fandomhigh | Child Development- 1st Period- Class #4

"Morning, everyone," Lily greeted the students after the bell. "I'm sure everyone'll be glad to know that this week there are no crying babies, though I know you all loved and adored them. This week we're going to get a little more into the psychology of things by talking about birth order.

"Alfred Adler was the first person to really put forward the theory that your chronological place among your siblings would have a strong effect on your personality," she went on, passing out this week's handouts. "Which it probably can. I mean, if you're the firstborn and are like, seven years old before you get that little brother or sister you spent years asking Santa for, you're going to have some really different experiences than that sibling who's got an older brother or sister to deal with, especially if you suddenly figure out you really would have rathered Santa gave you a bike instead.

"It's also not an exact science. Like I've been saying about development, everyone's going to be unique. And sometimes there are extenuating circumstances. Now we have blended families. People have stepbrothers and stepsisters, half-siblings... Sometimes they might live with their dad while their siblings live with their mom. And then you have a long time between siblings sometimes. Some people will say that if you have one kid, and then your second ten years or more later, you might as well just lump them in with only children. It's all a fun socio-familial...thing." She paused. "Which is a word I think I just made up, don't write that down."

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It's short, but there are questions to follow!

Jen, as an only child and also the kind of dork who paid attention to every detail of these lectures, was taking exhaustive notes.

She had the weirdest vague thought nagging at her brain, though. Something about headgear, but damn if she could articulate it.

Emmett was the youngest both back when he was alive and now with the Cullens.

Whatever, the youngest was totally the best.

Jack was seriously doubtful about this theory, but then, he was pretty much the definition of extenuating circumstances. Also, it just figured that Jill would sign up for something as girly as Child Development.

He wondered if the teacher would notice the new kid in her class...

Edited 2009-01-27 06:47 (UTC)

Lily may or may not have noticed, but Angela, a keen observer of people was certainly looking at him curiously.

That might've been partially because, hi, kind of hot. She may have a date tonight, but she still can't help herself.

Jack grinned at her when he noticed her looking.

Angela shot him a return smile. Not really the sort of girl to care that she'd been caught looking, really.

She glanced quickly at Lily to check she was still busy lecturing, or was otherwise distracted at least, before she leaned over a little. "You're not normally in this class, are you?"

"My sister is. I'm the stand-in," Jack explained. "Sorta."

"Ahh." That made sense to her. "Thought I hadn't seen you before. Consider yourself lucky you missed the screaming kids last week."

"Yeah," Jack said. "I don't do screaming kids." He held out his hand as surreptitiously as possible, hoping the teacher wouldn't notice. "Jack."

Edited 2009-01-27 18:14 (UTC)

Angela grinned, taking the hand she was offered. "Angela," she shared in return. "Hi."

"I know," Jack said. "Hi."

Re: During the lecture

flashesforinfo.livejournal.com - 2009-01-28 00:14 (UTC) - Expand

iamnotallgirl - 2009-01-28 00:24 (UTC) - Expand

flashesforinfo.livejournal.com - 2009-01-28 00:41 (UTC) - Expand

Jen noticed. She might have already been prepared to write it off as Another Case of Fandom Weirdness as needed (Fandom was not doing much to improve the weak spots in her police methods) but she was definitely, from the other side of the room, sending a few curious glances in Jack's direction.

She thought she was pretty sneaky about it.

Jack shot a wary glance in Jen's direction when he noticed her glancing over at him.

Jen did a fairly credible impression of contemplating her next food option, or so she hoped. La la la, not looking curious at all. Really.

"Can I help you?" Jack hissed.

Lily noticed yes. "Hi," she said. "I'm sorry, are you supposed to be in this class?"

"Yeah, hi, I'm Jack," Jack said, relishing every word. "I'm Jill's, ah, brother. She's in for treatment right now and asked me if I'd sit in for her. I hope that's okay."

"Well, that's not usually how things are done, but I guess it can't hurt to have you audit the class," she said. "Welcome to Child Development, Jack."

Angela was very definitely an only child. She wouldn't say she was necessarily a typical, 'spoiled, selfish and bratty' only child, though. Although, maybe the spoiled part, just a little bit. She couldn't really help that.

She made quick notes of some of the basic points, then moved on to scrawling doodles as she listened to the rest of the lecture.

Prince Edward listened. But he was an only prince.

But... OH! Yes! Angela was his fake big sister! Joy!

Being a younger brother sucked. John flipped through the handout, wondering if it stated that somewhere.

Claire listened, skeptical about the whole birth order thing. Nate so was not what a firstborn should be like going by the handouts.

[OOC: ALSO? No one icons just the Fisher siblings. I found more icons of Claire with her stepfather than of her with her brothers. WTF?]

Today Claudia was wearing her favorite pair of plaid pants (puce, alfalfa and pea green, naturally) with a cropped lavender sweater, tangerine suspenders, and off-white high heeled boots. She's put on a pair of tortoise shell glasses to make her look smarter, and had accessorized with her snake bracelet and a pair of earrings that had a hamburger in one ear and a carton of french fries in the other. On anyone else, it would've looked insane. On Claudia, it looked great.

She sketched a little picture of herself and Janine on the handout. She added devil's horns to Janine just because.

As an only child and, really, the only one of his actual family left (if you discounted the Sados who had never known him because they disowned his father), Chad didn't know anything about any of this stuff. But his took a lot of notes, thoughtful ones, on his handouts, and may have been trying to sketch something out to the tune of if any of this stuff applied to Fandom siblings, of which he was the 'first born' of many.