Blue Lips

Our son is getting older and has demonstrated tremendous maturity and obedience. So, after visiting friends left, we attempted a practice they have at bed time. After they put their kids to bed, they let them read in their beds until they either fall asleep or let them know they are ready to go to sleep. It worked well the first night. But last night was not so great. We heard a lot of movement and noise in our son's room. Apparently he thought he could get out of bed and do whatever he wanted. Eventually he came down to tell us he was ready to go to bed. Because he has a great sense of humor, he wanted to surprise Mommy by sneaking down and hiding in a corner to surprise her. It almost worked. I missed it but thought the idea was funny so I let him explain it to me before he went back up to bed. I fully intended to congratulate him on his cleverness, until I spotted something: blue lips. I asked him about it. He said he'd eaten some candy and tried to excuse himself by saying he'd brushed his teeth again afterwards. I looked at Mommy--the two of us understood what we needed to do. Calmly, she led him back upstairs and explained to him that we can no longer trust him to have his candy in his room. He was heart-broken, more that we were disappointed in him and lost some trust in him than about the candy. We explained that it was good to feel bad. It teaches us when things are wrong, like disobeying parents and trying to hide it from them. Then we told him that if he makes a mistake he doesn't need to hide it from us. If he does, that bad feeling will only get worse. The only way to make that feeling go away is to tell us the truth right away. And we promised that we wouldn't get made if he did. I thought we did a pretty good job of practicing what we were preaching in this instance. We've tried to explain all this before by having the kids wear backpacks and filling them with books until they became too heavy to bear. This is the first outrightly dishonest thing he's ever done. It surprised us. In a way, we are proud of him for lasting this long. We are also grateful that he feels terrible when he's lost our trust. On the other hand, it confirms my suspicion that we are only just beginning the adventure of parenthood and it will only get tougher.