So I have a kid who says what she does not mean.
She says: "I'm scared of fire trucks because they are loud." Reality: She is not scared of fire trucks. When she sees one that is not making noise or that is far enough away that the noise isn't overpowering, she enjoys seeing them. She just doesn't like the noise.
I've been working on helping her say what she means. I'll ask her if it is the noise that she finds bothersome. She'll say yes, so I'll explain that she likes fire trucks, she just doesn't like it when they are loud. She'll agree and move on.
Another example: "I'm scared of David because he is taking my crayons." Reality: She is not scared of her brother at all. She's annoyed by him. The reason is obvious. He's being a brother.
So again, I help her communicate what she means. I'll ask her if she is scared of David or if she just doesn't like that he took the crayons. We'll work through that, and she'll move on.
All that seems good and well.
Then we get to the next scenario.
"I can't pull up my sleeves." She doesn't mean that she can't. She means that she doesn't want to or that she refuses to.
Somehow I decided that that is where the line needs to be drawn. Like that it went from not being able to voice what she means to lying. Obviously she can pull up her own sleeves.
Lying is a tricky one for me to punish. I punish her by putting her in the corner or sending her to her room for various reasons. I punish her by taking items away that she enjoys. I punish her by taking away items that she's committed a wrong with. Then when it comes to lying, I feel like the only thing there is to take away would be her tongue, but I already take that away for unnecessary screaming. (Sometimes it is more than it should be. She takes after her mom.)
I don't want to spank her for it. I don't want to send her to the corner, again. I don't want to take away her tongue because I already do that for another reason. I don't want to do some form of washing out her mouth. She wasn't being sassy or vulgar, and that is how I've observed that punishment being used.
So I've taken to memorizing Bible verses. I figure that this way we get to talk about for a while and she does something that is good for her. Right now, she's learning Exodus 20:16 "Do not bear false testimony against your neighbor." I say the verse for her and she repeats me bit by bit until she can repeat the whole thing in one chunk. Then I ask her what that means because "bear false testimony" probably makes no sense to a 4 year old. She says, "God doesn't want us to lie." We talked about lying meaning saying something that isn't true.
I have no idea if this will curb the lying, but even if it doesn't, memorizing Bible verses never hurt anyone.
Speaking of memorizing Bible verses, just this morning she brought up something that she saw as wrong and asked me if it was. I told her that she was right; it is wrong. She asked me why it was wrong. She even said, "Does God say it is wrong?" I wonder if she's trying to get around the rule that you shouldn't push or if she really wondered that. It took me a second, but I told her that God does say that we shouldn't push. Then I had to run to the computer and look up, "Love your neighbor as yourselves." By the way that in in Mark chapter 12, but you'll have to find the verse for yourselves because I can't remember.
We talked about who our neighbor is and what it means to love them as ourselves. We talked about how we don't like people to be mean to us or hurt us. Then we talked about other people not liking it either. She seemed satisfied. Oh and by the way Mom, David pushed me. Too funny. Learning Bible verses to get your brother into trouble.
It was kind of funny that she talked about that this morning though because in talking with a friend of mine later in the day we talked about her kids bugging each other and I told her about that verse as well. Can't hurt, I suppose. Maybe if I fill up my kids with Bible verses so much, then they won't be able to falter, or if they do they'll have a Bible verse memorized to help them stand up in Christ. Worth a shot!
No comments:
Post a Comment