Consciousness Rising

This past week Sophie has shown a tremendous leap in emotional maturity. On Friday, she had a 'fight' with another girl on the bus. This other girl was a friend and so the particulars were not very serious, a scuffle over a seat and then Sophie's glasses were knocked off and the other girl raised her fist to Sophie. Well, my strong willed girl was having none of being threatened and she grabbed the girl by the front of her shirt, inadvertently scratching her in the process. The girl was hurt and bleeding a little, so the bus driver stopped at the bus stop and spoke with both of the girl's dads. Noting that they were both to blame the bus driver chose no punitive action and left it to the parents to handle.

While talking to Sophie about it later that night, she became very upset about he possibility of being grounded. When we told her that she may not be, (we were trying to find out the best course of action if it was only self defense) she began crying out right and said that she should be grounded after what she did. Needless to say this surprised us after just hearing her saying she did not want to be grounded. We continued talking and listening to her side of the story and it began to be clear that she felt some guilt over having scratched the girl, which she said she didn't mean to do. Finally after we could not console her, I asked her what she thought a god grounding would be for what she did and she replied that she should be grounded from her DS. Her pride and joy. We were astounded. She then went on to say, after I asked her if a day was long enough, that it should be longer than a day. Her dad looked at me when she went to get a tissue and said "She has a conscious!"

It is times like this that make the very difficult and trying work of parenting so rewarding. All those important life lessons that you have tried to teach over those first few oh so important years comes to fruition. You are confronted with a beautiful soul, full of integrity and you realize that you had a little something to do with it. The feelings that this evokes cannot be described, but if you are a parent yourself, you will know what I mean.