A Boy and His Markers

My 6 year old has been described as "The kindergartener who's 12". He loves to draw and he loves to draw with markers. For the past couple of years he has been able to keep washable markers in his room to use and we've had no problems with them. At least that is the way it was.

Last evening as I taught an art class in my studio, he played games with his dad and drew pictures at the desk in his bedroom. He drew pictures of scarecrows in corn fields, ants marching on hills, pumpkin patches and lots of other wonderful things.

Later as I entered his bedroom to read a bedtime story, I saw him leaning over an area on his carpet. When he noticed me looking at him he got a strange look on his face, opened his eyes wide, pointed to his floor and said "I wonder how this got on my carpet?" There on his very light colored carpet were about 12 dots of various sizes all made with the tip of a dark red magic marker.

We have been working with him on honesty issues lately and I said, "Did you draw on your carpet?"

He opened his eyes widely again and started to tell me he didn't do it but instead he stopped and admitted coloring the carpet.

I told him I was glad that he was honest and that he would've been in more trouble had he lied. Still since he used the markers on the carpet they needed to come out of his room for 2 weeks.

He got some rags and water and we both worked to get the red out. As we were scrubbing his mind kept going through his punishment. He said "All the markers have to go out? I thought maybe since I just used red only the red marker had to go."

I said "Sorry bud but when you do naughty things with markers all the markers have to go."

As this started to sink in he said. "Even the gold marker?"

Yes all the markers, even the gold marker."

His bottom lip turned down and started to quiver. "Oh no, even the gold marker. That means no more ant hills and no more sandy beaches."