4.03.2008

the apology letter

I had a great Love and Logic moment today! Despite Ty being a total pain in the whatever, I was totally in control of myself during his naughtiness and he learned a great lesson. I won't go into all the details of how his misbehavior came about, but in short, his spur of the moment good idea was to plop himself in the middle of the parking lot as opposed to getting in the car with the rest of us. - He was apparently set on carrying this "good idea" out and refused to get in the car. Enter . . . "lost privilege" dun dun dun. he hates that phrase, I mean bad. What will it be, what privilege has slipped away from his tiny little grasp? Watching a movie during Beckham's nap. Needless to say, he was none too pleased with the privilege eloping on him and apparently I was at fault for it's loss as he decided to give me a little smackaroo. Yikes! The biggest problem for me at this point is that I was out of options, out of ammo, out of tricks if you know what I mean. I had already let fly the "lost privilege." I pondered a moment while I lugged the lug to the car.

Matthias called me during the trip home and we considered what to do. Where Ty feels no real attachment to or great interest in playing with his toys, taking those away is simply not effective. We decided that since he had hurt mommy, that he needed to do something to help mommy. Matthias suggested that Ty draft an "I'm sorry" type letter and do some housework to lighten mommy's load. Good plan.

So, I implemented the ever-so-clever plan by asking Ty what he was going to do to make things better? He responded, "Say sorry?" Gonna take more than that. "Hug?" Warmer. "Kiss?" Closer still, but there's more. I gave him a couple of ideas of how he could make things better and he chose to write me an apology letter and clean all my windows. Below is the "I'm sorry" letter in all of its I'm Sorryness.


I asked him to read it to me and this is what it says word for word (I transcribed it while he told me so I could remember.) "I love you berry much. I won't ever hit you first at all. I'll always play with you very nice. I'll always have fun with you. I'm sorry and give you a hug."

As for the windows, Ty actually did a decent job cleaning them. I can't say that they look incredible, but better than I expected. He has a good wax on wax off motion. On top of that, the kid is darn cute.

8 comments:

Carla said...

I LOVE this!! great idea!! i will certainly impliment this plan one day, when the appropriate opportunity arises!

Ola said...

That's the spirit!!! :)

Lenzi Woodbury said...

You are my HERO! Good thinking Mom! Chandler & Trey are the same way about their toys; they could care less if they were gone. I think we should all do a tag called "What to do when your kid is having a meltdown". It could list several techniques and strategies for everyone to use. So get to work! :)

ads said...

Good job, Anj. Way to keep your cool! Isn't Love and Logic just great? I wish I had known about it sooner than when you all were teenagers. Maybe it would have saved a bit of frustration and grief. I would have loved to hear Ty read you his apology letter.

Juliana said...

That is a wonderful lesson!! Good Job..I will have to use that one on Ryan..

Heather said...

What a cute boy! I love the letter! I hope I will be a good mom like you... :)

Keri Hennefer said...

So Cute! Way to go on controlling the anger, your a great example! What a good idea, I'll have to try it with McKinlee!

Sus said...

Well done and I adore the sorry transcription, as well as the furious art therapy look of the letter itself. Save that one for posterity. Send him over if he needs more windows to clean.

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