Fail? or Success!

My recent parenting fail which I have now turned into my most recent parenting success.

Two weekends ago Liam was going to his very first friend birthday party. He was so excited and when I told him that we needed to go to the store to buy his friend a present, he was ecstatic.

We decided to get his friend a Busy Book, TMNT (that's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), since Liam already has 3 different ones and plays with them often. Once we entered the store I saw that they were all marked down about 50% and my brain said, "WooHoo! A sale! Let's buy them all!"

And instead of keeping my mouth shut and having a debate in my brain with myself I said, "Hey, look Liam, they have a superhero busy book, do you need this?" And what little boy would say anything different than "YES! Or actually I want this one!"

AAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Why did I just say that out loud!

I want to raise Liam into a caring, compassionate, loving boy, friend, man and husband. I do not want him to think everytime a friend or Caroline gets something that automatically means that he also gets a present as well.

Back pedal, back pedal, up a giant hill. Parenting fail.

Here's how I turned it around:

"You know what Liam? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. We are here because we are buying a present for your friend. This is his birthday and this day is about him, not you. We are just going to buy the present for your friend that we came into the store to get and then we are going to leave."

Did he throw a tantrum? Surprising not. Was he happy about what I had just said? Absolutely not.

And so I decided on the walk to the car that one lesson wasn't enough for Liam to learn in this moment. I decided to also teach Liam about saving and earning for the things we want in life. Our society, more than ever, is an acquisitive one where possessing as many material things that we can get is most people's priority. I want Liam to understand what it means to work hard for the things that you want.

So, I told him that another day we will come back and buy that special Busy Book. But he will have to work hard to be able to do that. We now have a point system in place. If he is helpful to his sister, myself or Evan in a way we feel is worthy, he gets a point. If he gets himself buckled into his carseat without screaming, he gets a point. If he is not being a good listener or doesn't eat his meals he gets points taken away. So far he is understanding this concept extremely well. So far Evan and I are loving this new concept as well for behavioral reasons.

He has about half of his 20 points needed in a week and a half. He's doing very well and we often hear, "Is that worth a point?"