Monday, May 18, 2009

Retribution

Retribution for sins incurred (ie., “consequences” when “caught”) was what Ricki received the other day.
She loves to eat soya patties. (I ALMOST regret teaching her how to use the microwave....) I have nothing against soya. But double, triple portions are something different.
[From an earlier post: “ I once considered myself a good disciplinarian until I realized that I “spoke” clearly, but often was not alert enough (or was too busy) to properly enforce. If I tell Ricki that she can eat only one soya patty, but she sees that she can often snitch a second (or thirds or fourth) without severe consequences, she has been taught by me to try and get away with snitching.”]
Ricki has a tendency (although perhaps that is too mind a word, maybe “penchant” would be better...) to take more than one soya, hoping that I won’t notice. Well, the other evening she asked for a soya patty, and I expressly told her “one and only one”. A moment later her brother (oh, the “nastiness” of teenage brothers who squeal on you...) caught her with TWO patties, each with one bite eaten from it.
Usually I would confiscate one, and let her have the one I allowed. But in this case I had told her VERY CLEARLY that she was to have only one. I decided that the penalty for not listening must, to be effective, restrict her MORE than my original “one-patty” allowance. So we confiscated BOTH.
No Soya.
Nothing. Nada. Sum devar.

Maybe if I do this from now on, she will think twice before taking doubles.....

4 comments:

Marsha :o) said...

Ricki is definately at that age where she is pushing the limits and seeing what she can get away with - just like any other teenager her age! I think that taking both of them away is the perfect consquence for her (its not like it was her dinner and you sent her to bed hungry!)

RivkA with a capital A said...

I see myself having been similarly lenient and now "paying" for it.

I wonder if it is "too late" to effectively change things...

My kids can negotiate/argue me into the ground!!

rickismom said...

No, never too late!But it needs a good Positive behavior support analysis!

RivkA with a capital A said...

what is that????