Jon and I have always tried to temper our response when the kids spill something. It's hard -- because we often are very frustrated by their carelessness at the time. However, we certainly don't want them to get a "perfection complex" or think that the smallest thing will make us angry with them. And even without us getting upset, the kids both just sob anytime they spill their milk, water, etc. Our typical response is, "That's OK, accidents happen," and we go running for the towel.
Lately the "accidents" have shifted to accidently hurting someone, accidently forgetting something, accidently hurting someone's feelings, etc. It's really hard for me to get them to understand that it's good to say "I'm sorry," for something that they didn't mean to do. Right now, they still associate "I'm sorry" with doing something disobedient or naughty -- rather than an inadvertant hurting of feelings or something. So I'm also adding "accidents happen" to the explanation of accidentally hurting someone -- so they realize they're not in trouble for something.
Well... I think Dominic has caught on. Perhaps not to the concept, but definitely to the phrase. Now everytime he spills or drops something, rather than crying, he instantly gasps, looks up with a worried "am-I-going-to-get-in-trouble?" look, and says, "That's OK Mom, that's accidents happen."
Not: "That was an accident."
But: "That's accidents happen!"
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