Well, the 2-year old is the one who had the green cup and she was a-ok with the darker lid so she said, “Yeah! This one is mine!” And, I thought it was, too, so I found the 5-year old’s insistence that the dark lid was hers to be very annoying. And, she didn’t give up on it. No. She kept on and on about it!
She cried.
She crossed her arms.
She insisted.
She said, “No!”
She fussed about it, kicked, and fought about it…for a few weeks…then finally let it go and accepted the light pink lid.
Well, as it turns out after years of needing sippy cups in my life, these cups proved to be the bestest ones ever! They have no “inserts” or hidden crevices to collect eewie stuff. No parts to lose. Nothing gross. And, they never spill! They’re great!
So, I decided I wanted to get another package of them before they’re no longer made…and I thought then that I’d switch the dark pink lid off of the one I’d buy and let the 5-year old have a dark pink lid, too.
Well…guess what I found out when I grabbed a new package off the shelf?
Left is the new pink sippy cup I just bought…
I was wrong. Totally wrong. She was right.
And, she was right to argue with me and to fight for the fact that she was right and being falsely accused and dismissed!
What if…when I was convinced that I was right that I’d have identified her defiant attitude as “disobedience” or as “rebellion” and had spanked her for arguing with me about the lid?!
Just IMAGINE the damage that coulda’ been done to her? It horrifies me to think of it! And, now you can’t tell me that fallible parents who use corporal punishment don’t sometimes make those errors? (How many times did I do this with my other kids before I stopped doing this?)
Just listen to the music that’s most popular with teenagers…the themes in these songs are, “grown-ups don’t understand me”, “life’s not fair”, “grown-ups don’t listen to me”…etc… Teenagers rebelling is common…but we’ve mistakenly come to believe that that means it is a normal stage of development. It is not normal. It is common because of the way we Westerners raise our kids.
On the positive side of this story…
The coolest thing happened with my 5-year old when I came home with the cups. I immediately went to her and showed her the package. I said, “Elisa…do you see what lid is on the pink cup? I was wrong. I am so sorry! Will you forgive me?”
Her reaction was so awesome! She jumped up and put her arms around my neck and gave me a tight hug and said, “I love you Mommy!” and THEN…she ran off and found Dad and told him all about what I’d just told her! It totally touched her so much!
She had been wronged and she hadn’t forgotten it…
I am thankful that I do not have the memory of myself hurting her for it…
