This week I got a note from Cailey's teacher saying that she was out of lunch money and borrowed some from the class fund. Not a big deal, you say? Well it's HUGE considering we had been sending her lunch everyday! We set up an account for her at the beginning of the year and put 20 dollars on it. We told her that she could buy lunch once a month. Because of when her track outs have fallen she's only bought in October and November....OR SO WE THOUGHT!! Apparently my little angel has been buying lunch EVERYDAY since school started back in January AND eating her lunch from home for snack. Her teacher would ask her occasionally why she brought her lunch box and she said it was for snack time. I am not going to blame the teacher at all...but WHO sends their child a sandwich, chips, and a fruit for a snack? Gotta admit she's pretty smart to figure out she could do that- but not able to figure out that the money would come to an end at some point. I was truly heart broken when I found out about it. I couldn't talk, I couldn't think, I just didn't know what to. I really didn't think I'd have to worry about my five year old lying and manipulating the adults around her. I hesitated posting this because I don't want you to get the wrong idea about her. I talked to her for a long time about it, told her the story of the Little Boy who Cried Wolf and prayed with her. We figured out that all in all she bought lunch 14 times that we didn't know about. So other than losing some priveleges (such as treats and school lunches) Brian wanted her to do some work. He wanted her to realize that it took time to make her wasted lunch everyday and that he worked hard to make the money that she spent daily both at school and on the lunch things we sent from home. SOOO he got creative and had her pick up gumballs in the backyard today. She did NOT want to do it, nor did she enjoy it. All in all she spent three hours out in the yard (being supervised, of course) picking up gumballs. Originally he told her she had to get all of them but in the end that was impossible- she'd still be there now. Hopefully she learned her lesson and we won't have to get this creative again!
2 comments:
Oh, don't even worry about giving the wrong impression of Cailey! This just sounds like a typical childish thing to do, and sounds like you did a good job of seizing the opportunity to teach her a great lesson and really make her understand her mistake. How would we every learn to be moral if we don't first make mistakes? :)
You know what cracks me up? Yesterday we were outside with the babies and Rebecca saw a gumball. She proceeded to tell me that there were a lot of gumballs in our yard and she should pick them up! She did for a few minutes but of course tired of it quickly. One girl's punishment is apparently another girl's fun:) (Although I'm sure Rebecca would NOT have liked it if she was being punished)
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