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Angry Squirrel

 An incident just happened. Brief summary: yesterday Theo and I were talking. Jane brought us a game piece that was broken. I told her we were busy and to take it back downstairs. 

This morning the piece was missing. Jane adamantly and repeatedly denied she had anything to do with the piece. Wouldn't even acknowledge she'd touched it yesterday. For about half an hour I said she had to look for it and couldn't play with other toys till she found it. She whined and moped and didn't really look. Eventually life moved on.

This afternoon, while James and Kate were playing with the game, Jane got the piece from where she'd hidden it and made them happy by supplying the missing piece. Later I came in, saw it there, and began trying to unravel what happened. 

At first Jane got panicky and started to try to lie (she's a terrible liar. She looks off into space for ages and says uhm, uhm, a dozen times while she's trying to think of a lie--which is always preposterous.) I interrupted her first attempt at lying but 1) reassuring her she wasn't in trouble and wouldn't be in trouble for the missing piece no matter what she said, but, 2) she would get in trouble for lying so why didn't she take a time out and remember the truth. I assured her she could come out of time out as soon as she was ready to tell me, she wasn't in trouble. 

About 10 minutes later she comes out. Still very scared. Had to go over the only-in-trouble-if-lying thing several times. I got her to tell me a small, easy truth (what she was chewing on--a fingernail) first and then emphatically praise her and hug her to get her reassured that telling the truth was best.

Finally, this is what she told me: yesterday she got mad when I told her to go downstairs, and because she was mad she hid the piece. Simple and plain as that. She was mad. She hid it. Nothing complicated. Just inexplicable 4yo response. 

Today she was stressed when I told her to find it and she couldn't remember where it was. Then, later, while the kids were playing with it she did remember. 

So much there. First, she's just a little kid and little kids are weird and do inexplicable things. Second, she can't think straight and remember anything when stressed. Third, she has to be clearly praised and taught that telling the truth is easy and good. 

Retraining and retraining and retraining. Always.

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