Erin actually ate her dinner tonight, and last night. It was insane. Last night, I gave her and Orren ice cream and bananas. Tonight, the ice cream truck came by, and she said she had $1 to go get something. I told her she was still grounded from running off this past weekend, so she most certainly was not getting anything from the ice cream truck. To that, she replied, "I guess I'll just have to eat the chocolate ice cream, then." in a tone of voice that would have been better matched with a statement like, "I guess I'll have to pluck my hair out one by one until I'm bald." or "I guess I'll just have to eat dog poop." I told her that we'd see if she got any ice cream or not, that she needed to eat her dinner because it's the right thing to do, not because she thinks she's going to get ice cream. (Plus, Orren didn't eat his, so no way is he getting anything, and I don't want her up all night eating ice cream. I want to get them both to bed within the next hour and a half.)
The fact is, Erin hasn't been a very good kid lately. She's run off, refused to eat most of the time, gotten crappy grades compared to what she used to get, totally half-assed her homework, and just not been very good to deal with. So ice cream, just for eating her dinner, which is what she should do every night anyway? I'm not really feeling it two nights in a row. Maybe in a few days she can have some again, but it just seems like making this "I eat dinner so I can have ice cream" correlation crosses the line between rewarding good behavior, and bribing a kid to do what they should do anyway. Hell, I don't know.....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment