Scapegoat.

Yesterday Noah played Hello Kitty Bingo with Grace and Jonah. Jonah won. Noah threw a tantrum and threw pieces everywhere. Grace said that was it and now they couldn't play because they didn't have all the pieces.

"I don't care if you don't have the pieces I just want to win and Dai dai doesn't win!" said Noah.

After much screaming and tantrumming and searching of the lost piece to no avail, Jonah just watched Noah crying and said, "Maybe Hulk took it." trying to blame the situation on our fictional creator of bad and scary things even though he just saw Noah throw the piece.


I have also seen Noah blame missing pieces on the dark too. Like, "Maybe the dark took it."

Sometimes it just makes everyone feel better to have a scapegoat. It works better too when the scapegoat is a fictional being.


Actually Noah was at a birthday party and I witnessed the dynamics change real quick when there were a few older kids and Noah was the weakest and smallest member of the group that was playing in the hall. (Jonah just did his own thing.) Noah became the person who was "it" the scapegoat and many other things very quickly. It ended with him crying. But I told him that if he was going to decide to play out in the hall when I told him not to leave the room, then it was his fault. Just play with Dai Dai where I am. And after that he did. Quickly there was a power struggle among two of the older boys ending in one of them getting hit and crying and then the group was semi-dispersed for a while and they started acting like human beings again. Well I guess they were acting like human beings the whole time but the uglier side had come out for a bit.