You Wanna Double Down?

Poor Zachary. The life lessons are just never ending for him during these winter doldrums. His too-advanced-for-his-physical-age brain is just Energizer Bunnying it around in his skull while his body is physically cooped up in this house. The end result being almost hourly reprimanding. It's gotten to the point where he's even disgusted with himself, but just can't seem to stop himself.

Yesterday's lesson was about how few choices a 5 year old really has. We had made Valentine's cards earlier in the day, with little candy bars inside each one. There were a few candy bars left, but the kids needed to make a few more cards, so I told them not to eat the rest of the candy bars until after we finished the entire project.

Later that afternoon, I was upstairs with Cole and Ava. Zach had been downstairs playing. He came up, and brought me his toothbrush and toothpaste, asking me to squeeze some paste onto his brush (this is one of his rules, since when he does it himself, he just can't help but to perform experiments of pressure, volume and torque on the tube).

Now, when Zach brings me his toothbrush spontaneously, at 1:30 in the afternoon, asking to brush his teeth, something has obviously gone down. He's trying to dispose of evidence. So instead of taking his brush and paste, I asked "Why do you want to brush your teeth?". He said, "Oh, I just do!" all casual, like it's completely normal for him to be concerned with his oral hygiene at 1:30 on a Thursday. "I didn't brush this morning" he said, with all the earnestness of Hermey..."I'd like to be a dentist!"



I said, "You have one minute to tell me the truth about why you want to brush your teeth. If you don't tell me the truth, you will get a spanking."*

He looked at me with a little glimmer of fear and asked, "So what will happen if I DO tell you the truth?"

"That, I cannot tell you. All I can tell you FOR SURE is that if you DON'T tell the truth, you'll get a spanking. If you do tell me the truth, then we'll have to see. You might get in trouble, you might not. But think about this: if you DON'T tell the truth, then you will get a spanking. And then when I find out what the truth was, your chances of ANOTHER spanking increase dramatically, because I'm so irritated that you didn't tell me the truth about it to begin with.

So if you lie to me right now, the chances of TWO spankings occurring go waaaay up. One for lying, one for the actual crime committed. The way I see it, your best bet is to tell the truth, and maybe face just one spanking. Weigh the odds carefully, and let me know what your choice is".

He paid very close attention to my speech, and then turned his head to the side to think. The wrinkles on his forehead while he pondered were so extreme I could barely hold in the laughter. Then he sighed and said, "Ok, I'll tell the truth," and admitted to eating a candy bar.

Good call, buddy! Because I appreciated the solemnity with which he considered the options, he was just banned from playing the Wii for the rest of the day, although that lesser punishment produced a reaction that gave the impression he'd have rather chosen the spanking.

There's always next time, Zachary.

*disclaimer: obviously this tactic is only justly carried out when a child is young, and you already know what the "truth" is, or at least a very good idea of what it is. The hope is they learn the value, at this young age, of telling the truth even when it's hard to do so and will continue on in that trend.