making good choices

I talk to Connor a lot about making good choices. Emily is only two, but I know that she picks up a lot of what I say to Connor because I hear her repeating me. Her language ability is also very good for her age so I keep that in mind and give her the benefit of the doubt that she will understand what I'm telling her. So here's what happened tonight.

Sometimes I have to separate Connor and Emily when I leave them alone together, even if it’s just a minute. If I don’t give them an expectation, one of them usually does something to the other one and then it goes back and forth and escalates. So tonight, when I was going to take Camryn up to bed, I had Connor sit on one couch and Emily sit on the other. They had been at each other a bit when I was getting them ready for bed so I thought ahead to what might happen when I leave the room and go upstairs for a few minutes. I quickly came up with the couch separation. I told them, “Connor you sit here…Emily you sit here. Do not move from your spot. If you move from your spot, you will lose your book for tonight. Do you understand?” They both said yes so upstairs I went.

At the top of the stairs, once I was out of sight, Connor started telling Emily to get up. That little stinker. I almost intervened. I thought about going back down a few steps to reiterate my expectations so that Emily wouldn’t make the wrong decision. I thought, she’s two years old…am I expecting too much? Can she withstand the power of her older brother’s trickery? In my hesitation I heard something…Emily’s voice. I listened. She told Connor, “No, I’m not getting up Connor”. He kept at her…kept saying, “Come on Em, get up, Mom won’t mind.” And she repeated, “No Connor.” He said, “Come on Em, why not?” And here is what my two-year-old told her older and supposedly wiser brother (verbatim), “Mom said do not move and if I move, I will lose my book for bedtime”.

You go girl! I could not have been more proud of her.