There are moments as a parent when you see an opportunity to teach a lesson to your child using real-life consequences. And then there are those other times...
Monday morning I took the boys out for breakfast. Jonathan is a terribly messy eater and we have been working really hard on this over the summer. He is almost 8 years old and ends up with food all over himself and the entire neighboring vicinity. This is more than dropping crumbs or getting his face sticky. It is a flat-out disaster area when he eats. So there we are at the Quickie Chickie (not the real name) and he has a breakfast biscuit. I remind him to lean over the table, show him how keep the wrapper around the sandwich, etc etc. I remind him over and over as he eats. By the time he is done, there are chunks of biscuit all over the chair, the table and a large portion of the floor. He then proceeds to sweep all of the mess off the table onto the floor. Oh...No...You....Didn't! So I decide this is a teachable moment and go and ask for a broom and dustpan. The older, motherly employee picks up the broom and says she will get it. I politely tell her that I want my son to clean up his own mess, but she keeps insisting she will get it. I try several more times, but she is not having it. As she begins to sweep it up, I let her know that I would have really appreciated it if she would have let me teach my son to clean it up. At this point she gives me a dirty look and hands the broom to me. I give it to Jonathan and show him how to sweep up his mess. The entire time he sweeps she cheers him on telling him what a wonderful boy he is and what a fantastic job he is doing. Um, no, he is not doing something fantastic, he is doing what he should do - clean up after himself. So instead of the lesson he needed to learn, he learned that if he makes a big mess in public and then looks all sweet trying to clean it up that A) others will offer to clean it up for him, and B) he gets positive attention for it. Fail.
Ahren struggles with anything that requires fine motor control. Buttons, zippers, etc. Yesterday he wanted to make his own pb&j sandwich. Okay, lets do it!
Trying to get the peanut butter on the bread.
Backwards knife....
A little HOH (hand-over-hand) assistance
Jelly. Lots and lots of jelly. (I cringed but let him go for it)
Flip the top onto the bottom.
Squoosh the bread down and eat the best sandwich ever!
Levi gave Ahren the robe he grew out of and Ahren has been wearing it non-stop.
The bunnies we inherited, Gray and Chester. Very sweet and snuggly.
Chester, chillin.
2 comments:
Oh my. Your child sounds like one of my children. She gets up from the table and there is mess everywhere. And she is completely unaware...I tell her to clean up, and she might pick up one piece and think she is done. The joys of motherhood...
BTW, the bunnies are adorable but I have always heard they are messy too. :)
This is awesome!
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