Last night while I was finishing with making dinner I told my 4.5 year old son to go wash up for dinner. Well I guess when he was in there he decided to draw a nice circle on the counter and a square on the toilet seat with crayon. Since I never use his bathroom and he brushes his teeth in my bathroom I didn't go in there until this morning. When I saw it I brought him in and asked him about it. I asked if he knew better than to draw with crayon on anything other than paper and he said yes. I asked him why he did it and he told me that he was mad that I told him he had to wash up for dinner and wouldn't give him milk until I served his food. I had him clean the crayon off and told him that he is grounded from all electronics until Saturday. That means no TV and no computer.
This evening my mom calls and I put him on the phone with her. Yes he is grounded but I will never deny him the chance to talk to family. I guess she asked him if he wanted to skype with her when she got home and he told her he couldn't because he is grounded. She asked why and he told her. So she had him put me on the phone. I get on the phone and she asks why he is grounded. I tell her and she yells at me telling me that I am at fault. How dare I trust my 4 year old to go wash his hands by himself. He shouldn't be punished because if I was a better mom I would have been up his butt watching him. So really it's my fault that it happened.
Am I wrong for trusting my son to go wash his hands by himself? I will say I know that I am not at fault. I know that I do not need to be up my son's butt every minute of the day. My son almost never does things like when drawing on counters with crayon. In fact this is the first time he has ever done something like this. He is a kid though and will not be a perfect angel all the time. I am a firm believer in punishing my son for doing wrong, how else will he learn there are consequences to his actions.
He likes to play preschool games on the computer and he loves to play his leapster. The punishment I gave is fitting this time. It has been raining here all day today and is supposed to rain all day tomorrow too. If it wasn't supposed to be raining all day today and tomorrow then I would have given him a different punishment. Of course his crayons are gone until he can learn to properly use them. As for more cleaning, that would be fun for him, he loves cleaning.
Quoting notjstanothrmom:
I think your mom should respect your punishment for your son. I don't see how a 4.5 year old would rely on electronics so much to be grounded though so I think a more effective punishment could follow that incident. He would clean it and then I'd probably ground him from coloring since he can't use them properly and to clean something else.
Is it just me, or... ?
- mom2acutiepie
on May. 10, 2012 at 11:40 PM