Lessons are Sometimes Hard

On Tuesday I was putting away clothes in Kyle's room. He was in there and he kept bringing cars up to me and asking if he got these in a package or not. I kept saying I'm not sure where that car came from, because I wasn't sure where some of them had come from. For the past month or so he has been coming home from school with cars. He told me they where from the treasure box at school. He would get in the car, hold up the car and with a grand smile announce that he had gotten a prize from the treasure box. I was happy for him and smiled back. Then we drove home and I never really thought any more about it (do you know where this is leading yet?).

Well, here we are in his room and I am now seated comfortably on the floor matching up his little socks and he is piling his cars. Some go back in his cubby and some are getting piled up next to me. When the colorful pile of little metal cars gets to be about 10 or 15 he looks at me and says that he needs to take these back to school. What???? I thought these came from the treasure box. He starts to cry and tearfully confesses that he has been taking these from school. I look at my little sobbing boy and my heart starts to break. I am not mad at him, but sad for him. I take him into my lap and tell him what he already knows. Taking those cars was a bad thing, that he shouldn't have done.

He cries harder.

I tell him that I will take the cars and put them in a plastic zip bag and that he will have to take them back to school.

He cries even harder.

I tell him that he will have to confess to the teacher, tell her that he is sorry, and ask her for forgiveness.

He is scream crying now. Not the kind that we usually hear, when he wants something, but true heart breaking pain.

"I don't want to, mommy, I am scared," he sobs.

"I know son, but mommy loves you. I will go with you and hold your hand."

"I wish I wouldn't have taken so many. They are going to put me in jail," he sobs.

"I wish you wouldn't have taken any at all, Kyle. Then you wouldn't feel so bad."

"I wish I was someone else," he finally sobs.

"It will all be alright Kyle, you will make things right by taking them back." I say. My shoulder is wet from all of his crying. My heart is breaking but I was starting to realize that this was a good lesson for him to learn.

We went to school early and as we walk up we see the other early kids playing and laughing carelessly on the play ground. We knocked on the door. He hid behind me as we went inside. I asked to if we could talk to Ms. Deb. He is shaking. Ms. Deb approaches. He has the bag of cars in his hand and holds them out at lighting speed and says "I took these, I'm sorry." Ms. Deb asks where they came from. He replies, "from the car basket." Ms. Deb says that she is sad that he took the cars. Didn't he think that their other friends would be sad if they didn't have these cars to play with? She says that she is proud of him, because it must have been difficult, to bring them back and apologize. She gives him a hug and another teacher gives him a high five. He smiles again. It is the face that I love.

Ms. Deb tells me that just this morning she was wondering out loud to another teacher about where all the cars had gone. And that they know that another "friend" (that's what they call the students) takes them regularly and that they always try to get them from him before he leaves. This is information that Kyle had given to me earlier. I told Kyle that he didn't want to be like that kid. He agreed.

It was hard for him and I was surprised at how hard it was for me too. After school he told me that we didn't need to talk about the cars anymore. It was over we didn't need to talk about it anymore.

So that's he lesson learned. I hope that sticks with him. Have your kids ever done something like this? Also I was wondering what prompted him to come clean? Was the guilt of it just eating away at him? Later it came out that it was an episode of Aurthur. Thanks PBS kids for bringing home the lesson.