raise my son to be a good person

the dog was located and is home. kiddo has been doing pretty good since the initial shakedown. he had one lapse that cost him more time and tears. he has been doing a lot of reading and drawing and he still doesn’t have any of his electronics back either. school just started so we want to make sure he keeps his focus and that he really understands how serious this whole situation has been; it is a transition so we need to get past first week or so before we start giving back at all.

this may very well be one of the most important lessons of his life, i hope we get it right…

so kiddo got busted lying to us. so the shakedown begins (can you say spoiled brat?)
all his DVR events have been deleted
all his electronics have been removed
he has been locked out of his dish receiver and the cartoon channels of our tvs
he has no privileges and the trust and confidence we had in him has been revoked

(this is really the worst part of parenting in my opinion)

the lectures have been interspersed between all this

mistakes are expected, that is how you learn, lying about them can have all sorts of consequences for him and us that he has no way to understand as a child and lying can get him killed in this day and age…

he lied about not feeding and watering the dog
he got caught because the dog seems to have been gone since early that morning and there wasn’t any food and water waiting on him; the dog is a wolf/husky and while he is a big teddy bear his is big and scary looking if that sort of thing scares you; if the dog reacts badly to someone behaving stupidly around him or hurts a farm animal or anything, we’d be liable; we might have found the dog if kiddo had done his chores he’d have realized the dog was gone and could have told us and hubby could have gone looking for the dog;

it is unlikely there will be any terrible consequences to this lapse, this time. what about next time? that can’t happen so we have to impress upon him the importance of being responsible for his choices and owning up to his mistakes and being honest to us about what is going on with his life.