Attempting to explain restorative justice to a three-year-old...

My daughter is three-and-a-half. She asks questions. Lots and lots of questions. Like 'where do pigeons sleep?' and 'what is France?' and 'Mummy, do you really exist or are you just pretend?' Usually she asks these questions just as I am about to tuck her into bed and switch off the light, because she's quite crafty, is my daughter. Anyway, we were telling a story together over lunch, which is one of our favourite things to do, and she invented this story about a caterpillar who is sitting sunning himself on a leaf and along comes a Monster, who scratches him. 'So what shall we do to the Monster?' I ask her. 'Well...we could hit him,' 'But hitting is wrong, isn't it?' She sits and thinks a while. 'I know,' she says, 'I've got an idea!' 'Yes?' 'We could get a Giant. And the Giant could come and squish the Monster. And then everyone'd be happy.' 'Maybe,' I say, 'But then we've got a big, horrible Giant and everybody is scared of the Giant...' 'Perhaps we can put the Monster in the bin!' 'A bit like 'time out'?' 'Yes. A bit like that. And then he will cry and say he is sorry and promise to be a friendly Monster and then they can all be friends again!' It's only very recently that she has started talking about things in terms of 'goodies' and 'baddies' (which, possibly, she's picked up from the playground), a concept which was previously unfamiliar. It strikes me that most of the tales I grew up with revolved around 'bad guys' (or more frequently witches) getting punished by 'good guys' - and I remember playing 'goodies and baddies' in the playground, aged six. Perhaps the myths we give our children are those our society grows up with. Perhaps I am being silly. Maybe I am over-cautious. But I think that these things matter.