OK, I am not an expert at GD but I think I do a pretty good job of holding my feelings in check, using natural or logical consequences, etc.
But tonight my 7 y.o. DS did something that I just have no idea what to do with.
He carelessly kicked off his sneaker in the family room - it flew across the room and smashed into my wedding portrait, shattering the glass, sending it crashing to the brick fireplace mantel below and taking two handpainted glass candle holders with it. I reacted on so many levels - first, the fear that the shattering glass had a kid underneath it (and then the relief of realizing that nobody was hurt), the image of my wedding picture shattering was so upsetting...and then the glass everywhere (and keeping both kids away while I attempted to clean it up)...and then realizing that the picture itself is SO damaged it will definitely need professional retouching plus a new frame ($$$ and time I don't have!)...
And my son is SO hard on himself so I know he felt bad. I was in tears and my little 3 y.o. DS was beside himself with whom to comfort first. I couldn't have him help clean up - there were way too many very sharp tiny pieces of glass and I didn't want in any way to compromise his safety to prove a point. I spent about an hour cleaning up and I told DS that I didn't really know what the consequence would be; that I was really upset and needed some time to think about it (figured honesty was the best policy, even though I know that sometimes waiting for consequences can be harder than accepting them). I reassured him that I always love him and put him to bed with the normal routine - a warm bath, stories, cuddling in his bed...
The thing that gets me is that this isn't the first time he's done something careless that has resulted in the destruction of something important to me. He has issues with self control at school too. And I want the consequence not to be "payment" for the "crime," but a learning tool that will help him THINK before he does something so careless that has such big consequences. I know part of it is maturity but I guess I feel like he is old enough to know better (and we do have rules about where shoes go when they are taken off - I didn't think I had to be that specific about the manner in which they are removed!)...as I said I couldn't have him clean it up because it was unsafe; and he doesn't have a good sense of money so asking him to take money from his piggy bank to pay for the repairs isn't really appropriate to have him learn from the experience. And while the apology is meaningful, I don't want to let him go so easily because he's so hard on himself - I don't want him to learn that if he gets upset enough he can avoid any consequences...
Any ideas??????
(And does anyone know how reparable a scraped up portrait might be and how much I might expect to pay for that kind of work?????)
But tonight my 7 y.o. DS did something that I just have no idea what to do with.
He carelessly kicked off his sneaker in the family room - it flew across the room and smashed into my wedding portrait, shattering the glass, sending it crashing to the brick fireplace mantel below and taking two handpainted glass candle holders with it. I reacted on so many levels - first, the fear that the shattering glass had a kid underneath it (and then the relief of realizing that nobody was hurt), the image of my wedding picture shattering was so upsetting...and then the glass everywhere (and keeping both kids away while I attempted to clean it up)...and then realizing that the picture itself is SO damaged it will definitely need professional retouching plus a new frame ($$$ and time I don't have!)...
And my son is SO hard on himself so I know he felt bad. I was in tears and my little 3 y.o. DS was beside himself with whom to comfort first. I couldn't have him help clean up - there were way too many very sharp tiny pieces of glass and I didn't want in any way to compromise his safety to prove a point. I spent about an hour cleaning up and I told DS that I didn't really know what the consequence would be; that I was really upset and needed some time to think about it (figured honesty was the best policy, even though I know that sometimes waiting for consequences can be harder than accepting them). I reassured him that I always love him and put him to bed with the normal routine - a warm bath, stories, cuddling in his bed...
The thing that gets me is that this isn't the first time he's done something careless that has resulted in the destruction of something important to me. He has issues with self control at school too. And I want the consequence not to be "payment" for the "crime," but a learning tool that will help him THINK before he does something so careless that has such big consequences. I know part of it is maturity but I guess I feel like he is old enough to know better (and we do have rules about where shoes go when they are taken off - I didn't think I had to be that specific about the manner in which they are removed!)...as I said I couldn't have him clean it up because it was unsafe; and he doesn't have a good sense of money so asking him to take money from his piggy bank to pay for the repairs isn't really appropriate to have him learn from the experience. And while the apology is meaningful, I don't want to let him go so easily because he's so hard on himself - I don't want him to learn that if he gets upset enough he can avoid any consequences...
Any ideas??????
(And does anyone know how reparable a scraped up portrait might be and how much I might expect to pay for that kind of work?????)
