If the Punishment Should Fit the Crime

What the hell do I do about the fact that my 4 year old son peed on his sister last night.

Not that I necessarily believe that all punishments should fit the crime and not that I'm trying to get in to a big political debate here this just happened to be something that ran through my head last night after the whole event went down.

It was just before bath time and I told the kids to go take off their clothes and I'd be in momentarily to help them with their bath.

Shortly thereafter, J comes down the hall in to the kitchen where I'm sweeping and I can see that her t-shirt is soaked.

"B, peed on me" she says through tears.

"He what?" I asked in disbelief.

Disgusted I went back in the bathroom with her to confront the little urine spraying bandit.

There he stood just finishing up , pants down at the pot and told me "Mommy, I didn't do it"

Besides the obvious factors that ratted him out, I'd seen him pee in the pool the day before and pee in the grass that very morning. So I knew he saw it as a toy and was pleased that with proper aim he could get that stuff to go just about anywhere he wanted it to.

I proceded to tell him how utterly disgusting that was and how disappointed I was but then I had to rack my brain to think of what else I could do to emphasize the severity of the situation.

Usually taking a related privilege away works fairly well with him. For instance if he can't play nice with a particular toy then that toy gets taken away. But, yeah, I guess thats really not an option. (Oh how I miss the days when he was a baby - before he knew the "powers" of his penis)

Thats when my mind wondered to the punishment fitting the crime disciplinary method and I almost wanted to laugh.

Probably not appropriate in this situation.

Yeah lets save the kid from years and years of therapy.

So as much as his sister probably would have liked to have peed right back on him she was happy enough to tell him she was angry, hear him apologize and then B was sent to his room 1 hour earlier than his normal bedtime, without a story and was immediately to go to bed.

Yes, I think that made for a much better solution.