living with a six-year-old con artist

[topaz]

Quinn is an enterprising young man.  Not long ago he discovered the principle of compartmentalization of ignorance:

Quinn: "Dad, can I have a cookie?"
Dad: "No."
[goes down to the other end of the house]
Quinn: "Mom, can I have a cookie?"
Mom: "Sure."
[comes back down to me]
Quinn: "Mom said I could have a cookie!"

From there it wasn't a long step to this:

Quinn: "Mom, can I have a cookie?"
Mom: "Yes, if your dad says it's okay."
[goes down to the other end of the house]
Quinn: "Mom said I could have a cookie!"

And then, of course, to:

Quinn: "Mom, can I have a cookie?"
Mom: "No."
[goes down to the other end of the house]
Quinn: "Mom said I could have a cookie!"

Discoveries like these lead to conversations like the following, which took place in the kitchen this morning between keyne, my mother, and me:

"What we need is some kind of alert system.  Like Amber Alerts.  With lights in different parts of the house so we can signal each other."

"I really think it would be sufficient if we each just carried around tokens with our names on them."

"Like, yellow means he's trying to get cheese, green means orange juice, that sort of thing?"

"Not even!  Just: 'Oh, Dad said you could play a video game now?  Okay, show me the "Dad" token he gave you!'"

"That sounds like it would work great right up until he finds ---"

"--- until he finds the stash of tokens.  Right."

"He'd carry them around in his pockets like he was smuggling dirt out of the tunnels in The Great Escape."

"Should we write notes to each other instead?  'I, Nancy Pierce, hereby declare on this the 24th day of January...'"

"Fastest way to teach him to forge handwriting."

...

He didn't get the cookie. Not today, at any rate.

Comments

[rwx.livejournal.com]

if you want to teach him maths, start using more and more complex sequences as code on the notes. tell him what the sequences are. 'for the next 10 notes, we'll be using prime numbers/fibonacci/etc...'

[dbang.livejournal.com]

LOVE!

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fast way to teach him to make cookies, anyway!

[laura47.livejournal.com]

well, handwriting forgery is at least a useful skill?

man, i want to see him larping in 10 years. socially acceptable outlets for all our spying and lying and manipulating. ;-)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Do you really want a cookie so bad that you think it's worth lying to me?"

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

ALL SIGNS POINT TO YES

[pulito.livejournal.com]

HYSTERICAL!
Sorry Quinn. Tomorrow's a new day. You will adapt and prevail.

[d3l1r1um.livejournal.com]

Do you and keyne carry cellphones around the house? A quick call or SMS to verify the information could work :)

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

"Not even! Just: 'Oh, Dad said you could play a video game now? Okay, show me the "Dad" token he gave you!'"

"Dad, can I have just a bite of cheese?"
"Sure. Here's a 'Dad' token, show it to your mom."
[Goes down to other end of house]
"Mom, Grandma, Dad said I could disassemble the car for parts for my rocket pack, eat seven cookies, and that you should tell me about cold fusion... Where's the trunk release, the Chips Ahoy, and the biggest screwdriver we own?"

[penk.livejournal.com]

Bwahsnorffle.

"But Dad said it was okay! Here's the token!'

[naiad.livejournal.com]

This :)

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Response: "Q, if Dad said you could have a cookie, why didn't he give you one himself?"

SMS, silly beings. If you have such things, of course.

Whatever plan you use, will give him the opportunity to learn how to get around it. So pick a plan that will teach him something you want him to learn.

It'll work until he figures out how to get in the cookie jar himself.

(PS, you guys were in a dream of mine last night. Well, K was. The particularly weird thing is, she was the only person from this group of friends. Everyone else was a college classmate.)

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Put fresh fingerprints on the tokens. Yours and his. This will require a lot of ink, but it will be hard for him to beat.

I didn't discover forgery until I was in 3rd grade, when I was in trouble in Spanish class and I didn't want my parents to find out because I was sure I could turn it around by the end of the quarter-and thus, I forged my mom's signature on the warning notice I got.

It worked, too-I was able to turn it around, and my parents never heard about it.

[agaran.livejournal.com]

Marked thumb drive + GPG encryption. {nod}

Or smaller house.

[dbang.livejournal.com]

Y'all got wifi, right? Don't need no thumb drives.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Aren't you glad he's smart?
Now to get him to use his powers mostly for good...

[blk]

Dude, nothing wrong with cookies; just make him -work- for them.

"Dad, can I have a cookie?"
"Sure, but first, tell me the second derivative of this function."

"Mom, can I have a cookie?"
"Sure, after you use three different interrogative determiners correctly in a sentence."

[naiad.livejournal.com]

Be glad you and keyne live in the *same* house. This game gets even more interesting when Mom and Dad live apart.

"Mom, can I go to the [expensive out-of-town hockey tournament where all the parents get drunk]? Dad said I could!"

"Mom, can I go to snowshoe nationals in Oregon? I'd only have to miss 2 days of school. Dad said it was ok!"