The Baby Punishment

From 2011 January

When I picked Nicholas up from daycare today his teacher greeted me with, "We've figured out how to get Nicholas to stop sucking his thumb! At least here." A little taken aback, but definitely curious, I asked how. "Whenever he sucks his thumb he has to go into the baby room." When I didn't react right away, she explained, "Because only babies suck their thumbs."

Apparently they started this new rule today and he got sent to the baby room once. After that, every time he started to put his thumb in his mouth he looked at them, paused, and decided not to.

I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. On the one hand, he does need to stop sucking his thumb. At the very least he definitely needs to stop sucking it as an automatic reflex whenever he isn't doing something else. On the other hand, they are much more adamant about it than we are and have labelled it as a bad behavior you get punished for, which is much further than we were comfortable going.

And so I am torn. I felt a little better when I realized that the "punishment" actually wasn't all that bad. By "baby" room they actually just meant Toddler 1, which is the 12-18 month olds, not one of the infant rooms. So he was still able to play, but he much prefers being with kids a little older than a little younger and so was probably bored. And they had some success doing something I knew needed to be done but have been avoiding.

So I decided to try it out a little bit this evening. I had already planned to take Nicholas out to dinner (Joe was at choir and Chili's had a kids eat free night), so I framed it as a big boy outing. And since he was a big boy who got to go to dinner he couldn't suck his thumb. And he didn't. He put it in his mouth a couple times, but a simple reminder that he was a big boy at a special dinner was sufficient to stop him. I didn't threaten or yell or punish. I just reminded him that we were at a big boy dinner. Hmmm, interesting. There was definitely some thumb sucking going on in the car on the way home, but all in all he did a very good job.

So I'm still not sure what I think. I do wish they had talked to us before beginning this crusade, I know that much. I'm not sure what I would have said (or what Joe would have said) if they had asked, but I think they should have consulted us. But if I get past that fact, I think I'm okay with what they are actually doing. It seems to be working and obviously didn't upset him too much, since he talked about school and going back to school all evening and school got the biggest smile in his bedtime prayer tonight.

I guess we'll see how tomorrow goes.