Spitting Incident

Last night I was relaxing when my 4 year old son came in and said something to me. He was obviously excited because as he said it he spit on himself. I mentioned something to him about his spitting on himself, to which he smiled and spit in my face.

Now, he is a challenging child at times. His goal in life is to make people laugh, even if that means he gets into trouble. He is only 4 years old so many times his idea of what may be funny can be questionable. This was obviously one of those times. It was obvious he was not being defiant, he just had it in his head that it was funny.

I proceeded to slap his mouth. Not hard, but enough to get his attention. While I do agree with spanking when needed, I usually don't agree with slapping a child on the face, but in some cases (biting, spitting, cursing) a light but firm "tap" on the lips gets their attention faster than anything else can. Especially with a child who believes something is funny. This got his attention and he realized that mommy was not fooling around.

After I had his attention I explained to him that spitting in someone's face was not funny. In fact it is rude and disrespectful. When I punish my children for something I've learned to talk to them immediately after to make sure they understand why they are in trouble. Then I have them apologize to whomever was affected and we all confirm we love one another - usually with kisses and hugs.

After I spoke to him about why he got into trouble, it was time for the apology. Obviously though the way I asked it this time, confused him a bit.

"Ok, so what do you say now?"

A little bit of a confused look passed over his face, then he smiled and says in a cheerful voice, "Thank you, Mommy!"

I started laughing, I could not help myself. I usually tell him to say he is sorry. He is obviously used to the above question being asked in different circumstances. He was a bit confused but eager to please! As I am trying to stop laughing he, smiles at me then his face scrunches up in a bit more confusion. A bit more tentatively this time he says, "Your welcome?"

"No, honey. Mommy means what do you say when you've done something you should not do?"

He is a bit dramatic at times so this time he really scrunches up his face, rolls his eyes up and put his finger to the side of his mouth. Obviously really putting some thought into this one. Then he looks back at me with a huge smile, that dipple of his coming to life.

"I know Mommy! I'm sorry!!!" With that he put his arms around me, gave me a big huge kiss on the cheek and ran off very pleased with himself.

I was left sitting there smiling to myself thinking about how much I love that little boy!