All kids, through carelessness, break and destroy things. I think kids don't finally start caring for material possessions until they are out on their own and start having to pay for things themselves.
Today Z was reading an X-Men graphic novel at Barnes and Noble and through mishandling it she ripped a page. Pere and I felt that we had to now buy the book, which we had no intention of doing before.
I talked with Pere about what we should do. We agreed that kids make mistakes and we can't really say that she isn't allowed to read books we don't already own. But we did want to punish her and hopefully teach her a lesson.
The book was $12.00. I paid for it and told Z she was going to have to earn the money to pay us back. She started crying again. Not, I think, because she is afraid of hard work but just because she was very sorry and could see that we felt this was very serious.
Z already has chores and she doesn't get paid for them, they are just part of helping out the family. We started her young. Before she was one she would crawl her books back to their basket's before bed each night. By two she was sorting the laundry into lights, darks and colors. Now she makes her bed, cleans her room, clears the dishes and separates and loads the dirty landry everyday.
But I came up with some more labor intensive chores. She is going to scoop the kitty litter for one week as well as scrub the kitchen floor, sweep the patio, vaccum, and scrub the spots out of the carpet.
When we got home I had her vaccum right away. The vaccum is bigger than she is and it was really difficult for her to push it but she tried really hard and she managed. I am also proud that she didn't complain at all and is going to try very hard to earn the price of the book. I also think this is very good for her.
She is sweeping the patio which is full of leaves (we are one the ground floor of our apartment complex and every week the lawn service men blow a thousand dead leaves under my fence and into our patio and every week I sweep it back othingut) and also home to several small spiders. This chore is very labor intensive, but as some of you may feel, sweeping something dirty till it is nice and clean can be a very fulfilling experience. I am happy she is having a good attitude about all this.
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2 comments:
Do you rem your childhood days?? were you EVER Punished for the things you did, as severaly as you did Z ??? No you werent!! you were to severe with her.!! G.. P S.Ease up on her, she is only a littl 5 year old girl!!
I do remember. I remember being spanked for crying.
Why is what I did so severe?
She just did some chores. Her father and I helped teach her how to do them and in the future, not as a "lesson" but as part of being a member of a family that doesn't have a maid, she will continue to help us scoop the litter, sweep and scrub.
I did not think of this as a very bad punishment at all. She had to struggle at little but I don't think there is anything wrong with a child having a work hard. In some parts of the world kids have to work much harder everyday and for food, not a comic book.
She wasn't crying or moping or even unhappy with her chores. She felt bad about ripping the book, and understood that this was what she needed to do to pay for it.
I think it was a great lesson. Maybe you just had to be here to see how it all happened but in this case it was fair and I think it went a long way in teaching her the value of money and how hard we all have to work to obtain it.
-Cher Mere
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