Consequences

Well, Toby learned a new word yesterday: consequences. He was already familiar with cause and effect: if you have your hand near a nail and miss, you will likely hit your hand. He's not great at predicting cause and effect, but he respects my judgement most of the time.

I must preface this story by saying no none got hurt, nor did anything major occur. But I feel that by introducing that word to Toe, we have entered a new phase in our relationship, one where Toe is expected to take more responsibility for his actions.

I also have to say, being an only child sometimes stinks. You can't get away with anything. If Toe had a younger sibling, this event would have probably gone unnoticed or would have happened with a quick clean up and not the "consequences" that happened. I have a niece who does this kind of stuff regularly when my sister's back is turned.

The first time it happened, I let it slide.

Toe was given a lovely box of blocks that had a layer of Styrofoam at the bottom. The blocks nestled perfectly inside the box and it took some serious concerted effort to make them fit. It was a puzzle complicated for an adult, so the blocks were moved to a bigger venue. The box with the Styrofoam has remained in the living room. One day I found Toe poking holes in the Styrofoam with a drumstick. He was having such fun, I didn't want to take it away from him. I said, "Hey Buddy, did you ask me if you could do that?" Long pause.
"No."
"Next time, ask me before you start tearing apart something like that. I'm fine with it, but ask please."
"Ok Mom."
He went on poking holes.

Toe has worked on this piece for weeks. Slowly ripping off pieces, rolling them in his fingers until they break into small pieces, poking holes in the middle and seeing if any pieces drop off. It has been a complete project and I have been fascinated by the intensity with which he approaches this.

He got ready to work on it the other day and I said, "There are getting to be a lot of little pieces in there. You can play with it in the box, but I don't want you to get any on the floor."

Thirty minutes later, his bedroom floor was covered with Styrofoam snow. "Toby, I TOLD you I didn't want you to get any on the floor. Now you need to pick it up, every last piece."

Toe said, "You'll help me, right?'

"NO," I said,"I won't."

"But that's not fair," he said, "We should pick it up together." (we do almost always clean together).

"Not fair?" My voice was rising a little by this time, "I ASKED you not to spread that around and you  CHOSE to do it anyway. When that happens, there are consequences for your actions. You need to clean it up."

Long pause. "Ok, you might have a point there." Longer pause as he picked up the tiny pieces, then, "Mom, this goes a lot faster if we work together..."

Needless to say, Toe picked up all of the Styrofoam pieces and we talked about how hard they are to pick up. I told him that when I was his age, we had a bean bag chair with a bad leak and my mom removed all of the Styrofoam balls and stuffed it with giant chunks of foam rubber (not the most uncomfortable solution, but highly unattractive to a five year old).

All in all, I think the lesson went pretty smoothly. Time will tell if it stuck. The more I thought about it, the more I realize that consequences are a huge part of our adult lives. And often, we don't think about consequences when we act. Or we weigh the consequences with our desire to do whatever it is and desire wins. When I go to bed late, I often do it with the knowledge that I will pay for it the next day or the day after (this gets worse, the older I get). When I eat foods that are great for Toe, but not so great for me, I pay for it over time. Pretty much every action has a positive or negative consequence, and although I advocate living in the moment as much as you can, I also believe it is important to be aware that choices made now will have those consequences. Toe's lesson could have been easily applied to many of the choices I make, except as a grown up I don't get called on it as often.

So, consequences. You can bet Toe and I both will be paying a little better attention to the possible outcomes of our actions.