Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Stealing Her Joy


Last week Charlotte and Ruby decided they were going to build hammocks in the back yard with some old sheets. I was completely fine with this idea. I thought it was fun, creative and going to allow them to use their problem solving skills. I know, it is shocking that my first answer wasn't "No!" I was completely on board, even if I did not think they would be successful.

Ruby came in to get duct tape. Their plan was to tape the sheets up. I told her they could t use the duct tape on the sheets. A few minutes later they were braiding duct tape to make a rope. At this point, I very clearly told them, "no duct tape, at all." It was my only rule of this project. I went back to making dinner.

About 30 minutes later they came in very excited. They had made a hammock! They were very proud of themselves and I was very proud of me for sticking with the project and making it work. Until, I walked outside and saw...



Yep, that's a whole lot of duct tape holding up that hammock. I sent my daughter to her room for willfully disobeying. She was furious. When she tried to yell at me I told her she could write her feelings down and share them with me but she was not going to yell at me.

She returned a bit later with this:



After we calmly discussed how creative and determined she was, we addressed the willfully breaking the rules. She conceded that I did have a point. Then she and Ruby skipped back out and made two more hammocks with no duct tape! Ironic isn't it?



My guess is that duct tape will never come off of the swing set

Jenn

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