The Experts

Zoe mainly drinks from sippy cups or her thermos (when she isn't drinking from me). The sippy cups are hard to spill; the thermos is easy to spill. So she spends a lot of time upending her thermos and deliberately spilling all over the place. The general consensus among the parenting experts I read is that, at Zoe's age, it's no good telling her not to spill or putting her in time-out for spilling or something, but it is important to teach her that her actions have consequences and that she should bear at least some of the responsibility for those consequences - i.e., have her help clean up. So I get out a rag and show her (while doing most of it my self) how to wipe up the spill. Zoe is very enthused about helping and takes up the cloth and swipes it all over the place. She likes this activity so much that she immediately spills more milk so that she can clean it up again.

I wonder if the experts have children.