I was walking the dogs tonight and all of a sudden I see four running feet coming towards me. Yes, my two children.
I just knew they didn’t tell my husband they left the house to come meet me down the street. Since they are 6 and 3 this makes me very uncomfortable.
They just think they can open the door and start running wild in the street. It’s unacceptable.
I was willing to look the other way on it with a stern look and warning that they will never do that again.
However, the next thing they do just pushed my button in and it stuck. They took off back down the street towards the house.
I yelled after them to stop because I was afraid that:
A. They would get hit by a car.
B. They would fall and knock their head on the pavement.
They didn’t listen the first time. That is common so I do plan B, which is always threatening something.
“You better stop or you will not eat any of those cookies!”
They didn’t care, they just kept going.
Instead of a threat, I decided to finally make a punishment out of it and told them they were not having cookies. They know that this usually doesn’t stand because I am usually lenient on those types of things.
Well, they still didn’t stop. I was fuming.
I came in the door and they were already on the couch with cookies. I snatched the cookies from their hands and they had no clue what to do with themselves.
My husband was even scared.
I let me husband know of their joy run outside and then instructed them to head off to bed.
As I was cooling off in my bedroom by laying down and talking with my husband, I heard them sneaking around.
Later on, while I was putting my son to bed he told me they had sneaked cookies from the kitchen when I was “talking to dada.”
Wow – really?
Now, some of you may be smiling because this is what typical children do. I am not really mad at it. However, as a parent I know that what they did was wrong and teaching them young is necessary.
Letting small things go is one thing but when they begin to be disobedient and deceptive, it’s just the start of lessons being learned. I can either let them learn lessons that being disobedient and deceiving is okay or I can teach them the lesson that those behaviors have consequences.
I choose choice #2.
They may just be kids, but kids grow up to be adults. We wouldn’t want adults to be that way, so we shouldn’t want our kids to be that way either.
Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net