Our daughter has grown up an only child. She doesn’t know what it’s like to get lumped into the misdeeds of a sibling or to draw someone else into your own shenanigans. She gets rewarded or punished and receives mercy or grace on her own.
When she got home from school today, she played teacher. I noticed that she was disciplining her stuffed animal students in a clear warning/time-out/severe punishment scale. I asked her if she had gotten in trouble today.
No, she explained. But then she had to explain. “If someone does something and our teacher has to say something enough times, we all get punished.”
Apparently today was one of those days. The teacher had to warn the class too many times, and the entire class had to lay their head down three separate times.
In general, I think it’s good for my daughter to learn this lesson when the stakes are low: sometimes you suffer the consequences of someone else’s poor decision. You are not an island. You are part of group.
I also hope that it prompts this thought in my daughter: “I’m not going to do anything that would get someone else in trouble.” That would a be a great life rule for a six-year-old to put into practice.
Learning Together 