Today my six-year-old daughter had a friend over after school. They spent most of the time upstairs playing in her room. When it was almost time for her friend to go home, DD told me that she did something wrong and she's afraid I'll be mad. I asked her to tell me what it was and it turns out that she and her friend were using markers while sitting on her bed, and she accidentally got a dot of marker (permanent marker, it figures, right?) on her comforter, and then she kept writing on the comforter on purpose. I didn't get angry, and I told her we would discuss it after her friend went home.
Well, she did this thing she sometimes does where she actually was asking me to get angry and yell at her, is that weird? I think she can't stand the guilt and that's why she wants me to yell, so that she could get angry at me instead! Her friend was sort of looking at her like she was nuts and i just calmly said, "I'm not mad, I'm not going to yell, and it isn't fair to your friend to talk about this now, so let's wait until later."
So later we talked and I told her I was surprised and disappointed that she would do something like that on purpose, but that I was not angry. She kept saying I should yell at her or put her in time-out (which we have never really done) and was getting more and more frustrated with how calm I was! I told her I could see she already felt really bad about it, and that everyone makes bad choices sometimes, and the important thing is that she has a good conscience and has learned from it. And that we could turn the comforter over and nobody will be able to see it.
I suggested that perhaps we should use some of her allowance to pay for the new bedding we were planning on getting her in the spring (we have plans to redecorate her room), but we didn't have to discuss it now.
I feel good about how I handled it, I think..but was I TOO easy on her? I really, truly did not feel angry with her at all, just surprised and a little disappointed as I told her.
Well, she did this thing she sometimes does where she actually was asking me to get angry and yell at her, is that weird? I think she can't stand the guilt and that's why she wants me to yell, so that she could get angry at me instead! Her friend was sort of looking at her like she was nuts and i just calmly said, "I'm not mad, I'm not going to yell, and it isn't fair to your friend to talk about this now, so let's wait until later."
So later we talked and I told her I was surprised and disappointed that she would do something like that on purpose, but that I was not angry. She kept saying I should yell at her or put her in time-out (which we have never really done) and was getting more and more frustrated with how calm I was! I told her I could see she already felt really bad about it, and that everyone makes bad choices sometimes, and the important thing is that she has a good conscience and has learned from it. And that we could turn the comforter over and nobody will be able to see it.
I suggested that perhaps we should use some of her allowance to pay for the new bedding we were planning on getting her in the spring (we have plans to redecorate her room), but we didn't have to discuss it now.
I feel good about how I handled it, I think..but was I TOO easy on her? I really, truly did not feel angry with her at all, just surprised and a little disappointed as I told her.
