This past Saturday Simon and I went to a local assisted living facility for an Easter egg hunt. The facility had out juice and cookies and a large number of the residents gathered in the common areas to watch the excited little kids look for Easter eggs. They had placed tons of plastic eggs around the second floor of the facility. Inside the eggs were pieces of candy but a select few eggs also had prize tickets. I think there were 10 prize bags total. I was just happy for Simon to have the experience of looking for colored eggs and interacting with some of the elderly residents. He was younger than most of the kids and while he's not into candy yet, he was excited to be able to put the eggs into his little basket. Here we were, enjoying the moment when I look up and see one of the mothers shaking the eggs and opening them up to see if there's a ticket inside and then putting them back if there wasn't a ticket. REALLY? I'm not sure how old her child was and it really doesn't matter. What kind of example are you setting for her? She saw me catch her, nonchalantly wander down the corridor, and then when she thought I was out of sight, she did it again. It was a little pathetic.
Then, one of the student volunteers saw Simon looking under a couch for another egg and helped him find one. She smiled at him and said "Ooh! That's one of the prize eggs!" She then smiled at me as she went along to help some of the others find the last remaining eggs. We weren't looking for a prize and Simon wouldn't have known the difference. When everyone returned to the common area we were supposed to open up all of our eggs, dump the candy into our baskets, and return the plastic eggs (so they could use them again next year). If you found a ticket you were supposed to bring that to the prize table. They were still missing a few prize tickets and the one volunteer saw us sitting on the floor and asked us if we got our prize ticket. I told her we didn't have one. She asked about the egg she helped Simon find and I told her that there was only candy in it. She said she was sorry and that one was supposed to be a prize egg (it was larger than most of the other plastic eggs). Hmmm... I wonder how the ticket ended up missing...
Again, I don't care about the prize. It's the message and example that you set for your child.