Call Mrs. Piggle Wiggle!

My 8 year old son recently told me I needed to be more like Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, who just understands children. In a certain sense I agree, I could be more patient and understanding at times, but with the huge caveat that I don’t have a cupboard full of magic potions to cure many childhood bad habits.

We have been going through a “Heedless Breaker” stage (if you are familiar with the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories), and, while I am all for natural consequences, the bill for all the things broken recently is huge and not limited to 2 iPads, a chair, numerous plates and cups, broken eye glasses and a flipped over grocery cart and many, many more things.

It doesn’t seem to matter how many times ask this boy to SLOW DOWN.  I have tried everything from essential oils and calm child teas and gum chewing. I know these are genuine accidents, but we teach that you are responsible for the consequences of your actions, even if they are accidents. I am not even sure how to have him go about earning the money to replace these items, which is hundreds of dollars.

I just want to call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and have her tell me what to do! Is the natural consequence to broken dishes to eat off paper plates? To stand for an amount of time if you break a chair? Do I need to be more kind and understanding?

The one good note last week was when the optometrist told us that no one had EVER broken that particular pair of unbreakable glasses, so she thought they must have been defective and replaced them for free despite my protests that they just hadn’t been tested on this particular child.

Since I can’t get some magic slowing down powder from Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, does anyone have any suggestions?