What should I do?

[Summertime Mommy]

DD#1 is out of town for spring break, and when I went in her room the other day, I noticed that she had written on the wall with a crayon. I want to say something to her about it when she comes home becasue we have had problems with her drawing on things before. She knows that she can color in her coloring books or on plain paper anytime she wants, she has a little desk in the hallway set up specifically to let her do just that, and she also knows that she is only allowed to color on the paper. I don't want to make a huge deal about it becasue I have no idea when she actually did this. But I am not going to let it slide. Do you think it would be too much to talk to her about why she felt the need to color on the walls, and then make her clean the mess herself? I considerred taking away the right to color for a while, but I think I would feel bad doing that since I don't know how long ago it was tat she did it. I mean, I know it was Thursday or Friday of last week, but I didn't actually catch her doing it KWIM? So, what do you think I should do?

[brandywine]

How old is your daughter? I think the appropriateness of her cleaning the mess herself is dependent upon age. If she's young enough that cleaning the mess herself would take hour upon hour during which you would have to stand over her and enforce, then I would maybe have her just clean part of the wall so she sees how much work it is, and have a good talk about it. If she's old enough to be physically able to clean the wall herself, I would let her do it. It's a natural consequence that doesn't seem cruel or damaging in any way to me. Also, there's a special paint you can get that will cover crayon, and you might try giving her the choice of either scrubbing the crayon off herself or using her own money (assuming she has some) to purchase the paint. In either case, I would try being really matter of fact about it....."I see you chose to color on the wall, would you like to use this sponge to clean it off, or would you like to use your allowance to buy some new paint to cover the marks?'

By the way, this is the first time I've ever responded to anyone asking for advice on how to handle a parenting situation and I find as I'm writing this that virtual parenting of someone else's child is so much easier than real parenting of my own. Reading my post I sound smug to myself. Does anyone else feel like this?

[mamaduck]

I'm assuming she is school aged? I would present it as a "problem" in a very matter of fact way. "There is writing on the wall, and that's a problem. How can we solve the problem?" If she is able to clean it up herself, then the problem is solved and I think the issue can be dropped. I don't really think there is a need to lecture. If it can't be cleaned -- she will discover that while she is trying, and hopefully that will help her understand why its not something we should do.

After that -- might it be helpful to tack some large peices of paper on a wall so that she *can* color on the walls? But only on the paper.

[Summertime Mommy]

Well the wall shouldn't be too hard to clean, considering we have those mr clean magic erasers. I think I will just make her clean the wall and tell her again how we don't color on the walls. I don't think that I would be willing to put paper on the walls for her to color on, or anything like that, because I can already imagine her going to someone else's house and deciding to draw on the art hanging on the walls or something. She is 5 1/2, and we had some major issues with her drawing in inappropriate places earlier in the year. I really thought that we had gotten past it, but I guess not.

[Marsupialmom]

I would wait a day or two and say you notice coloring and hand her the stuff to clean it. NO OTHER WORDS.