Consequences

Tonight during spelling homework, jaimee got very cross because she spelt the word "altar" as "alter". She tried telling me that she had written an a not an e there, but I assured her that even if she had meant to do that. her teacher wouldn't read this word as spelt right and neither did I. Fair enough right? Well, grouchy jaimee grumbled and stomped and whinged before writing very angrily and harshly the word "ALTAR" out correctly on paper 5 times. Ok right? No. Problem was, she wasn't leaning on anything on our soft wooden coffee table.  In her complete rage and anger she hadn't thought about that, and the rule about leaning on something when writing was forgotten. And I called her up on it warning her right in the middle of her angry writing "you better not be marking my table with that hard writing jaimee".

Pulling the paper up furiously, she burst into tears at what she saw.

Mummy was right. And cross. Yet, how could I scream at the crying daughter, sobbing as she realised what she had done was permanently embedded for all to see her wrongdoing. She was so sorry, I could tell. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" she wailed as I ranted to her about how anger makes you do silly things doesn't it jaimee?! She sobbed "what's my punishment?" Sigh. I don't know, she was doing a pretty Good job of punishing herself. I told her I would think about it. She ran off crying "I guess I will just sleep on the bathroom floor tonight I'm such. Bad child". (Yes, she is a tad dramatic)z 

Five minutes later I called her into the room, having decided she did need a consequence. I asked her to write me an apology letter, explaining why she had done this and why it was wrong. Off she went quietly, I think she was happy to have something to do to "fix it". 

A few minutes later I got this in an envelope:

She cried and cried. I hugged her close and told her yes I forgave her and I still loved her - nothing could ever stop me loving her even when I am cross with her. We talked about acting in anger leads to bad choices and this should be a lesson to her to think before she acts. 

She's happy now. It's over. But i now have a constant reminder of this story not just here on my blog, but embedded in my coffee table....