When the Innocent Are Guilty

When we watch our children dance through the early years of their lives, we often view them as tiny pieces of perfection. It’s tempting to see them as harmless blank slates, kids who love their parents and want nothing more than a hug and some ice cream.

But what happens when they take a step beyond the naïve innocence, and make a real mistake? What happens when they do some real damage? To be more specific, what happens when your nine-year-old plays too rough with her guinea pig and seriously injures her own pet?

So far, our younger daughter has wanted little more from life than a good book, some music, a family to love and a blanket to hold. She’s been “an easy kid,” as they sometimes say. But she’s just nine, so we know we’ve got unseen challenges ahead. On a recent day, one such challenge revealed itself. With a new friend over for a playdate, Chelsea was showing off her beloved guinea pig, a mostly white-furred animal named Marshmallow. For some reason, Chelsea decided to drop Marshmallow on her bed, letting the animal bounce off the mattress. On the second or third drop, the guinea pig didn’t bounce up, but instead crumpled down and rolled over.

Chelsea saw this, and immediately put her guinea pig back in the cage. She told us that her pet had been hurt, but it took some time before she gave us the full story. Her fear of getting into trouble superseded the need to give her parents vital information. Once we figured it all out, we saw a guinea pig that was dragging both back legs behind her, unable to walk normally. My wife cleaned the animal up, and made sure she ate some hay and drank some water. Chelsea, now fully realizing what she had done, cried herself to sleep.

The first thing my wife and I decided was that there was no need for additional punishment on our part; the girl’s pet was suffering, and that provided more than enough consequences for Chelsea. But we did see a need for some real conversation, about how and why this had happened, how Chelsea could prevent it in the future, and why we need to tell the truth when we’ve made a mistake, even if it does bring with it some feelings of guilt. As we talked this through, my wife and I shared with Chelsea some mistakes we had made at her age, to make sure she knew that her parents were not speaking from on high. She listened, nodded, and talked with us, aware of how much we respected her decision to tell us the truth.

It’s been a few days now, and Marshmallow is slowly using those back legs more and more. They don’t appear to be broken, and we’re hoping she is on the mend. It’s going to be tough if the guinea pig doesn’t recover, as that will haunt Chelsea for some time. The knots are there in our daughter’s stomach, and we can’t make them all go away right now. What’s done is done.

Our daughter feels a little less innocent today than she did a week ago. But when that happens, perhaps the best way to grow from this is to communicate about it. Chelsea has decided to write a story, about a girl who is learning how to tell the truth more. She’s mapping out her story web and her characters, and she’s been sharing the outline with her parents. We’ve praised her every step, telling her it sounds like a great story.

 I can only hope that when she finishes this story, Chelsea will have the chance to read it to a sprightly white guinea pig, who will be motoring around her cage in a state of healing.