Let your conscience be your guide...

We learned an object lesson about conscience today! In the afternoon, Caroline asked if she could have a piece of gum. I said yes, and then was talking to my mom on the phone. Caroline interrupted me to say "Mom, I did something wrong that I need to talk to you about." I thought maybe she broke a toy or hit a wrong button on her keyboard or something so I said okay hang on while I finish on the phone. But she started to sniffle and said "Mom, I REALLY did something wrong!" So I panicked thinking she painted a wall of her bedroom or broke her bedframe or something. I quickly got off the phone and Caroline went absolutely HYSTERICAL, sobbing and crying so hard she could hardly breathe. When I finally got her calmed down to make sense, she said between hyperventilating "I ate another piece of gum without telling you and now my stomach hurts and I don't want it anymore!" So once I calmed her down (desperately trying not to laugh) I told her that her stomach hurt because her conscience made her feel bad for doing something sneaky, and that she could have saved herself some upset by just asking me because since I hadn't started cooking dinner yet I probably would have let her have another piece. I said that I appreciated her being honest and telling the truth and that I hoped she would always do that because as she was seeing, quite often it wasn't something that wasn't going to get her in huge trouble anyway. But God help me, it was hard not to laugh!