It was made bigger today by one of the boys.
Henry was found hiding while Charley announced, "LOOK WHAT HENRY DID!"
Henry says Charley did it.
After separating them, giving them time to think, and lots of questioning, Henry still says Charley did it. However, he has had issues with lying lately and we aren't sure if Henry really understands lying. Charley has now come forward that he did it after some questioning about if his finger would fit in the hole etc.
So we appreciate that Charley has now told the truth.
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR CONSEQUENCES for the lying, the blaming, and the destruction.
My background is using Logical Consequences. I want the consequence to fit the crime. I am stuck on what the consequence is to lying, blaming your brother, and then what do we do for the destruction of our nice furniture. We understand that we choose to invest in it with little kids. However, after Charley made the hole in the van a while back we thought we had gone over the whole we are a family and we take care of our home. Obviously this didn't sink in. So we need something more drastic.
Do we ban him from that room for the week...which means no TV, Wii etc...however, this ultimately bites me in the ass since it is my first full week with all three.
Do we make him pay for the damage?
We did buy a protection plan for this furniture so we should be covered...but we haven't contacted them yet.
We need advice! How do you teach a newly turned three year old about lying? Because he has been caught lying lately too.
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12 comments:
Puck lies. He knows that telling the truth results in less severe punishment. Then we talk about why hie lied...etc.
I have had Puck use money from his piggy bank to "pay" for something that had to be replaced. (small things though, nothing like a couch).
I would suggest banning him from sitting on the couch. Bring in a chair for him to sit in for a a day or too...
I wouldn't be too hard on the guy with the new baby and all...maybe he wanted attention?
Hope all is well.
B
It is so hard! The difference between truth and lies is a VERY difficult concept for kids under 10 years old. They understand the basic sense of the words, but technicallities confuse them.
My daughter (6) had an extremely hard time telling the truth. It took a while but one of the main causes we found was that we would say "in a minute" or "just a second" and we finally respond what seemed to her HOURS later (really usually less than 10 minutes but kids also don't have a concrete grasp of time passing).
I found all the links here based on Love & Logic (an EXCELLENT parenting book bytheway)to be very encouraging: http://education.byu.edu/youcandothis/lying.html
Good luck!
I agree with a couch ban. He also disrespected his brother by lying so I'm inclined to have him do his brother's chores or something like that (only once. OR, have him "write" an apology note to him (you can write it and have him trace it - modify it to suit his motor skills). Just my thoughts although I'm not at that stage yet so anything I've suggested is based on things I've done with other's kids.
Let us know what you go with and how it worked!
I have no suggestions but I'm sure I will be asking for the same advice in a couple of years. I actually read this post in the morning and came back to see what advice you'd be given.
Tough one. I'm going with the couch ban. It seems to be the most logical consequence- don't respect it, don't get to use it.
I think "paying" for a repair is a natural consequence. I think he needs to know that it's good to tell the truth and you're not going to fly off the handle when he does. Maybe he should apologize to Henry (and you), have a time out from the couch, and help with the repair. And, bed with no dinner. Just kidding! :)
Kim
Spank'em! Fear of God! You know the drill :)
The lying is a separate issue than what happened. I think he probably lied because he knew what he did was wrong. But he did admit it, yes he blamed his brother which is wrong. My guess is he panicked. Focus on the fact that you appreciate him telling the truth always.
As for the actual damage - I have only had one incident where something was damaged and it was a new stuffed animal of his little sister's. To which, in that circumstance, I made him buy her a new one. He still remembers clearly that consequence.
A couch is harder to obviously pay for, but maybe figure out still a dollar amount to have him pay. Maybe first figure out why he made the hole bigger, was he feeling like he didn't have enough attention? I did that first, made sure there wasn't something underlying why he wrecked the stuffed animal.
Banning from the room, doesn't seem like a consequence you would like, so that will just stink. All kids like money, so losing it stinks.
Good luck!
oh i left a message yesterday saying i had no clue what to do and it didn't post. but i came back to see what others would say.
what a YUCK situation. i like the idea of the "sorry" note to Henry.
RR
I know many of you are checking back to see how this all plays out. I will blog an update soon. I have contacted Macy's and I think it will be covered by the dumb (well not so dumb now) protection warrenty thing we bought. So glad we did. We don't typically fall for the warrenty things.
He knows we are still figuring out how we are going to deal with this. We did give him positive feedback over telling the truth. We also explained how he blamed his brother and made us question Henry's truth. So he had to verbally apologize to him.
He knows that one of the possibilities is that his piggy bank savings will go towards fixing the tear (even though we will probably just put his money into his bank account). He looked sick over this becaues last week he had just counted his coins and was pondering what he would spend it on. Thank you fate for not having had him spend it already! Talk about things working out for a reason.
Love all your advice. I can see that sleep improves as your children get older but parenting continues to challenge us more and more.
you are all very right about praising the telling the truth thing. We don't want them to be afraid that they don't tell us the truth in life. But we also need the balance that they know what is right and wrong and that there are consequences for their behaviors.
Love reading all the serious comments here. So helpful and encouraging.
This is difficult. Our 3-year-old has been lying as well, and even began "pulling fast ones" on us, and we too, are clueless as to what steps to take. I wish I had some good advice, but honestly - I too seek advice on this!
Best of luck - and I hope you're able to fix your couch soon!
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