The reasonable side of me knows that its a phase she was bound to go through.
The irrational side doesn’t want my daughter to be a LIAR!!!
It hadn’t been a problem at home but Brooke mentioned to me a time or two that she’d been in timeout that day for lying. My inner self rolled my eyes because I’m not huge fan of timeouts but my outer self gave a “no lying” lecture.
The next morning on the way to school, we again talked about the importance of not lying to which Brooke told me we shouldn’t lie “so we don’t get timeout”.
Yeah, that’s what I getting at…
The lying thing wasn’t an issue again until Friday night. We attended an event at church and the kiddos were served pizza in their classroom while the adults had theirs in various places throughout the building.
As were driving home, Brooke asked if she could have dinner when we get home. I was confused since she should have had pizza in her classroom. So I asked her and she told me she hadn’t had dinner.
My first instinct of course is anger. “THEY DIDN’T FEED MY BABY!!”
Then I start digging a little more and with each answer, I’m more unsure of what to think and I’m becoming upset because I’m not sure who I’m upset with!!
As we’re pulling up the driveway, Brooke finally fesses up she did have dinner at church.
At that point, neither outcome was going to make me happy. However, I think it did create a good learning opportunity. I stressed to her the lack of trust that comes from telling lies. I was able to tell her I was proud of her for telling the truth, albeit late in the game. I explained that her teachers could have gotten in trouble even though they didn’t do anything wrong.
I’m hopeful that the experience really helped her figure it out and that telling the truth has more value than “not getting in timeout”.
What tricky behavior issues have you dealt with lately?
