I’m sitting here on the couch with the kids. It’s halftime now so they are getting a little bored. The lass sticks her tongue out.
The boy takes this as an invitation. He starts squeezing her head so her jaw clamps down on her tongue. The lass is mildly amused by this which encourages the boy to take the next step.
He starts bumping the underside of her jaw with one hand while pushing down on the top of her head with the other. He tries it once, twice, three times.
At which point I’ve had enough. “What do you think you’re doing?” I start with.
He looks at me, unsure what to say. He’s got a deer-in-the-headlights look that confirms he was not thinking at all.
“What do you think is going to happen if you keep doing that?” I then asked.
“Ummm, I don’t know. You’re going to yell at me?”
He’s not wrong. I suspect, however, he still doesn’t get it.
“Will that be before or after you successfully get her to bite her tongue?” I ask.
“Oh, well I knew that woud happen…”
“So wait,” I cut him off. “You mean you know that you’ll eventually hurt her and that you’ll get in trouble for it but you’re doing it anyway? That’s sooo much better. I mean, that’s just brilliant.” I turned up the sarcasm to 11.
Now he got it. His face fell and he stopped. There were no snappy comebacks or attempts to laugh it off. He fully comprehended the foolishness of what he was doing.
I don’t know when either of them will start demonstrating the ability to think about what they are doing and the likely consequences. It won’t come soon enough.