My not-yet-three year old wanted something the 6 year old had. The 6-year-old went: “I’ll share with you. But you’ll have to give it back to me”. “Okay”, he replied.

A few minutes later he comes in with a grin: “it’s all gone”.  “Where did it go”, I asked.  “I put it in the potty and flushed it”.  He has been doing it a lot, so I put him on a timeout where he spent a few minutes.  But when I checked, there was nothing in the toilet.  Worse, a couple of hours later I found Ayaan (the not-yet-3 year old) playing with it. 

It turned out that he lied about flushing it down so he wouldn’t have to give it back to his brother.  Not only that, but he actually accepted punishment for an act that he did not do, repeating “It’s gone now” every time I asked where it was. 

This kids is going to either be a politician or a criminal mastermind (I know some of you won’t see the difference).