Best Responses to Intelligence Test Questions
Me: These children aren't allowed in the swimming pool without supervision. What is supervision?
Child: It's when you can see REALLY far...
Me: What does transparent mean?
Child: That's a parent who is transgendered.
Strange Things Parents Say During Meetings
Parent: He won't listen when it's time to do homework, he just watches TV.
Me: Turn it off.
Parent: He keeps turning it back on!
Me: Unplug it.
Parent: He plugs it back in!
Me: Move it out of the room.
Parent: It's too heavy!
Parent: We just got back from Australia, on business. We had to get more chinchillas.
Me: Really?
Parent: Yeah...and I don't know why her teacher keeps saying she can't do no math. She sure can sex up some hamsters.
Me: .........
(after this meeting, with teacher friend...)
Me: There's no way that family just went to Australia!
Teacher: Jane! She just said her daughter can sex up some hamsters, who cares about Australia?? What does that even mean??
(we did eventually figure it out. They raised chinchillas in, I'm not kidding, "The Critter Room" inside their house. The daughter helped the chinchillas breed. I'm still not sure what that had to do with math.)
Funny Things Children Say
Child: Tonight I'm going to turn into a werewolf. I'm serious, my parents have friends who are.
Me: Wow, really? What's THAT like?
Child: (totally exasperated tone) I don't KNOW yet, I just told you it was happening tonight! Why weren't you listening?
Child: My aide went to sleep today.
Me: She did? No way...maybe she was just resting for a minute.
Child: Noooooo. I looked at her for a long time and she was NAPPIN! She was even making that noise, you know, that snorty noise.
(Kids on the Autistic Spectrum are very concrete thinkers and take things literally. They also have a tough time with idioms, so I have said the following in several testing sessions)
Me: Wow, you are a smart cookie!
Child 1: I LOVE cookies!
Child 2: You have cookies, where are they?
Child 3: I am not a cookie. I am a boy.
Child 4 (deadly serious) : Do not call me that again.
Child: My aide went to sleep today.
Me: She did? No way...maybe she was just resting for a minute.
Child: Noooooo. I looked at her for a long time and she was NAPPIN! She was even making that noise, you know, that snorty noise.
(Kids on the Autistic Spectrum are very concrete thinkers and take things literally. They also have a tough time with idioms, so I have said the following in several testing sessions)
Me: Wow, you are a smart cookie!
Child 1: I LOVE cookies!
Child 2: You have cookies, where are they?
Child 3: I am not a cookie. I am a boy.
Child 4 (deadly serious) : Do not call me that again.
Best Smart Ass Responses I Never Said Out Loud in Meetings
Parent: You're a psychiologist, right? A psychiologist?
Me: I'm a psychologist. I think you're thinking of psychiatrists, who are medical doctors.
Parent: I know that! You think I don't know that? Don't try to use your psychologist tricks on me, I know all about mental hospitals and all that, I work in one.
My Inner Voice: Were you a patient?
Me: Did she meet all of her developmental milestones at the right time? Like, when did she start speaking in sentences?
Parent: Three months.
Me: Really, are you sure? I'm talking about full sentences.
Parent: Yes, she was early in everything. She started talking to us all the time when she was three months old.
My Inner Voice: Was it a very deep voice and was it in Latin?
There are plenty of examples of the most horrible things parents have said, or some of the harshest things I've had to say, or the saddest things that children have said, but I want to keep this light and keep adding to it.
Last quote for tonight was from one of my old high schoolers.
Student: Mrs. Edel, don't take this the wrong way, but I feel really bad for your kids.
Me: Why?
Student: Because you're a psychologist, so you already know everything they're going to do.
Sigh....if only that were true....
