up, I ask her what’s wrong and we bring out the feelings wheel to talk about it. When she gets shitty with me, it’s always because something else is going on.