Kids do the darndest things

While I was attending college, my son escaped from the campus daycare. He was four at the time. He managed to open the door, walk through a very large building, including walking through a cafeteria and commons area, with no one attempting to stop him. His journey ended at the campus libary, housed in the same building. He managed to find his grandmother on his own, who was a research librarian at the college at that time. She of course immediately marched him back to the daycare and they were extremely apologetic about the incident. What amazes me to this day is that he says that no one stopped him (a four year old wandering alone on a college campus) to ask him what he was doing or where he was going. He says he passed by many students on his way to the library, apparently unnoticed. He is 16 now and still remembers the incident very clearly.

When my son, Reese, was about 7 yrs. old, he sneeked a bag of fireworks and a pack of matches out of the house. He was on the front porch with a friend and tried to light a bottle rocket. The match accidentally dropped into the bag and caught all the fireworks on fire! Of course, his friend took off for home. By that time, bottle rockets and fire crackers were going off everywhere. Reese tore through the front door with a bottle rocket close behind. He was screaming at the top of his lungs. I ran to the living room just in time to see his face - complete terror! I had to slam the door to keep more bottle rockets from flying in the house. When it was all over, the front porch had burn marks all over the ceiling and melted spots on the vinyl siding. Reese is 20 yrs. old now and we still talk about it because he knows he'll never live that one down!

I have two boys age 14 and 16 and they would never hide from me for 3.5-5.0 hours for any reason. Their attention span is not that mature. I "ran away" from home on two occasions when I was a child. One time at the age of five, I hid behind the shower curtain and enjoyed my mother frantically searching for me because I was mad. I think that lasted about 10 minutes yet it seemed like an eternity to me as a five year old child. I finally gave myself up because I was more bored than mad. Another time my sister and I decided to "run away" after ballet practice in our ballet outfits and hid under the deck. I was about eight years old. Again it was not worth it because my mom didn't look for us, so we just went back into the house and she pretended nothing had happened. That was the last time I hid from my mother. All parents need to analyze the facts regarding this situation and just think about this...... If you upset your six year old child, is it possible that they could figure out how to climb into the attic of a garage? And if there were stairs to the garage attic, why wouldn't the parent check out the attic when they were frantically looking for their six year old son that they allegedly believed to be soring hundreds or thousands of feet in the air in a balloon alone. If there was not stairs then how did a six year old pull down the stairs to the garage attic and then pull it back up to hide from the parents? When my children were young I read books regarding discipline and I recall that a child should not be in a time out for more than 1 minute per year of age due to their lack of attention. In addition the tape shows the father filling the balloon with helium. I would think that a parent would watch their children and make sure that one of them especially a six years did not climb into the bottom of the balloon just in case it were to accidently take off on it's own. The parents are trying to convince the public that a six year boy sat in the attic for five hours and never got hungry or bored or had to go to the bath room. Either the parents are not being truthful or the child was so afraid of the parents that he could not come out of hiding for five long, long, hours!!!

I have two boys age 14 and 16 and they would never hide from me for 3.5-5.0 hours for any reason. Their attention span is not that mature. I "ran away" from home on two occasions when I was a child. One time at the age of five, I hid behind the shower curtain and enjoyed my mother frantically searching for me because I was mad. I think that lasted about 10 minutes yet it seemed like an eternity to me as a five year old child. I finally gave myself up because I was more bored than mad. Another time my sister and I decided to "run away" after ballet practice in our ballet outfits and hid under the deck. I was about eight years old. Again it was not worth it because my mom didn't look for us, so we just went back into the house and she pretended nothing had happened. That was the last time I hid from my mother. All parents need to analyze the facts regarding this situation and just think about this...... If you upset your six year old child, is it possible that they could figure out how to climb into the attic of a garage? And if there were stairs to the garage attic, why wouldn't the parent check out the attic when they were frantically looking for their six year old son that they allegedly believed to be soring hundreds or thousands of feet in the air in a balloon alone. If there was not stairs then how did a six year old pull down the stairs to the garage attic and then pull it back up to hide from the parents? When my children were young I read books regarding discipline and I recall that a child should not be in a time out for more than 1 minute per year of age due to their lack of attention. In addition the tape shows the father filling the balloon with helium. I would think that a parent would watch their children and make sure that one of them especially a six years did not climb into the bottom of the balloon just in case it were to accidently take off on it's own. The parents are trying to convince the public that a six year boy sat in the attic for five hours and never got hungry or bored or had to go to the bath room. Either the parents are not being truthful or the child was so afraid of the parents that he could not come out of hiding for five long, long, hours!!!