Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Do you hide your car keys?

Oh dear. So there may be no hope for my DD9, who still paints the sink and the walls with nail polish. Yet her nails come out looking perfect.

My cat will steal bread, tomatoes, donuts --- anything. He jumped on someone's lap recently and tried to tip over his bowl of cereal to get at the milk!

We don’t hide the car keys. I did get in the habit of keeping the keys in my bedroom at night. My oldest DS20, was quite rebellious during his mid teen years and taking the car without permission or his license was an absolute concern.

We have a closet with a key lock in the house where we keep any alcohol, medications, air cans, and other misc. hazards. After my oldest went through his rebellion, I figured you could never assume your children won’t try things despite the many conversations. My oldest appeared to be the poster child for good behavior most of his life. At 16, he went completely awry in a matter of months. It just isn’t worth the risk to me that one of my children or one of their friends gains access to something dangerous in my house.

I completely get they can find hazards other places, but I certainly won’t make it easy in my own house.

The story referenced by OP is silly to me to blame the parents for the keys. I have older kids in the house. It would have never entered my mind to worry about keys when my oldest was 8.

I played in the car with my brothers, and nobody seemed to mind much, until they turned on the engine and the wipers came on. We knew not to do three things:

1) insert the ignition key
2) take it out of park
3) beat the horn

The keys are a red herring.

What about the 8 year old perpetrator who did this? He knew it was wrong and he knew what could happen. This is extremely abnormal behavior, and one wonders if this will be just one incident in a lifetime of antisocial conduct.

At 8? Sure, I think this kid probably has impulse control problems. He might have ADHD. He might just be a bit wild. But a lifetime of antisocial behavior? Maybe, but only because 1) he killed his sibling in a terrible accident 2) people will pass cruel judgement.

He's a child. Children do foolish, foolish things. I jumped off the roof holding an umbrella at around 8, a la Mary Poppins. (Fortunately, it WAS a low roof.)

I thought 22B was being sarcastic.

But my uncle built a roller coaster on the roof when he was 8. The kids made a big pile of leaves for him to land on. Of course, he missed it and was rendered unconscious.

This is turning out to be a great thread for people's stories.

When I was a child I was sitting in the parked car (no keys in the car) waiting for my Mom. She was standing maybe 15 feet from the car. I jumped in the drivers seat pretending to drive. I moved the car into neutral and we rolled down a hill hitting a tree. My friend in the backseat scraped his chin and my mother got the scare of her life.

I certainly don't think she was a bad parent or that I was antisocial. I was a naive foolish little kid. I had no idea I could have hurt anyone or understand the potential danger of my actions. I could have run a person over had they been in path of the car.

Reminds me of this.

No we don't hide the car keys. Maybe we would from a teen, hard to say yet. We do make sure the car is locked when parked/empty to preent death by heat stroke if a child climbs in to hide or play and can't figure out how to get back out (we also teach them to use the front doors to get out). This is a major risk where we live. A child would be dead in 10-20 mins here in summer,

I'm glad it's not just me! DD7 drives me to distraction with the stuff she paints all over the house. If it's not nail polish, it's paint, stickers, markers, you name it. And having gotten in trouble so many times seems not to even phase her -- the next time she has any object of housely destruction in her hand, off she goes.

But her nails look pretty good, too.