Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to re: I was the "wonderful Mormon mom" in my neighborhood.

I bet he's a terrific kid.
Mary Anne — (archived)

He sounds like a little pistol. :) I like kids with a little spunk and good manners. A little pushback shows a child with intelligence who hasn't been intimidated. He'll think for himself when he gets older.

Thank you for the lovely compliment.

I have three rules when looking after other people's children, one for all of us and the other two just for me: no hitting, no favoritism, no appearance of favoritism. This child care outfit you describe has rough times ahead if this caregiver isn't separated from her child in a professional setting.

My children sometimes complained that I was stricter with them than with our guests. I pointed out that they got to pick the movies we rented for the rainy days, so they had more privileges, not less, but that those were between us, a kind of secret.

This is still true, at the library. They are expected to be models of appropriate behavior, but they get to eat in the tutor room, and they can use the computer in my office, the one with no timeout and no filters. You give, you take.

Tell you what, re: the soap. I found anti-thumbsucking/anti-nail biting liquid more effective. Put several drops on a plain popsicle stick and stick it right on his tongue. It's bitter as hell, it lasts for a while, you can throw the stick away, it's intended to go in a person's mouth (unlike soap, which contains lye), and it doesn't ever cause diarrhea, which soap will sometimes do if a chunk is swallowed. Also, though there's a certain old-fashioned charm to washing out someone's mouth, soap is not thereafter associated with punishment. Just a thought, should you ever need to teach an object lesson of this nature again. 8D

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