W is 7 (just turned). He is a curious child, and likes to look at and play with things. I understand that, and don't object, however we have told him that if the thing is not his, then he needs to ask before touching it. We just know that he isn't always as careful as he thinks he is...once he asks, we do let him look at/handle most things--some things we supervise, or have him sit down, or whatever. Sometimes we dont' let him handle it, but we will happily show it to him. Really though, most things if he asks we'll let him get a good look or touch. However, he's really bad about asking. We try to remind him, 'catch him being good' by thanking him or commenting when he does remember, but still he seems to get some thrill out of being sneaky about playing with things that are not his and which he has not asked to touch. And he has broken more than a few. Just this afternoon my dh was cleaning out the fish tank. He took out the little glass thermometer (along with all the other 'scenery' in the tank) and had brought it into the bathroom sink to scrub it down before putting it back in the tank. The thermometer was still sitting on the counter this evening when I sent W in to get his bath. (This is normal for--he's taken baths on his own for 3 years, and generally objects if we offer to help.) Anyway, about 5 min later I went to check on W, and make sure he was actually getting into the tub (he is distractable) and I found him sitting on the floor picking up pieces of glass from the--you guessed it--shattered thermometer. Had he asked, I would have let him look at it with supervision, but he didn't ask, he just 'snuck' it when I was in another room and busy with the baby. And now he's broken it. I asked him what he was doing with it, and he said 'looking at it.' I asked if he'd asked and he said 'no.' I asked if he SHOULD have asked and he said 'yes.' So he knew...he just didn't bother...
SO, here's my dilemma: I want him to have some kind of consequence for the sneaking and the breaking...I'm sure he didn't mean to break it, but he was not being careful, and had not followed the rule (and we made the rule in the first place because of this exact kind of situation).
On the one hand, the natural consequence seems to me that he should buy a new one...however there is no way he can afford to replace all the things he ruins/wastes (two weeks ago he dumped out an entire bottle of shampoo into his bath, which was doubly upsetting because the week before that he'd emptied most of a bottle of bubble bath, and we'd had a long talk about why he should not get into those bottles himself, but should ask...) Anyway, he has a little money, but we'd literally have to triple or quadruple what we give him in order for him to pay back for what he's wasting/destroying. I think that would be really false inflation because the money wouldn't mean anything to him, you know? And if we ask him to pay for things with his current earnings, he would basically be in debt to us for the next decade, and he's still ruining and wasting stuff...
Tonight another option occured to me, but I wanted to run it by some other GD-minded parents and see if you think it's appropriate and is a logical (if not entirely natural) consequence: I was thinking that perhaps he could work off his debt to us rather than pay for it in money. He does help me around the house, but it tends to be in little spurts--5 or 10 min here or there. He has a couple of regular jobs, but not a ton--just simple stuff like he has to unload the dishwasher once a day, feed the dog, and put away his own clean laundry. He is a generally helpful boy, so we rarely assign him specific work that he has to do. SO, with that in mind, would it be logical to let him work off his debts at, say, $4/hr? that means dumping out the shampoo bottle would take him an hour to work off...since he'd probably have to do the work in several pieces, I think it might sink in... the little fish tank thermometer would probably be 1.5-2 hrs of work. Part of me wants to make it more like $2/hr, but he is a super active boy, and I think that that many hours of work would be 1--torture for me (to keep him on task) and 2--overkill for him. I figure a consequence should be enough for the child to learn the lesson, but not enough to make them miserable, you know?
Anyway, I would really appreciate hearing what others think, and if you don't think this is a very good idea, I would LOVE to hear other ideas of how to deal with this. We are on a tight budget and while we may be able to live without something like a fish tank thermometer, we do need things like shampoo!!!
SO, here's my dilemma: I want him to have some kind of consequence for the sneaking and the breaking...I'm sure he didn't mean to break it, but he was not being careful, and had not followed the rule (and we made the rule in the first place because of this exact kind of situation).
On the one hand, the natural consequence seems to me that he should buy a new one...however there is no way he can afford to replace all the things he ruins/wastes (two weeks ago he dumped out an entire bottle of shampoo into his bath, which was doubly upsetting because the week before that he'd emptied most of a bottle of bubble bath, and we'd had a long talk about why he should not get into those bottles himself, but should ask...) Anyway, he has a little money, but we'd literally have to triple or quadruple what we give him in order for him to pay back for what he's wasting/destroying. I think that would be really false inflation because the money wouldn't mean anything to him, you know? And if we ask him to pay for things with his current earnings, he would basically be in debt to us for the next decade, and he's still ruining and wasting stuff...
Tonight another option occured to me, but I wanted to run it by some other GD-minded parents and see if you think it's appropriate and is a logical (if not entirely natural) consequence: I was thinking that perhaps he could work off his debt to us rather than pay for it in money. He does help me around the house, but it tends to be in little spurts--5 or 10 min here or there. He has a couple of regular jobs, but not a ton--just simple stuff like he has to unload the dishwasher once a day, feed the dog, and put away his own clean laundry. He is a generally helpful boy, so we rarely assign him specific work that he has to do. SO, with that in mind, would it be logical to let him work off his debts at, say, $4/hr? that means dumping out the shampoo bottle would take him an hour to work off...since he'd probably have to do the work in several pieces, I think it might sink in... the little fish tank thermometer would probably be 1.5-2 hrs of work. Part of me wants to make it more like $2/hr, but he is a super active boy, and I think that that many hours of work would be 1--torture for me (to keep him on task) and 2--overkill for him. I figure a consequence should be enough for the child to learn the lesson, but not enough to make them miserable, you know?
Anyway, I would really appreciate hearing what others think, and if you don't think this is a very good idea, I would LOVE to hear other ideas of how to deal with this. We are on a tight budget and while we may be able to live without something like a fish tank thermometer, we do need things like shampoo!!!
: I agree with this.
