Kids playing with fire

[TinkerbEllnor]

Part vent/Part Monday morning quarterback- how would you have handled this?

There are a LOT of kids in my neighborhood that are upper elementary/middle school age, they are not old enough to drive anywhere but are old enough to be out in the neighborhood unsupervised. My house is on a corner lot and must be dead center between all their homes because they tend to congregate near my house, and a lot of the time actually IN my yard, but since they are usually polite we don't mind that so much (that is, except when they come behind the bushes in front of my house because it puts them right by my windows and it weirds me out to have any strange person, even a kid, that close to the windows)

My kids aren't in their age bracket so I only know a handful of their names, and I only know one parent whose kid is at the same bus stop as my son.

Yesterday, as DH and I were heading out in our car to take our kids on a hike, we saw a group of kids outside on the street. One of the girls (about 10 yrs old) had a lighter and was holding up a dried up leaf trying to burn it.
They were on the pavement so didn't worry too much about it, we rolled our eyes at each other like "uh-oh, there goes trouble"

We come home a few hrs later and I let our dog out into the fenced in portion of our yard. The dog starts barking, so I go to call her in and notice she is barking at a few of the kids that are now in the back yard of the church next door. I can see 3 girls sitting on the bottom step of the church's fire escape (oh, the irony) trying to light a small pile of leaves on fire. They are very close to the building, which was built in the 1800s. I let the dog in and go to tell DH - I don't know if I should say something to these girls directly? go over to the fire department that is a few hundred yards away and let them deal with it? call the cops? By the time I alert DH, the girls have moved on.

Another hour or so later, I notice movement in the bushes just outside my window. These same three girls are now in MY yard with a dried up pine bough, trying once again to start a fire with this lighter. This time I don't hesitate, I throw up the window and sternly say "Do NOT start a fire in my yard". They apologized and left. I was a bit worked up because they were trying this in bushes that actually touch my house and if they had succeeded and the fire had gotten away from them, my house could have burned down.

DH thinks I was too easy on them and that I should have confiscated the lighter and told them to have their parents come to get it back. He also walked over to the fire station and let them know. They said they would have a cop do a patrol. In retrospect, I probably should have walked the girls home to their parents, but I am not confrontational and worry if I would come across a crazy or abusive parent.

How would you have handled it?

 

[okeydokey]

I think calling the authorities may have been a good idea. Sounds like they are bored, but what they are doing is dangerous.

 

[VickiVM]

Part vent/Part Monday morning quarterback- how would you have handled this?

There are a LOT of kids in my neighborhood that are upper elementary/middle school age, they are not old enough to drive anywhere but are old enough to be out in the neighborhood unsupervised. My house is on a corner lot and must be dead center between all their homes because they tend to congregate near my house, and a lot of the time actually IN my yard, but since they are usually polite we don't mind that so much (that is, except when they come behind the bushes in front of my house because it puts them right by my windows and it weirds me out to have any strange person, even a kid, that close to the windows)

My kids aren't in their age bracket so I only know a handful of their names, and I only know one parent whose kid is at the same bus stop as my son.

Yesterday, as DH and I were heading out in our car to take our kids on a hike, we saw a group of kids outside on the street. One of the girls (about 10 yrs old) had a lighter and was holding up a dried up leaf trying to burn it.
They were on the pavement so didn't worry too much about it, we rolled our eyes at each other like "uh-oh, there goes trouble"

We come home a few hrs later and I let our dog out into the fenced in portion of our yard. The dog starts barking, so I go to call her in and notice she is barking at a few of the kids that are now in the back yard of the church next door. I can see 3 girls sitting on the bottom step of the church's fire escape (oh, the irony) trying to light a small pile of leaves on fire. They are very close to the building, which was built in the 1800s. I let the dog in and go to tell DH - I don't know if I should say something to these girls directly? go over to the fire department that is a few hundred yards away and let them deal with it? call the cops? By the time I alert DH, the girls have moved on.

Another hour or so later, I notice movement in the bushes just outside my window. These same three girls are now in MY yard with a dried up pine bough, trying once again to start a fire with this lighter. This time I don't hesitate, I throw up the window and sternly say "Do NOT start a fire in my yard". They apologized and left. I was a bit worked up because they were trying this in bushes that actually touch my house and if they had succeeded and the fire had gotten away from them, my house could have burned down.

DH thinks I was too easy on them and that I should have confiscated the lighter and told them to have their parents come to get it back. He also walked over to the fire station and let them know. They said they would have a cop do a patrol. In retrospect, I probably should have walked the girls home to their parents, but I am not confrontational and worry if I would come across a crazy or abusive parent.

How would you have handled it?

I would be careful about approaching these kids in a confrontational way. My husband who was on the Landscape Committee of our HOA saw a couple of the neighborhood troublemakers riding the community gate as it was closing after cars (since then, we have replaced the gate with a much taller one than cannot be mounted for rides). He asked if they lived in the subdivision and told them "Let's go talk to your parents". He and another male neighbor followed them to their homes to talk to the parents. Well, of course there was tons of denial and it led to an argument that nobody was winning. The father of one of the kids filed a police report that our neighbor (the other man that accompanied my husband to talk to the parents) was harassing the boys and the boys felt threatened. Lots of bs followed including a hearing with the HOA's attorney.

What they should have done was call the police and let them handle it. That's the last time we've confronted any of the kids in our neighborhood who are doing anything suspicious/illegal. Not worth the trouble of trying to be a good neighbor looking after our subdivision in which we pay HOA dues.

 

[JESW]

Please tell their parents! When I was young (8 or 9) I was with a group of kids who were playing with matches. One lit some gasoline on fire and it severely burned the leg of one of the boys. It was a horrible thing to witness and after all these years I still remember it vividly. At that age they really have no idea how dangerous fire can be. And back in the 1930's my Mother lost her brother to burns he suffered from playing with a sparkler - fire on a stick.

Jill