What do you do when Skid should be punished for something but they're already back at BM's?
I know it's partially my fault because maybe I should have checked before she left with DH to go back to satan.
SD has a new room - built by me. I made her this really nice reading nook with fallen christmas lights and a sheer cloth draping everything. She got a brand new loft bed with a hangout spot underneath.
Well, today she had a friend come over, the neighbor's daughter. They were playing in her room for a while then went outside to play. I had walked up there to my office and noticed all her lights on. The bedroom light and the reading nook lights. SD has this giant issue with turning the light off in her room. We go through this all the damn time. I'm constantly having to run upstairs before we go anywhere to check if she turned off the lights.
This was in the middle of the day ON a bright and sunny day and SD's room has a window that takes up the entire wall. It's huge.
So I turned off the lights and when they came back inside and ran to the room, I said that they don't need to be on.
"WHY!?"
Because it's daytime and you have a giant window in there with light beaming through it. You don't need to have the lights on.
As I leave, I hear her and her friend whispering and talking lowly. I don't give a fuck.
SD left at 6pm with DH and I didn't go back up there until it was my toddler's bedtime at 730. Took him almost an hour to fall asleep and by then darkness had fallen over the house. I sneak out of his room and across the hall I can see light shining out from the bottom of SD's door. Low and behold, she turned on the lights in the reading nook and the light up top by her bed (which again, fucking daytime, why is she up there needing light?)
I'm so pissed. First thing DH says when I tell him about it was "maybe it was her friend"
I'm not buying it. SD is one of those who has no problem telling another kid to stop something that is against the rules. She will also tattle on them.
And her friend is a new friend and is still in that "new company" stage where she' super polite and respectful.
I told DH I'm ripping out the lights. (I didn't. I just removed the extension that reaches them to the plug)
I hate when stuff like this happens but SD is already long gone.
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It won't be the last time she
It won't be the last time she does this, so I would focus less on a punishment for today's errors and more on coming up with a plan with your husband on what to do next time. Come up with a system that will help her to remember to turn the lights off that you both agree on and that you can both help to implement. Perhaps you can have a chart and she starts at level 5 and every time she does something good she moves up a level and at level 10 she gets a treat. If she infringes a rule she moves down a level and at level 0 a privilege is taken away, which she can earn back by getting to level 5 again. Or something else that you two agree on. A clear system with good and bad consequences that is consistently applied will work best.
I know there's nothing I can
I know there's nothing I can do. it's still a little frustrating.
I get what you are saying about helping her to remember the turn the lights off in her room but in this specific scenario, she should have never touched the lights and turned them back on because I as well as her father told her NOT to.
She is 9 years old. She knows better than to go against what she is told. I'm assuming her smartass self (yup, shes a smartass so I can say this) thought she would turn on the lights and then turn them off when she left that way I'd neverrr know she did it. But since she can never remember to even turn off the damn lights in every day scenarios (not even when she goes to the bathroom for two seconds) she messed up and forgot.
We are not a household that gives incentives. Good behavior is almost always recognized and expressed verbally the appreciation for it. you don't get treats for behaving or doing what you're supposed to do.
I like your idea of a reminder though. Maybe I'll write a note and keep it by the front door to remind her (or DH and I to check/ask her). I'll also put a sign up by her door.