Fair and Square

Keeping secrets from kids is difficult. No-one wants to be upset or left out. But when one child is too ill to visit an elderly relative, how do you tell her that she can’t while the other one can? Alternatives were promised which upset the elder child as she wouldn’t be able to partake of these bribes, but she would be treated to an outing without the younger. I tried to intervene and offered my services as a babysitter to play hide and seek or her favourite card game; and at one point she said yes but quickly changed her mind when she was missing out on a shopping trip. I then asked her if she would like to play shops here (we even have pretend money) but it was the thought of missing out of the real thing. In hindsight, perhaps we should have offered to do our weekly shop a day early and have a later tea, but I never thought of that one at the time. Eventually, a fifty pence piece to buy sweets at the newsagents calmed her down; though we had to fork out another fifty pence to the elder one as well.