Four-year-old broke his sister's toy

[jenners26]

Okay ladies...you all inspired me to do away with time out, stop yelling, and totally embrace gentle discipline. So far, it's been going amazing. The overall feeling of calm and peace in our house is so fantastic.

But today, we had a situation that has left me stumped on how to handle it....and left me wanting to list my four-year-old on Craigslist!

For her birthday in January, we gave my one-year-old a ride-on Elmo car. This afternoon my four year old was riding around on it while I was pumping. I asked him a couple of times to get off of it, because his brother (my eight week old) was sleeping and the loud noise was disturbing him.

He continued to ride it, so I told him if he didn't stop, I was going to put the car outside for the afternoon so his brother could take a nap in peace. He basically ignored me, and in the time it took me to stop pumping (and put myself back together) so I could deal with him, he rode the toy as fast as he could into the wall and ended up breaking it. The front wheels and steering wheel broke completely off.

So, now, I'm at a loss. Do you have any suggestions on how to handle this? My one-year-old is really too little to even notice the toy is gone, but I don't know....I'm totally at a loss of what to do.

TIA,
Jen

[eepster]

Mostly I would talk about it, and possibly encourage him to think of a way to make amends to his sister.

[LynnS6]

First, is it fixable? Can you involve him in fixing it?

If not, I would talk about it, how you feel sad because the toddler doesn't have a ride on toy, and those are fun.

I'd also make it a point to 'save up' for a new one if you can. Maybe you can brainstorm with your 4 year old on things that you can give up buying for a little bit until you can afford a new one. So, maybe not buying ice cream for a month, or not taking a trip to the zoo/museum/swimming pool, something like that. (Even if you can afford to buy a new one right away, I wouldn't to bring home the concept that if we spend money on X that means we don't have it to spend on Y - that concept applies to everyone's lives, just some on a larger, rather than smaller scale.)