I was loading Emma into the car this morning to head to daycare and she said, "Look at my pocket Mommy." This kid loves her pockets so I wasn't surprised and I distractedly commented, "Oh yes. How nice that you have a pocket." Then she giggled and again said, "Look INSIDE my pocket." I saw her pulling out some yellow fabric and I thought she had grabbed an extra headband on her way out the door. Then more fabric came out and I actually thought she had an extra pair of panties in her pocket. Then she pulled it out all the way and I saw that it was a little baby doll tee shirt I had never seen before. I asked her where she had gotten it and she proudly told me, "At school." Great. My kid's a thief. So we had a little talk on the way to school about how taking things that don't belong to us is not okay and how school toys have to stay at school. Then I told her that she was going to have to give it back to her teacher and say she was sorry when we got to school. Emma got kind of quiet then and, as we were getting out of the car, reached for me saying, "Mommy?" in a very uncertain voice. I told her it was ok. I loved her and her teachers still loved her and I would go with her to talk to Miss Janice. So we went inside and Emma handed the shirt to Janice and very quietly whispered, "I taked dis. I sorry." Miss Janice smiled at her, told her it was okay she had made a mistake, and thanked her for bringing it back. Then Emma smiled, kissed me, and ran off to go play. I couldn't believe she had actually swiped something, but the other part of me was proud of the way she accepted responsibility and actually seemed to feel a bit bad and apologized. The funny thing about that is that my current psychology classes have been stressing to us that current practice is NOT to have children apologize when they do something wrong because if we prompt them, then the apology is insincere. WHAT-EVER!!! I didn't agree with that philosophy when I was told it and I don't now either. How are kids supposed to learn remorse and how to remedy a situation if we don't explain it to them and show them how to make ammends? And this type of no-fault, feel-good parenting is why I keep having a class full of 12 year olds who take whatever they want whenever they want!
On a side note, Emma is not weaned. I guess I jumped the gun with the previous post. She had been off the boob for a week so I thought we were in the clear. Now she is asking again. I was going to try to hold her off, but have thought more about it and decided, why should I? I'm not offering, but if she's asking, then she must be needing something, whether its nutritional or comfort or whatever. And if she needs it, then so be it. We'll focus more on weaning as the time goes on. This stage won't last forever...
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