Amy is honest

[pne]

This morning, Stella found some marks on the kitchen window and asked Amy whether she'd been messing around with her fingers on the window.

Amy replied, "No, with a toothbrush."

Bless her heart, at least she's honest. And not only in that case, but I've heard her stand to other things she's done in the past.

I do rather hope that she keeps that honesty, rather than start to lie at some point in order to evade punishment.

And I'm not really sure how to treat such things, because some things are just not OK, and I feel there should be some sort of consequence—but how to tell her that the punishment is for the deed, not for confessing to it, and that the confession itself is a (morally) good thing?

Comments

[conuly]

I'd go with "Thank you for telling me the truth. Let's go clean up this mess together now."

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[pthalo]

it's difficult because oyu want to reward honesty but you don't want to reward bad behaviour. and the Real World (tm) isn't going to say "thank you for being so brave and honest" later on, even though she should be brave and honest despite that. So I'd go with noticing the honesty and discussing how proud you were that she owned up to it (err, for bigger offenses, I think at her age the toothbrush thing might fall in the range of "just wasn't thinking/ not yet able to think through the consequences") and how you like being able to trust her, etc. but also give her consequences for her actions (show her how to clean up the mess on the window and help her/supervise her do/ing that).

[asciident]

Stella might have some ideas, but IMHO thank her/tell her you're glad she was honest with you, but she needs to do or not do ____ and make clear the consequences for next time -- if it's the first time -- or what they are now if she's done something she knows she shouldn't. I think she's probably of an age now where she'll understand there are 2 things happening and one you're happy about and one you're not, if you spell it out for her.

[jpallan.livejournal.com]

1. Have Stella explain to Amy that it causes damage, and have Amy "help" fix the damage. Point out this is work Mummy and Amy needn't do if Amy hadn't chosen to be naughty, that this is time they could have spent doing something fun. Praise her for answering honestly when asked, but no matter what, the cleaning up needs to be done and that's less time to do fun things.

2. She will start to lie at some point as a self-defence mechanism. Don't worry on it. She'll need the explanations and learning that lying in and of itself is incorrect and wrong. She'll also need the explanation, by the way, not to tell elderly ladies that they look fat and the like, so it's a perfectly normal stage of child development. Are you familiar with the work of the Swiss scientist, Jean Piaget, in l'épistémologie génétique?

[pne.livejournal.com]

Are you familiar with the work of the Swiss scientist, Jean Piaget, in l'épistémologie génétique?

Nope, never heard of him nor it.

[jpallan.livejournal.com]

You must read his work. It's the absolute fundamental of the study of child development.

[elgrande.livejournal.com]

Have you tried explaining to her why she shouldn't mess around with her toothbrush? I'm not sure she even knows what she did was wrong.

[dampscribbler.livejournal.com]

We're struggling with this, too. I think it's the age, and I am concerned that it's very important to reward the honesty while still punishing the bad behavior, so that dishonesty, which Maggie is already showing some tendency toward, doesn't become the default behavior.

[node-ue.livejournal.com]

My mother always made it clear to me that the punishment would've been worse if I'd lied.

Still punishing her, but not as badly as if she'd not told the truth, makes sense to me.

[conuly]

Oh, I also wanted to add that if you don't want her to lie, you should avoid setting her up to lie.

If you already know she's done something wrong, don't ask her "Amy, did you do this?" because then she might try lying to get out of it. Just tell her you know what she did and you expect her to do this, this, and that to make up for it.

If she argues the point, what I've done is simply reiterate how we fix the problem, because it Doesn't Matter Who Did It.

I act as though they haven't lied at all, in fact.

"Ana, don't hit your sister!"
"But I didn't, I'm serious!"
"I didn't say you did. Please don't. She's crying, let's give her a hug and kiss so she'll feel better."