Sunday, September 5, 2010

small post on trust

This hasn't been a fun weekend. It has been a lot of emotional work. We are trying to impress upon a seven year old the importance of being a nice person instead of someone who lies and says mean things about people. Raine is fundamentally a good kid, but she tells lots of little lies, and as we all know, little lies turn into bigger lies. Mean comments, true or not, hurt people's feelings.

It has always been very important to me for my child to be someone I wanted to be around, share my time with, do things for. Acknowledging that there is a problem here isn't as easy as just letting things slide, but I think that is a mistake a lot of parents make. So it's been a difficult weekend for me, trying to balance how important an issue this is to me with how to present it as such to a seven year old. How do I know where her emotional/mental development leads her so that I know the best way to guide her or remind her appropriately?

How long _does_ it take to earn someone's trust back?

1 comment:

Fran said...

Oh my. I'm so sorry. That is a tough situation, and I think we all run into it -- I know I did with Ty -- and how you handle it depends on the child. And you.

But you're right, you can't let it slide in the long run, because it just grows, leading to really big problems.

Follow your instincts, realize that often the hard thing to do is the right thing to do, and try to make it clear that you do still love her even though you're deeply disappointed in her.

Tough, tough situation.