Well Ricki has no curls in the middle of her forehead, but as the Mother Goose rhyme goes, “When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad she was horrid”.
Today at noon I had gone to the grocery, and one of the items I had purchased was frozen soy patties. Ricki loves these, and I always have to remind her to take only one. She often tries to sneak two, but she knows I don’t allow, evidenced by her hiding of the second patty. She can heat them very easily in the microwave.
So when she asked me if she could take a patty, I said yes. I reminded her to take only one.
About an hour later I decided I also wanted one. But for some reason they were not in the freezer.
-Ricki, where are the soya patties?
-I dunno…
So I figured she had left them out somewhere, and went searching.
I found an empty package. I could see a few patties spread on the sidewalk outside. I don’t know how many of the 14 patties she ate, and how many she threw, but either way it showed a total disregard for anyone besides herself, a disrespect for authority, and a willingness to waste.
I was furious. I said things I shouldn’t have said. (I plead the fifth, but it was bad…)
The fact that I was tired didn’t help.
In addition, Ricki has a tendency to throw stuff on the floor. Lately I have been very careful to call her to pick stuff up, not taking the easier short-term solution of picking up after her. In addition, every day after school I make her pick up any of her stuff that was overlooked earlier. So today, being frustrated after over the soya patty-incident (which had been about an hour before), and tired, I decided to put the ball in Ricki’s court. I wrote out a detailed list of things she had to straighten up and do. I gave her the list, told her I was taking a nap, and went to bed.
Maybe (probably) she was still affected by my explosion an hour earlier. Maybe she enjoyed having a list to work from, rather than being “told” by me. But when I woke up an hour later, the jobs had all been done. Completely.
4 comments:
Once when I was getting dressed to go to a wedding (an exceedingly rare event) I sensed something was wrong. Turns out my 6 year old (ADHD) son had found a box of Gushers (a sticky candy kids love) and eaten all 6 packages. I found the wrappers everywhere. And the box had been HIDDEN on a HIGH shelf. Yes, I got really upset, but although I scolded him severely I held myself mostly in check. One, I was going out and I wanted to look nice. Two, I once heard a story about a similar child who took the scissors to his mother's custom wig. I should try to remember that story more often, because nothing seems quite so bad compared to that. (I need my wigs for work, so that would be a basic disaster).
Check lists are always a good method. I presume you also have to check up to make sure the work was really done. Lying's a problem. You can do it with two places to check, her check and yours.
Good luck
Batya, the double checklist is a good idea!
My kid recently did this with a pack of sugarless gum. It's amazing that he didn't even have an upset stomach afterwards.
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