The Bad Decision

I came down stairs Saturday morning after the kids had already been awake for a little while. I thought I smelled a candle burning or the smoke from one being blown out. I couldn't find anything so I served the kids breakfast and went back upstairs. Chad then came down later and asked me why the chip bags on top of the fridge were all burned. So I ran down to see what he was talking about. We keep our grill stick lighter on top of the fridge near the chip bags. We were thinking the lighter must have malfunctioned or I had put it back up there while it was too hot and it caught one of the bags. All the chip bags had large burned holes in them. There were two papers (kid calendars) on the side of the fridge that were burned half way down. There was a smoke line up the cabinet and a circle on the ceiling. We were feeling very fortunate that our house didn't burn down in the middle of the night.

And then we saw Evan's face. And Gabi not having any idea what we were talking about tattled on Evan and told us that he was sneaking chips that morning. And we knew. I couldn't believe it. How could my smart six year old boy do something like that. He has had fire training at school every year since he was three. We take him down to the fire station every year. We have talked about how dangerous fire is. After investigating we found a spot in his room where he had held the lighter to the wall. I cried to think that he could do something he knows is SO wrong!

So we had our first really important punishment. First I lectured him on what he had done. I told him how the house could have burned down. I showed him where the fire had climbed up the cabinet and down the papers. I told him everything we own would be gone: his blankey, his video games, his computer, his legos. I told him we all could have died. Mommy, Daddy, Gabi, Andy, him, Molly, Knox and Loosey. I asked him if he remembered how much it hurt to get a burn. I then told him how bad it would have hurt us to die that way. I might have taken it too far but I was desperate to get through to him. Then we grounded him to his room for the weekend. When we were home he was only allowed to come out to eat and use the bathroom. When we had to go out he was not allowed anything fun. He had to shop with us rather than go in the clubhouse at the store and he had to sit with us in church rather that go to his kid class. It doesn't seem like enough. It was hard for him. But he accepted it and stayed with it. He never tried to come out of his room. He took every opportunity to tell us how much he loved us and that he was sorry and that he will never do it again. When I was calm enough to talk rationally with him he told me he did it "because he likes action movies and he likes to be the hero and he likes blowing out the fires."