The Worth of a Cookie

How many times have you come to a decision on a disciplinary action for your children only to have it completely not have the effect you were hoping. This happened to me the other day with Haven.

Haven has this thing with waking in the middle of the night or real early in the morning to eat. She will get into the pantry and eat anything she can reach. Then knowing she has done something wrong she hides all evidence. One morning I found she had eaten 3 cereal bars and hid the wrappers under her chest in her bedroom. I have learned the chest is her favorite place to hide evidence and so I check it often. I'm always amazed at how much she gets past us.

My friend Jen is an incredible baker. I enjoy all things made by her. She had made her chocolate chip cookies and brought them to work. Yummy. That day I was not eating sweets so I took 2, put them in a baggy and took them home to enjoy the next day. I was pretty excited to reward myself with her cookies.

I made sure to hide them in my room so Haven wouldn't find them and eat them. The next day while getting ready for work I noticed the bag was a cookie short. I found out Todd did not eat it, my next person to question was Haven. It was her. I was a little sad and upset, one of us, Todd or me was not going to get to enjoy a cookie.

Punishment for Haven was a talk about stealing. When she takes something from someone else that is stealing and so she must pay for it. She has no concept of how much money actually is, but she does know that she wants to save her money to buy things. The cost of one cookie was a quarter, since she doesn't know how much it's worth, she does realize it is the biggest coin. My job done on this one.

A few hours later I am in my room folding laundry and Haven walks in carrying her ladybug money bank. Very quietly, almost like testing the waters to see if she might get in trouble before asking the real question. She says, "Since I already payed a dollar for the cookie, how much can I pay for the rest of them?" Handing over her bank.

It was worth giving up her money to have those cookies. Lesson not learned.