Restitution is a great tool for parenting RAD kids (well any kids actually). But after a while having a kid work and work ...and work............and woooooooorkkkkk, to earn money to pay for -fill in the blank-, loses it's power a bit.
Sometimes you just need to cut to the punch.
So this week we learned that Middle-One had been using his lunch account (which is actually the money the school district paid back to us when his free-lunch forms were finally approved) to buy rounds of ice cream in the lunch room...yeah, we're pretty proud of those social skills ;o) Now he has LOTS of friends.
We got the printout from the cafeteria and had the proof and the amount. We could have added it to his work log and given him more chores... but ya know, we just didn't want to.
We talked to our AT and came up with this plan... We calculated the total that he spent. We added in ice cream and cones (to equal the total spent) into the grocery shopping and brought them home.
When it was time for ice cream, Middle said
"I'm going to finish my chore and then have my ice cream"
I replied with...
"Oh I'm sorry sugar, the ice cream is for your brothers"
"What?!?!?"
"Yes, since you have been eating ice cream at school... a LOT of ice cream too, we felt that it was only fair for them to have ice cream too"
"WHAT?!?!?!"
"You have been very concerned lately about things being fair. This is only fair after all"
"WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?"
"And sweetie, if you would like a dessert, we have bananas and fruit cups"
*smile*
He left his chore undone and stomped to his room with the announcement that he was going to bed.
Sweet dreams
2 comments:
Bravo!!! I'm going to have to remember this one... ;)
Talk about getting your "just desserts"!!! Very creative. Our guys often struggling with the idea that fair does not always mean equal....
Post a Comment