Then I talked to Sproing. I spent a little longer with him, as he seemed a little more receptive to my message. Maybe he was, maybe he fools me better, I don't know.
Here follows the gist of my message to them.
I am legally responsible for your actions and behaviors. Do you know what that means? (No, of course they don't. It was a rhetorical question anyway) Who broke the windows on the neighbor's house? Who stole the money from the other neighbor's family? That's right, it was you. Who gets in trouble with the law because of those things? No, not you. Me. Your father and I do, because you are our children. You are not adults, and since Daddy and I are your parents, we are in trouble with the police/law because of what you did. Do you think that is fair? (They had the good sense to say it wasn't fair.) I did not break the windows or steal the money. Neither did Daddy, but we are responsible for those things because you did them.
I try to be an honest person. I am careful to do the right thing, to tell the truth, and to not take things that don't belong to me. I have a lot of respect for other people and for the stuff that belongs to them. Haven't I taught you to respect yourself, respect others, and do the right thing? (It's my mantra. I have been drilling that into their thick little heads ever since I heard it at one of the elementary schools on my bus route. It's been at least 3, probably 4 years since I boiled it all down to those three basic rules.) You aren't getting the message. You aren't trying to live by the basic rules. As a matter of fact, you're getting worse. To my knowledge, you've never taken as much as $300 before. That is a lot of money. (To Sproing, as he alone was guilty of this) - As far as I know, you have never taken money out of someone's purse or wallet in their own home, like you did to your friend's mother. That's getting worse, not better.
Since I am legally responsible for the things you do, I need to make sure you don't do the wrong things. We have tried different punishments on you before. You've been grounded and restricted, had privileges taken away, been spanked. We have set rules that you know and understand. These things obviously aren't working. We have tried to treat you with respect. We have tried to trust you. We have allowed you the freedom to have your own friends, to play with your friends, to play in the neighborhood by yourself. No more. I am legally responsible for your actions. It is my duty as your parent to make sure you do not break the law. The only way I can be reasonably sure that you won't break the law is to keep you locked up here at home.
So that's what we're doing. You will no longer be allowed out. You will stay here in your room for a very, very, very long time. I'm not talking about hours. I'm not talking about days. No, I mean weeks. Weeks and weeks, and probably months of this. Otherwise I can't keep track of you. I can't make sure you aren't breaking the law again.
When you break the law like this, you can go to jail. Yes, Daddy and I are held legally responsible, but the state juvenile justice department has a special prison for children, the juvenile detention center. If you keep doing the things you have been doing, that is where you will be. I don't want you to go to jail. It's not a nice place. There are other children there who are a lot meaner than you, who have done a lot worse than you. I don't want for you to be with them. The only way I can see to keep you from committing more crimes and ending up at the department of juvenile justice detention center (DJJ lock-up) is to keep you at home. So, for your safety and my reputation, you will stay home from now on.
And that's pretty much, more or less, what I told them. I talk a lot. I've had conversations of this nature with both of these kids for years. It hasn't been this specific message before today, but they often hear my lectures. And, obviously, it does no good. I must do it, though. For one thing, they must have the chance to hear the conditions, the rules, the consequences. For another thing, it's a compulsion with me. I talk. I lecture. I must.
I say some wonderful things, too. You'd be amazed at what a fountain of wisdom and common sense I am when I'm in full lecture mode. (Lecture mode is very different from all-out yell, scream, rant mode. There's practically no wisdom or common sense in those atrocities.) Alas, it is wasted on these reprobates.
It's a balancing act, and a damned difficult one. On one hand, I am responsible for keeping them out of trouble. On the other hand, I'm responsible for taking good care of them. I don't think it's healthy for 11-year-olds to be kept in their rooms all the time, to not be able to play with others, make friends, etc. And one of the reasons they are in their rooms here, not just in the house, is that I'm trying to protect my own property as well. When I said to the boy that he had not, to my knowledge, taken money from someone's wallet, I was excluding the wallets of members of this household. They both have stolen money and property from probably everyone who has lived in this household in the last five years. That includes S and C. They started stealing stuff from Light and Twitch when they (Diva and Sproing) were 6 years old. By "stealing" I mean with malice aforethought. A three-year-old taking big sister's crayons doesn't qualify for this definition.
All the bedroom doors except Diva's and Sproing's have keyed entry doorknobs. It didn't used to be that way, but the older they got, the more stuff they were taking from our rooms. As it is, my bedroom door has been jimmied so many times that the lock is useless. I know she breaks in there all the time. I'm not sure whether he's guilty of that or not. I don't trust him, though. I don't trust either one of them.
So that's where we are now. I'm trying to be diligent, keeping an eye and ear on them. I have taken a tiny step back from the ragged edge of the abyss I was hovering over earlier today. Superman is on his way home from Chattanooga right now, and he'll be picking up Light on his way. I'll have reinforcements tomorrow! Also, my appointment with the psychiatrist was rescheduled (with no fee imposed) for 8:00 tomorrow morning. I need that. And I see my counselor on Thursday. Don't know what good all that will do, but at least they will know what's going on.