Lesson Learned!

Well, Carter learned a very important lesson tonight. Every night before bed we brush his teeth and wash his hands. And EVERY night when we squirt some soap into his one hand he takes his pointer finger from his other hand, scoops up some of the soap with it, and then pretends to put it in his mouth. Then every night I say "not a good idea monkey! You can taste it if you want but you won't like it!" Usually he just moves on and washes his hands.

Tonight he made the mistake of actually licking the soap off his finger. His first reaction was "mmMM!" So my first thought was oh great, now he's going to do it every night. I waited a few seconds and got the reaction I was hoping for. Carter got a disgusted look on his face and said "tongue hurts!" So I gave him some water and then he said "feels better!", and we finished washing his hands.

Then while I put his pj's on him he said again "tongue hurts" and started to cry. We went to get some more water and again he said "feel better!" then I asked "will you try that again?" He shook his head no.

Success!!

It just shows that some lessons need to be learned (thank you Alyson Schafer for teaching me that there's no point "arguing" over things children can learn easily themselves, without harm). We could have argued with him every night to not do it, which would have become a power struggle, and would have ended with him doing it anyway. Instead it was easier to just let him learn for himself. Going forward we won't say a word if he pretends to do it and I would bet just about anything that he won't do it again. We'll see though.

Looking forward to whatever lessons Carter and I might learn tomorrow!