My parental skills were tested today...
Well, obviously I spoil her rotten. We love going shopping. For a long time, she never heard the word, "No" escape my lips. But then I realized, I wasn't doing her any favors by giving her everything she wanted. Now, I let her put the things she likes in the cart and we will "think about it". At the end, she gets to go through and narrow it down to one must have. And sometimes, yes...sometimes...she gets nothing. But today, as we were browsing the small gift shop, she asked me if I would buy her a small stuffed animal. I said, "no, you have lots of stuffed animals..." and she put it back and moved on to the next fun thing. This happened a few times until she found a Little Mermaid magnetic doll set. It was seven dollars. I again told her "no," and that we needed to get going. She started to cry. As I waited for the tantrum to start and dreaded being that person dragging a screaming kid out of a store, she sunk to her little knees and put her head down. Crocodile tears streamed down her cheeks. Her big, beautiful, brown eyes looked up at me and said, "Please, I really love it."
Don't be a sucker. Don't give in.
Of course, then, I wanted to just get it for her because I hated seeing her sad. But the principle of the matter was important. I said "no". I had to stick to it. I needed her to respect me, and the boundaries.
I knelt down next to her and tried to reason with her. "Let's tell Santa you want it for Christmas..."
That didn't work. She pleaded with me. "Let's put it back and think about it." She clutched it tighter.
Crap.
For being a three year old little girl that loved Ariel more than anything, this was very important to her. I had never seen her act this way before, and I knew it wasn't just another frivolous "want" that she would forget about after she got it. She's smart. She CAN be reasoned with. She is sweet, and her tiny heart was breaking over this seven dollar toy.
"Ok," I said. "Do you have any money?"
"No, " she answered.
"Well how can we buy it with no money?" I asked.
"Let's call Grandma Lorraine, she has some!"
"No...we have to work hard to earn our money so we can buy things. Could you work for some money to buy this?"
"Yeah!" Her eyes lit up. "But can we take it home today and just not open it and get some money and come back?"
"No, " I said again... "But I can buy it for you if you want to help me do something to earn the money to pay for it."
"Ok!" She agreed happily.
"What could you do?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I dunno..."
"Could you clean the floors for me?"
"Yeah, I could do that!"
"Ok, I said...let's go buy it."
She jumped up, and I could see the relief come over her. She grabbed my hand and started bouncing towards the cash register. She told the clerk that she needed to get this now, but she wouldn't open it until we got home to get the money. He laughed and I handed him my credit card.
As we were driving home, I looked back in my rear view mirror and she was just holding it in her hands, looking at it in the package. She didn't ask once to open it.
When we got to my house, I set it up on the counter and handed her a squirt bottle and a rag and showed her how to clean the floor. She did it happily, and sang while she worked. She did everything I asked, and we cleaned for about a half hour. When we were finished, I took a bunch of one dollar bills out of my pocket and handed them to her. "This is what you earned." I said. "Do you still want the toy? Or do you want the money?" She quickly handed me the money and I gave her the toy. We played with it the rest of the night and she was delighted.
My heart is so full. Sometimes, actually, most of the time...it would be easier as a 'parent' to give in. It's not like I didn't want her to have the toy. I would buy her every single star in the universe if I could. I hate telling her no, and I hate seeing her cry. But I have to teach her the value of a dollar, that money doesn't grow on trees, and that we have to make tough decisions in life sometimes. I want her to value things, and not take anything for granted. I even hated seeing her down on her hands and knees cleaning my floor...that I just cleaned yesterday. But it wasn't about a dirty floor, or the seven dollars, or an entire roll of paper towels...
It is that I love her SO much, and I want to instill in her values and morals. I want to teach her she has choices. I want to give her tools so she can use them for good and bettering her life. I want to let her experience things and let her learn hard lessons, so that when I am not here to help her, she will be ok. She will be strong, and resilient. I know if it had been my sister, (her mother) in that situation today, she would have known what to do and how to handle it. But I didn't, so I did the best thing I could think of. Sometime our parents do the best they can under the circumstances. Sometimes it's not the perfect solution, but they only know what they know at the time. We cannot regret our decisions if they were made with pure and selfless love in our hearts.
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