Telling the Truth

I caught my daughter red handed. 

She got into the car last Thursday afternoon and proceeded to play with a bunch of small orange beads as we drove home.  I asked her where they had come from.  I obviously knew they had come from school, since that was where I had just picked her up, but I wanted to see what kind of story she would spin for me.  The fact she had them in her shoe was a tip off.

She started off strong and said she had gotten them at school.  I then asked her why she had them and what she was supposed to do with them.  Was it some kind of "homework"? She dodged the question and mumbled some gobbledygook to me.  I asked if she was allowed to bring them home and she mumbled yes.  As I wasn't satisfied with her answers, I asked again what she was supposed to be doing with the beads.  She finally admitted she wasn't supposed to take them home at all. 

AHA!  Gotcha! (I did not say this out loud)

When we arrived at our place, we collected all the beads that had spilled everywhere, put them in a zip lock bag and put them in the back of her lunch box.  I told her we were going to have to return them to her teacher and explain what had happened.  The babe wasn't happy about that.  She looked down, ashamed and with a slightly frightened look on her face, said, "do I have to?" 

I've decided I am not going to mess around with this taking things that don't belong to you stuff.  So I explained that if we take things we're not supposed to, we have to bring them back and apologize.

So Friday morning rolls around and we walked up to the Head teacher.  I gave a little briefing on the situation and let the babe take over.  She looked quite sheepish and said she was sorry.  She proceeded to listen to her teacher remind her of their previous discussions about thinking through our actions and using our brain to make the right decision. 

It was monumental.  The babe, I think, learnt an important lesson.  And rather than letting this just slide, I'm glad I held her accountable.  Perhaps this lesson will help guide future behavior, perhaps not.  Regardless, I did what I could do and have now made it through another "first."