Standoff in the Not Okay Corral | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Standoff in the Not Okay Corral | Previous Challenge Entry
By Karen Lucille Gross
06/06/18
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES

Before we had kids, Hubby and I had great parenting advice that we were going to follow. You can stop laughing now. We were going to strike the right balance between permissive and authoritarian. Pick our battles carefully so that we would say “yes” more often than “no”; saying “no” only if what they wanted was “illegal, immoral, or life threatening” (thank you, Barbara Coloroso. We were going to be loving, patient, and supportive. Our kids would love God, love and respect us, and be ready for their place in this world. Please stop laughing, we know better now.

Reality discipline, natural consequences, punishments that suited the crime – all good parenting skills to practice. Never discipline out of anger. Hold off on punishment until you are sure that they are guilty. Teach them to repent when they are guilty and to forgive others, just as God forgives them.

You know where this is going, don’t you. We had kids. Two of them, both girls, born twenty-seven months apart. Cute as buttons. The smartest, most well behaved babies in the nursery. Then we took them home. Okay, you may laugh now if you want to.

One day when `they were 6 and 8 years old, the four of us were at the grocery store. The younger darling asked Daddy for a package of candy. He said no. Later that evening, she had a package of candy in her pocket. I asked her where she got it. She said her teacher gave it to her. To give her the benefit of innocent until proven guilty, I called her teacher. Her teacher said that she had not given candy to any of her students that day.

So I confronted my angel and asked for an honest answer. She said that she was mistaken; it was the school secretary who gave her the candy. I called the school secretary. Another no. Another confrontation. No, now she remembered: it was the church secretary (our school shared a building with the church). Next, she said that no, it wasn’t the lady at the front desk; it was one of the other ladies who work in the church office. I called all of the women who had been working in the church office that day. Finally, I found one who said yes, she did give my child a candy that day. Was my sweetie-pie telling the truth after all? Good thing I had not punished her. I asked the woman on the phone what kind of candy she gave the darling. No, it wasn’t a package of candy. It was just a peppermint from her desk drawer. Rats! I wanted my little one to come clean and admit that she stole the candy from the store, and that it was a lie that someone gave it to her.

It took a week. When she finally admitted her guilt, I asked her why she hadn’t just been honest from the start. She said she didn’t want me to make a fuss.

I wish I could say that my daughter never told another lie. There was another lie that took years to come clean. I made a fuss again, but that’s another story. To make a long story short is not a skill that I have ever mastered, so thank you for reading.

PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY
SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY FOR THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE

The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE

JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.