Last week we stopped at the local fruit and vegetable stand to pick up a few, you guessed it, fruits and vegetables. A few hours later, while playing in the backyard, Anna pulled out from behind her back an apricot that she had apparently stuffed into her pocket during our visit. I asked her if she thought it was okay to take something without paying for it. To which she responded, "Well, I thought it was a peach." In which case, it would have been perfectly all right for her to leave without paying... sometimes I think I overestimate my five-year-old's ability to reason.
It wasn't until the next day that we trekked over to the fruit stand a second time to make restitution for what was stolen. That morning, I explained what we were going to do: Anna would bring her purse, we would tell the owner what she'd done, weigh a comparable apricot to find out how much she owed, and pay the agreed amount. It went well. She was thoroughly embarrassed, of course, knowing that she had done something worth being embarrassed about. But I think she learned a valuable lesson about the steps involved in repentance. Still don't know if she fully grasps the concept of stealing, but I think we helped her see the difference between the before and after repentance feeling. I hope.
On the plus side, she came home and asked me what chores she could help out with to earn some extra money. We cleaned all mirrors and glass doors, dusted, and scrubbed all 3 bathrooms. She earned $3 to compensate for the 26 cents she had lost on the stolen apricot. Not bad at all.
2 comments:
Bravo. Good for you. And good for Anna, too. My question is, did she actually talk to the clerk at the fruit stand?
Nice Job mom! Also glad to see that someone else actually makes her kids really work for $$ compensation. Although Nathan usually loses his, so we stick with check marks, that are painstakingly earned and then traded in for purchases.
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