Me And My Best Friend: A Book for your Primary School-aged Child and their Entity

## Description

*Raising a child par pactum to an entity.*

It is normal, and in fact likely, for your child to have plenty of mixed emotions after the contract. Living with an entity is a large adjustment for many mothers and fathers. You may witness child express none, or all of these:

* Anger ("*Why did this happen to me?*" or "*Why did you do this to me?*")
* Denial ("*It's just a friend of Mother's that decided to follow me home.*")
* Blame ("*You and*[Mother, Father]*did this to me!*" or "*It's society's fault! You think I'm broken without powers!*")
* Elation and overuse of powers (often to the point of exhaustion, falling asleep during meals)
* Avoidance (They may spend all day in their room, sobbing hysterically, or refuse to interact with the entity.)
* Overattachment (Speaking a pidgin language with entity, closing themselves off to concerned family members.)

You may find, as seen above, that the child does not spend any time with the entity at all. It may lurk under a refrigerator or other household appliance (or, if larger, in the backyard or woodshed), looking generally menacing but nonetheless out-of-the-way. This is not cause for alarm! Your child's *par pactum* is simply getting used to its new onset of emotions— and especially with an adolescents's emotional range, this is often a more difficult adjustment than a pactum made in child or adulthood. You may find that the entity expresses volatile, even contrary emotions where the child does not, such as slamming doors, crying spontaneously, and exclaiming that it "hates [you]," or "does not like [*e.g.* sand]." Conversely, if the child is self-actualized and has a healthy vent for their emotional expression, the entity may remain quiet and ominous in family dinner settings, opting to say little-to-nothing and remain ominously civil.

Some entities adjust frighteningly well to human settings; some older entities, in particular, will attempt to mimic the society of humans in an effort to acclimatise to their new family! It may employ its "please" and "thank yous" to a very large degree, in nearly every sentence, or it may request to join you for mealtimes, and attempt to devour an entire can of creamed corn all by itself. It may attempt to wear your husband's or child's clothing, and, if T3 or above, will occasionally begin experimenting with a human form if it has not already. Make sure to encourage this behaviour: it is doing its best! And remember: it will make future dinner parties a thousand times less awkward around the in-laws if your child's entity is capable of blending in!

In younger children especially, there is a risk of the entity and child bonding to an almost obsessive degree, particularly with nonsentient entities (<T2). The child will misplace its identity with that of the entity, and begin to mimic its behaviour (*e.g.* crawling on all fours if the entity is quadriped, threatening to smite their mother, referring to other family members as "mortals."). Pay close attention to the child's drawings; are there aspects of its identity that are warped? What is its size in comparison to their mother and father? Is the entity included? How is it portrayed? This will shed some light on how the child is regarding the adjustment period. In cases of over-attachment, it is best to set down times during which they must be separated. This may be during meal times, nap time if the child is younger, or while at school (see pg. 20, "*Your Child and Pacted Entity in the Schoolroom*").