Now, I don't pretend to be one of those super-bloggers, of the professional nature who have thousands upon thousands of people caring to read what I write. But I know there are a few other mom readers out there, and so it is for you that I pose this question: What would you do?
Let me tell you about the "water bottle incident" and I would love to hear your feedback. In typical summer fashion, we all ventured out to a park yesterday to meet a friend for lunch and outdoor play (ie: fun for the kids AND mom, since I get to chat and catch up with a good friend). During the course of the outing, I offered Sophia a drink from my water bottle. Somehow, without my realizing it, she took off to swing with my water bottle (yes, exactly like the one pictured above). I discovered this, you guessed it, once we had gotten home. It probably took me a full minute of internal debate to talk myself out of loading all three kids back in the car to go in search of the missing water bottle.
Needless to say, the water bottle incident left me a little perplexed and frustrated. Partially at myself for not realizing that Sophia had carried it off. (If you know me, you may realize that I am kind of anally good at keeping track of my things.) But also at Sophia for leaving it behind. Now, I know I need to cut her slack; she is, after all, only 4. At the same time, though, I do desire to teach her a lesson about remembering things and their value.
I realize in the scheme of life that a $15.00 water bottle is minimal, but on our simple budget, I will not be replacing very many $15 water bottles. We have recently started "pay days" for the kids when they get paid for the chores they do. They each have a spend, save, and give envelope. The grand total in Sophia's spend and save envelopes? 83 cents. Gonna take her awhile to pay for that water bottle. And several months before I can replace it.
So, there you have the water bottle incident. Which brings me to the question- What would you do? I'd love to hear your thoughts!
4 comments:
hhhm, that is a tough one - I'd totally want Owen to pay for mine - I understand. How much does she get paid? We do the same spend/save/give thing in our house and he usually has about $1 per week to spend. If if I were in your shoes I'd at least have her cover half since you were both technically responsible. It will be a hard lesson, but one she'll most likely remember and be able to learn first hand what value is.
Owen has had to 'pay' for things he's broken that belong to me but the most that's come to is $5 so far for a laundry basket he got too crazy around.
Here is my two cents. (You asked.) We stated the "consequences" lessons with Will when he was 2 and a half. Case in point: Will picked up a box of cookies (that he was previously told not to touch) at King Soopers. While on the RUN over to our cart with them he tripped and they spilled EVERYWHERE. Michael kindly made him pick them all up and paid for them separately at the register so that Will could see the 3.00 ring up. Then, he had Will take that whole bakery bundle of cookies and throw them in the trash can - this made the tears flow. Will didn't have $3 to his name so he had to pick out a toy to sell to cover the cost. And yes, we actually sold it on craigs list and Will watched the new family come and take it away. (We felt kind of mean at the time.)
We repeated this lesson when Will dumped my $40 jar of foundation down the drain during naptime. That resulted in the loss of the $50 Thomas the Train Roundhouse. That was a toughie, even for us.
However, Will remembers these lessons to this day...
Recently, we were at the park and he inadvertently ran into something and knocked it over - and asked me "Mom, am I going to have to pay for this?" (No, it was fixable.)
Our kids are always going to be careless and forget stuff, the best we can do is to teach them to be responsible for their actions.
So, I would ask my kid to select a valued possession to sell to replace the item that was lost.
You and Tim know her best and know what she can handle or how far you need to go to make her learn the lesson. Every kid is different. But I'm all for finding a way to make her pay for it in some way. I love the sell a toy idea!
When I was 6, my cat clawed a hole in my parents new carpet (let's forget that my parents own a carpet store for this example). they sat me down and said I had two choices: 1)Get rid of the cat or 2)pay to have her declawed which was $40 (I still remember that dollar amount). Obviously I opted to pay for her to be declawed and spent more than a year dusting my grandma's house every saturday from top to bottom and doing extra chores above my normal chores (I couldn't do my sibling's chores) to pay my parents back. I had an envelope in the kitchen I would have to put money in every week that didn't come out of my tithe envelope or my savings envelope. I have never forgotten how hard that was and how long it takes to save up an extra $40 above and beyond your normal expendatures :) a lesson worth driving home at any age!
hope we get to find out what you decided to do!
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