I had to put little EC in a time out the other day. I don’t even remember what it was for, but I was angry about it. She was very upset. I thought she was upset about being put in time out. But when I went to get her out of time out, we had our talk as usual about why she was there and how she should behave differently, and then I told her to go apologize to her mom; but before she would go out, she insisted (in a little chagrined way) on scratching my back.

I was confused, but I let her. I’ve asked her to scratch my back lots of times, and she’s getting good at it. But then I realized: she thought that she could use it to make up with me after I was angry with her. It’s a little special thing that we share. And…it worked!