Last night was a night we'll not forget for a long time. Many lessons learned all around. It all started last night. We thought it would be okay to head down the street (about 5 blocks away) to my brother's house. We waited until our youngest 2 were in bed for the night and were sleeping. We weren't planning on being gone a real long time, but right as we were thinking about heading home, about an hour later, dinner was ready. We decided we'd stay a bit longer but 9:30 was our time limit. We've done this before without incident, once every couple months or so and we aren't gone more than 2-3 hours and our kids can call us at anytime.
H had a friend over last night and we thought that between the 3 of them (ages 12, 11, and 9) could handle things and be responsible. We were right, but we also learned a very important lesson as did the kids. We eating dinner when H called and said they heard some noise. I asked if they were fine and she said yes. I asked if she minded if we stayed until 9:30 (20 more minutes) and she said yes. Lesson one: Be completely honest. If you're scared and want or need us to come home tell us that and we will be home in less than 2 minutes. So we finished up our dinner and just when we were wrapping up, H called us again and told us the fire department was on their way over to our house. Needless to say, we dropped everything and rushed home. Turns out, the kids let their imaginations get the best of them, got scared of noises and called 911 when they kept hearing them. 2 squads were there and one officer was walking through the house checking things out, while the other officer was talking to the kids and calming them down.
This is the story that unfolded: The kids were watching Harry Potter when they heard a noise upstairs. They went to check it out and T thought it would be hilarious to try and trick the girls. He told them he saw leather boots outside and once the girls freaked he said, "just kidding" Lesson 2: there is a time for everything. A time to joke and a time not to. This was a time not to joke around. T thought it was so funny that he did it again. He ended up convincing them he really did see someone with leather boots, scaring himself in the process. The girls were scared and called 911. When the operator answered they were more scared and hung up. The operator tried calling back and the kids wouldn't answer the phone. T was all freaked out that they would get a ticket for hanging up on them. Sure enough, minutes later 2 officers showed up and knocked on the door, which further freaked the kids out. They let the officers in and they all started crying. This is where Hubby and I show up. We see an officer talking to the kids and 3 crying kids. We talked with the officer and they were both on their way.
Lesson 3 and 4: The kids learned that they did the right thing by calling 911 because they were scared and were convinced they heard footsteps upstairs. We told the kids that they should have been more honest with us about needing us to come home and we learned to be more clear about our phrasing when giving out instructions when home alone. One we will be sure to clarify is tell us anytime you need or want us to come home. We will come. We've always said call us if you need anything, and just assumed that they understood what that meant.
Lesson 5: We do need to test the maturity level of our children at times to see how can handle stuff on their own. We've done this before without incident and while they have been fine, it's obvious that this time they really were scared. It might have been because of their imaginations but we also can't have them calling 911 every time their imagination gets the best of them.
There is no law in our state regarding an age to be legally left home alone, especially when caring for other kids. It's basically left up to the parents and their better judgement. We don't feel we as parents did anything wrong, but we will definitely not leave them home by themselves for a long while. Lesson learned.
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