TOD 11.20.07

Our 19-month-old loves to get into everything. Of course. He’s 19 months old. And one of his favorites is our entertainment center, with its glass doors and push-action magnets. So last night when he was again playing with them, I told him, “No,” and was about to intervene when he started to comply. He shut the door, but the only problem was that he had gotten his fingers stuck inside in the process.

It wasn’t hard enough to really be painful, just irritating because he couldn’t free them, and he started to cry about it. My first inclination was to help rescue him, but I didn’t. Instead, I waited about 30 seconds for him to get really bothered by the situation, then I released his totally unharmed fingers. See, I figured this was useful in deterring him from playing with the doors because the next time he was inclined to do so he would remember the previous experience. I allowed him to suffer so he could learn a lesson I wanted him to learn through a pain that I knew wouldn’t really hurt him in the long run.

I’m sure this story has no theological implications whatsoever.