Friends of ours were over with their kids the other day and we were all hanging out enjoying the summer day. The gals were on the dock while the men were talking smart and lifting heavy things.
At some point, the little boy came over and said something about peeing on the deck. I don't remember how the story unfolded, but I think his older sis was involved in getting to the bottom of the details by investigating the scene on the deck and reporting back to us that, yes, he had indeed peed on the deck, and, she announced, he had also peed on Boden's toy--she held the little car in her hand, presenting the evidence to us as any good sibling liasion (aka tattle tale) would do.
Of course, this seemed like a prime teaching moment to the parents--you wouldn't want anyone to do that to your toys, would you? Well, no, is the obvious answer there.
The parents demanded that he say he was sorry for what he did-- this seemed like a reasonable request. However, the drama of eliciting an apology from this young child went on for what felt like three agonizing years. The minutes slowly ticked away as his dad tried all kinds of angles to make his son realize that you have to ask for forgiveness when you've wronged a friend. The little boy was crying and repeatedly said "I can't say I'm sorry. I can't".
I don't understand if he couldn't utter these words because he didn't mean it--which was my problem when I was a kid. I refused to say "I'm sorry" for hitting my brother or telling on him if I didn't mean it--then I would be telling a lie and would have to apologize to my mom for that. And that just didn't make sense.
Or was it hard to say I'm sorry because he didn't think what he did was wrong? I suspect somewhere along the way, the little guy learned it was okay to pee on things when you are in the great outdoors. As I remember vaguely, there were some potty training challenges and, from what I hear and read, little boys are excited to hit targets with their pee...it's not too hard to extrapolate that this kid probably peed on a few "targets", and was quite possibly rewarded for it. So, I understand how peeing on Boden's car felt right...and why apologize for that?
When he finally uttered "I'm sorry!" through a mess of tears and snot, I let out the breath I had been holding for him. Todd walked over to me and was like "I don't know if I can handle this discipline thing with Boden." Well, we have two options, right? We let him run free of rules and boundaries like a good little anarchist or we try to instill values to help him be a good human (grooming your children to abide by social norms and "fit" into society is a(whole)nother post, right?). So far, just getting him to understand the word "no" is not going well (unless no means turn and smile at the person who said it and then go back to doing what you were doing)--so we're not off to a great start with discipline...
Video-- some of Boden's first solo steps
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