The Wisdom of Four-Year-Olds

[drwex]

This morning I came downstairs to find L rolling around on the couch having fun. I noticed he had a sticker applied to his nose.

I asked: "Why do you have a sticker on your nose?"
He explained that if he put the sticker on his eye it would hurt.

Can't argue with that logic.

(On later being presented with this conversation Mommy wondered if he was trying to be a banana. Which indicates something, though I'm not entirely sure what.)

Comments

[coraline]

are you sure he hasn't been watching "real genius" when you haven't been paying attention? :)

[drwex]

I had forgotten about that bit. I suppose it's possible, but unlikely.

[hlmt.livejournal.com]

That was funny. Just to trade you stories...

Allen's been having problems processing requests & redirection & rebukes recently, generally responding by calling us "names" such as "You garckinglyprogis!"

But I did kinda lose the parental authority stone face yesterday when he said: "You fungus!"

[drwex]

That is cute!

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

What do you do with him when he has trouble "processing requests & redirection & rebukes"? Ours has a similar problem.

Processing requests etc.

[hlmt.livejournal.com]

Well... we usually try to really stick to consequences (and make those explicit). So if he doesn't get dressed right away, then we have to leave earlier from a play date, for example. Or, if he won't eat his cheese tortilla or mac'n'cheese (the only other bloody protein he gets besides peanut butter), then I have to lower sugar content in his diet, and cut out juice, for example. Or if he starts melting down somewhere, then we leave. Etc.

I'm aware that I'm very lucky that I have enough flexibility in my schedule that I can carry through on this most of the time. I remember having to curtail this type of interaction when I was teaching and -had- to be in class at a certain time. Nonetheless, I made sure to make explicit that one of the consequences of dragging his feet in getting ready was that Mommy got damned grumpy for having to do all her prep work *and* his, and that grumpy Mommies are no fun to be around. Conversely, I've had to learn to be more flexible in establishing a schedule: if he's just not ready to deal with a restaurant environment, it does no good for me to get mad at him; we just have to leave...

[rdhdsnippet.livejournal.com]

I love your kid stories. :)

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

And we love yours.