-Post-Holiday Funk? People of the world, Relax.. A New Year is Coming-

I'm so disappointed that part two of my sleep deprivation story has been slow to reveal itself. It probably has something to do with the extraordinary amount of reading I've been doing lately, catching up on the all the books I received over the holidays but couldn't peruse for fear of missing a visit from some cousins twice removed and their ADHD offspring.

ADHD is the least of their worries, I'd say. Perhaps it is just the holidays that bring all of my young relatives before me in a shaky parade of psychological maladies, but I'm beginning to worry about the mental state of today's youth. I may not be the first to point out that kids today are frickin' nuts, but I also didn't have time to familiarize myself with the last twenty years of articles compiled in the PsychInfo database. So maybe I am the first.

Anyway, I'll skip the expected avenue of discussion. Why seek first causes for pint-sized tyranny, which may include the dairy industry's use of growth hormones, inadequately spaced cell phone towers, and spineless little league coach-punching parents? Normally, I'd love discussing first causes, but after today's visit by two of my cousins, someone has to come up with the measures to manage their decline NOW.

Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional-defiant disorder.. Every horror story told is quickly bested by another. Holidays have become a nonhypothetical version of the "what's worse" game.

"What's worse... a seven-year-old who brandishes steak knives whenever his aunts and uncles come over, or a sixteen-year-old blackbelt who has begun demanding protection money?"

My sister and brother-in-law are presently childless, but certainly have parenting on their minds. Armed with educational toys and scholarly patience, they gamely tried to capture the interests of a pair of miniature dervish cousins on Christmas Eve. Though they are too diplomatic to say so, I imagine it must have been a relief to return to the business of educating adults, driven or not.

So it is with me. Truly, we should all fear for our lives if the children grow larger without growing wiser. Remarkably, it's taken years to admit a fear that should have been clear that night at the shelter, when the young teenager who had just lost his lead in the boardgame "Sorry" came a hairsbreadth away from driving a colored pencil into my eye.

I can't imagine how I shrugged it off back then. Nor can I remember what color the pencil was.