On Friday I told B I would buy him something he wanted on Saturday– for no reason. Well no reason to him, but I’ll explain that in a bit. His eyes lit up and I swear a look of incredulousness danced across his face for just an instant as if someone had taken over this guy that lives with his mom.

You see Poppy states in her Journal, ‘I have only become responsible with my money since meeting Paul’. To a 5 year olds point of view that translates to:
a) Life before Paul
b) Life after Paul

In the last little while there has been so much making ends meet. B seems to have it in his head, like any kid does, that a trip through the toy isle is a toy in his hands when he leaves. If it looks like he will remain empty handed it is sometimes with great waves of sadness and unmet expectations. I don’t use the word ‘no’. Instead I say things like, ‘maybe on your birthday’, or ‘on a special day’, or ‘let’s tell Santa’. The idea is to help him understand that the toys on the shelf stay there but for special days.

The other day B said to me, ‘before you we used to have chocolate peanut butter’, and it made me feel sad. I can understand totally how I must look to him. So that’s why he got to choose where we went and what he got on Saturday and the place of course was Toy R Us. It became our special day. The trip we where going to make together.

He led me around Toys R Us and showed me all the things he would ask for from Santa. A few times he picked up something really expensive to which I almost had to say, ‘That’s a bit too much money baby’ but indeed he ended up putting it back on the shelf. I never had to say that once.

So now B has a new toy puppy called Mick to go with Mick’s brother the tiger.

I haven’t done any reading on the subject as of yet so this might come across as a little un-informed but here it goes anyway.

I’ve noticed Little B, (almost 5) is not that rule oriented whereas in my limited experience I’ve noticed kids to be right into living by and making up their own rules at this age – younger actually.

My niece for instance, would say, “I need my coat before I go out” but it was the hottest day of spring. A friend’s kid said to me she couldn’t take her doll in the car because there wasn’t a seat for it. A friend and her 4 year old child was over. He is so into the rule about washing his hands after using the bathroom, he came downstairs with his hands out in front of him and a panicked look on his face because he couldn’t find the soap in our bathroom.

B makes a few of his own rules up but that’s mostly control stuff. He seems to be struggling with the simplest of rules by either shouting back his own rules or full blown temper tantrums.

It’s not fair to say we don’t have rules, we do but we seem to give him such a wide berth that he never actually runs into them and experiences them. A ‘for instance’ of this is riding his bicycle and wearing a helmet: He doesn’t follow the ‘must wear a helmet’ rule when riding his bike – so we say, “you can’t ride your bike without wearing a helmet” to which he shrugs his shoulders and walks away from it. He doesn’t EVER ride his bike anymore and simply doesn’t care.

I sometimes think we might be unconsciously avoiding rules that will lead to confrontation. So when he heads outside with no pants on – say, we simply put pants on him instead of making a rule around it with a consequence for not following it. Maybe it’s the consequences we’re not up on.

All I know is: Does it really matter not wearing pants outside at this age? Maybe not. Is it important to be able to follow rules without losing your beans? Hell yea.

It's the non-age appropriate rules that I want to create like brushing teeth, washing hands, eating at the table, respecting peoples’ bodies, inside vs. outside voices.

Any suggestions or help would be appreciated


crossposted