The Cough Drop

Yesterday Sayan went into my office and shut the door. I didn't think much of it and a few minutes later went to open the door to get something and he shot up and pushed the door shut: don't come in mommy, don't come in!

Such a response on the heels of 5 minutes alone in my office naturally set off alarm bells. The last time he spent quiet self-directed time in there he snipped into a thousand pieces two bills that were out. Sadly I had already paid them and his destruction did not cancel the debt.

So when I entered yesterday I was immediately wary, scanning for piles of debris. Efficient as any basketball player, he kept boxing me out from this one corner. Confused, I asked what he had done for I didn't see evidence of any disturbance. His response: It was a cough drop. I unwrapped it. I did, I unwrapped it and I don't want you to get angry.

He must have noticed a shift in my demeanor for, half-defiant, half-apologetic, he immediately blurted the rest of his confession: and and and I put the WHOLE thing in my mouth.

Aahhh.

The back story on the cough drop: we've been horribly sick the last week and Jai and I have taken to consuming cough drops as if they were candy (which given the sugar content as compared with our regular diet, they are). Anyway Sayan's sugar radar went off early in the game and he would unearth the cough drops from beneath pillows and drawers. At first the most exciting part for him was unwrapping them, untwisting the brightly colored paper like a magpie. So I would walk around the house and there would be half a dozen unwrapped cough drops lying around. I was able to salvage a few but it was a hassle and I soon found they could not be salvaged as there were little bits of hair and debris stuck to them. That was when I realized he must have been licking or sucking on them. This completely freaked me out. Not so much him ingesting the cough drop content (these are organic brown rice syrup citrus drops) but rather him having the whole drop in his mouth as it is perfect choking size.

So the law was quickly established 1. No unwrapping cough drops unless mommy or daddy needs one and sanction the action or they will be wasted (a concept he understands) and 2. Absolutely NEVER EVER put the whole cough drop in his mouth-- we have taken to mincing them and letting him get his fix that way. We explained very clearly that this rule (#2) was for his safety. He understands safety rules (such as walking with scissors properly, not reaching for knives, no playing with blind cords etc) are heavily enforced when not respected (long timeouts with the door shut).

And now here I was confronted with a situation where he had clearly broken a safety rule. But even though he had verbalized his fear I would get angry, he had still semi-voluntarily confessed and I didn't want to punish him and then have him feel he couldn't come to us and share when he does break the rules, even safety rules.

So at the same time I wanted him to understand how important safety rules are I didn't want to give an immediate time out as a response that might build in a pattern of fear that we would just punish and not understand if he shares with us when he breaks the rules.

And the way in which he had gone about this... Secretly sneaking as an experiment (rather than a deliberate flaunting of rule breaking which we get our fair share of) and then ultimately wanting to confide in me that he had broken the rules, I wanted him to feel I understood and could be a confidant. What I don't want is for him to go hide in the closet and suck on a cough drop and have a coughing fit and start choking somewhere where I have no idea what's going on and where he is!!

So I decided to forego the time out and instead we had a long talk again about safety rules and their value. I let him know that anytime he wanted to try to suck on "the whole thing" he should come to me and we can talk about it or I could at least break him a piece. I told him he wouldn't have a time out this time since he had told me what he had done and explained again that we give time outs for rule breaking as a way for him to have some space to think about the choice he made and how he might choose differently in the future.

He was so sweet and attentive and understood what I was saying. I know he will keep experimenting with things, including breaking the rules, but safety rules are such a tricky balance to uphold as I want him to really understand the importance of respecting safety rules while not fearing sharing with us when he does break those rules. Eek, parenting.

I know it will just get stickier as he gets older and safety rules get even more delicate to enforce. I guess simply locking away all cough drops won't solve this dilemma. I just hope he doesn't feel he has to sneak "the whole thing" in the future.