Tuesday, November 15, 2005

To Tell The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth..

Last night I attended Just 4 Me at our church. Ryan's mom spoke about parenting and providing our children with the Foundation to live life as a Christian. To teach them that as Christians we have a higher standard to live up to then society standards. Sharon had a list titled the ABC's of parenting and it was amazing. It was such a helpful tool of basic things we want to teach our kids, do as a family and simply remember as parents. Sharon did an excellent job it was so informative and helpful. Once our evening was finished I left with Cara Lee for our drive home. Of course I couldn't wait to get her opinion on a incident that happened in our home earlier that day. I hadn't thought much about it until this evening workshop. Sharon reminded us that our children are always watching us they take in the good but they also take in the bad. She was talking about telling a little white lie and how for children that is setting an example that sometimes it is ok to lie. HMMMMM do you think this struck a nerve? Let me tell you about "the incident". While we were at home earlier that day Caleb was flipping through a book at the coffee table. Josh was running around chanting something or other most likely "I am Luke Skywalker ready for battle", whatever the case something struck a nerve in Caleb. All of the sudden he started to push the book back and forth and proceeded to rip the last page out the book. I yelled for him to stop, ran over and once I arrived I saw what I feared was true. He was ripping a library book, one from Josh's school which Josh had chosen and brought home during library time at school. So now Josh is fully aware of this and that it is his book from school. Josh's immediate reaction is oh oh I have to tell my teacher that Caleb ripped my book. I cut him off and said oh I think I can fix it, ran and got the tape to fix the book made it look as good as new. Caleb assisted me then was sent on a time out. Josh kept saying I have to tell my teacher they are not going to be happy. Every time I heard him say this I could feel myself thinking oh man I hope he doesn't say anything tomorrow no one will notice as long as he doesn't say anything. But of course I said nothing thinking Josh will just forget about it. We all moved onto other activities and never spoke about it again. Now I am totally thinking about this book during the ABC's of parenting and setting the example of truth. I gave myself an out though if CaraLee thought it would be alright then I could just return the book and never have to say anything. I told her what happened and before she had a chance to offer her response I knew I couldn't let this go. I changed my question to her a bit, I asked her if I should have Caleb apologize and go and talk to the librarian Mr. Graham. Now you need to know this would be extremely hard for Caleb he is shy as it is and to fess up and verbalize this to an adult would be difficult. Cara Lee suggested I have Caleb make a card for Mr. Graham, excellent idea. And I figured we could take Josh to see Mr. Graham before class starts in the morning to show him the book and tell him what happened. So that is what we did. This morning Ry took Josh to see Mr. Graham and when I came to pick Josh up Caleb and I dropped off a card Caleb made for the librarian. When we left the school I asked Josh what Mr. Graham said Josh's response was oh he told the whole class what happened at library time and told us that Caleb is bad. I nearly busted a gut, this is the perfect example of a child adjusting a story. I called Ryan when we got home and asked him how Mr. Graham reacted Ryan said he was super nice and thanked Josh for bringing this to his attention.
We did it we told the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

No comments: