Last week, Bean picked out a gift for his friend M. M lives next door and is turning two in a couple weeks. Bean put a lot of thought into the gift and couldn't wait for M to open it. He picked out some Thomas plastic track and a plastic Salty engine (we have wooden Thomas track and plastic GeoTrax at our house and no desire to have THREE different types of track). Anyway, Bean figured they could play with plastic track at M's house and the wood and GeoTrax at are house - pretty smart.
Anyway, Bean's anxiousness got the best of him. He woke up this morning while everyone was still asleep and decided to open M's present - tearing the gift wrap and boxes into tiny pieces. There was no way for me to repackage the stuff and pass it off as new (even though it is new). His punishment, aside from a timeout and a lecture, was no trains for the rest of the day. No Thomas, no Geotrax, no Thomas stories, or Thomas shows. No trains. Period.
I had an extra expansion pack of GeoTrax that I was saving for a rainy day, but now those will be M's present. Bean's not too happy about those going away. The plastic Thomas track and Salty will be going to House of Toys, because Bean certainly isn't going to be keeping them. I still can't believe Bean did such a thing. He knew better.
Of course, taking the trains away has also been a punishment on us. Bean is bugging us left and right and generating even more noise than usual.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow when his train privileges are reinstated.
Any suggestions on how you would have handled this?
5.03.2009
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Ouch, gotta love when the punishment for Kiddo turns into a punishment for Mom and Dad too...yikes! Having no children of my own, I have no idea how I would have handled the situation, but it sounds, in my humble opinion, like you did the right thing.
ReplyDeleteI agree, you did the right thing. We do the "toy timeouts" too and I think it works better then the kid actually going to time out sometimes. We also have train meltdowns in this house, its insane!
ReplyDeleteWait a minute - isn't this the same mother who at holiday time and birthdays can't wait to open her presents? Granddad thinks Bean is OK.
ReplyDeleteThey weren't his presents! I can't wait to open MY presents. That's the distinct difference. If he opened his own gifts early (which he's done), I just "Note to self: Hide presents in closet."
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