Motivation and the meaning of Cheating...

How do you motivate a toddler to not try sulking when she doesn't know what to do with herself?

This was a wee game we developed when nothing else garden-wise seemed to be working. She was either sitting in a chair or lying on the grass, for some reason feeling very sorry for herself. A bit worrying.

Anyway, she really loves racing up and down the supermarket aisles while we're doing the shopping so we started a game where you have to race to the other side of the garden, pick up a ball and the run round the shed and place the ball into a hole back at the start.

She loved it.

Unfortunately, I introduced her to the meaning of cheating when she started picking up both balls instead of just her own. She seems to cling to things like this and was the result of a wee cry in her bed later at night. I kind of felt guilty and sad for her worrying about it but then it is an important lesson to learn. It can sometimes be really hard to communicate certain things to her in a way that she'll fully understand and I feel I might have trouble helping her understand that she was forgiven and it can be let go.