The teacher becomes the student.

A while ago we had a little issue with the way Matthew would sometimes act toward Anthony, especially when (he thought) no one was looking. Nothing major...he would squeeze his hand a little too hard, nudge him until he tumbled over, just acted a little rough. Sometimes it wasn't intentional. Sometimes it clearly was. So this was problem A. Problem B - If they were alone in a room or just out of sight from one of us and Anthony would start crying, I'd go in and just ask what happened. I never accused Matthew of doing anything, simply wanted to know what happened. I started getting this reply: "I didn't do nuffin, I didn't hurt him, I didn't make him cry." Hmm, ok.

Every once in a while, I would linger, or quietly check on them. And I would actually see him trying to hurt him. And again: "I didn't do nuffin, I didn't hurt him, I didn't make him cry." Right. I did our usual discipline dance, told him how we tell each other the truth, we don't hurt each other, blah, blah, blah...it didn't seem to work. So I sought the advice of my mommy friends and one of them told me about Pinocchio - how she would tell her child that her nose was going to grow a little every time she fibbed. Brilliant! Yes, I was going to teach my child to tell the truth by telling him a lie. Don't judge me.

That night, it happened...say it with me now: "I didn't do nuffin, I didn't hurt him, I didn't make him cry." Even though I saw him. So I tried it. He grabbed his nose as a look of panic came over his face. And he told me that he pushed Anthony and he fell. And he did it "not on accident". I thanked him for telling me the truth and he walked to time out holding his nose.

There's a point to this, I promise!

Fast forward to tonight. I'm getting Anthony ready for bed and bumped his head on the dresser by accident. He starts crying, Matthew comes over to see what's wrong. With the most serious look on his face, arms crossed, he says, "Mommy! What did you do to Hampy?!" I bumped his head on the dresser. "We don't hurt each other! Let me see your nose!!" All I could do was laugh. I asked him if my nose grew and he said no. Then he told me to say sorry to Hampy, which I did. And we all hugged.

Hey, you gotta be able to dish it out and take it I suppose.

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(By the way, problems A and B are few and far between these days.)