Oh, So SD Almost Burned Our House Down this Weekend
webMistress0609
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I left SD @ home for about an hour so I could pick up DH from work Saturday afternoon & gave her written instructions for boiling water for pasta noodles & cooking them if I didn't get back in time. She decided to leave the room after adding the noodles to go listen to music in her room, didn't turn the burner down, & caught 2 pots on fire. (We have to make separate noodles for Ari & me) Thank goodness I took Ari with me. Luckily we're only out $80 worth of cookware & some cleanup time & no one was hurt.
We've been leaving her by herself for an hour or two if we have to run errands (since preteens love grocery shopping & sigh about it the whole time), & we were planning on letting her watch Ari for a few hours in the afternoon next time DH has a weekend off so we could have a date.
Needless to say, we're pulling back on letting her stay home by herself & the plan to let her babysit Ari on DH's next weekend off. She's in full snotty preteen mode right now, & trying to use some PD techniques ("accidents happen, but what do you think could prevent this from happening again? what do you think you could do to help you remember a, b, c") invited blaming us for giving her chores. Oy.
So anyway, how do I get smoke smell out of our house? It was nice outside this weekend, so I opened the windows, but it's still lingering.
Re: Oh, So SD Almost Burned Our House Down this Weekend
I am glad everyone was okay! We were allowed home alone for short times but not allowed to use any appliances until we were maybe 15-16. Was she terrified? My mom burned down her parent's kitchen as a teenager and she said she thinks about it every single time she turns on a burner. Maybe she learned from it and isn't willing to say or is embarassed?
How dare you give her chores, lol!
I'm glad nothing serious happened.
Even though I became a "latch key kid" in the 5th grade the thought of eventually leaving DD alone, ever, totally freaks me out. As does anything past age 11 for that matter.
We had a no appliance rule up until basically this weekend. We've been having her help us cook simple meals so she can learn & told her that was her training to start being able to handle some simple things like boiling water & tossing in the noodles. Obviously she wasn't ready. She's been wanting to take on more responsibility & help more lately, & we've found she behaves better when she has more to do (she's definitely a misbehaves b/c of a need for undue attn kid), plus we could use the help, so we have been giving her more responsibilities as she's shown she can handle them. This particular instance was a fail, obviously.
I think part of it is that she was at her mom's for 2 weeks straight. I hate to blame bio - mom, but she lives with her grandparents (bio-moms parents), who spoil her & she has 0 chores there. It usually takes a bit for her to get back into the swing of not sitting in front of the TV 4-5 hours a day. I should've recognized that she was in that mode & skipped the dinner prep chore. We were going to be late for dinner already though & she's cooked spaghetti noodles before with one of us here.
I guess we all learned something this weekend.
Francesca Pearl is here! Josephine Hope is almost 3!
So glad everything is okay!
Not trying to stress you out more, but is it possible she "forgot" she left the burner on on purpose? I forget how old exactly you've said she is, but I don't think what you asked of her was unreasonable at all and from the fact pattern you've presented, it sounds like she's happy to turn the tables back on you and "show" you what happens when you try to give her responsibilities. I wish I had advice for you, but I guess I just wanted to post and say YOU did nothing wrong and you shouldn't second guess yourself. Plenty of pre-teens can be left at home unsupervised for short stints and get dinner started, IMO. I say this as someone who was regularly doing "grown up" chores from about age 9 or 10 on and as the aunt to 5 nieces and nephews now between the ages of 16-26.
I am not sure when I started doing chores around the house in a big way, but I think it was around grade 7 or 8 (so 13 or 14)... my parents "paid me" according to an agreement we came to. For the most part that was the only money I got towards clothes, or a stereo, etc. So it wasn't a lot of money to have at the time.
I agree that she may have "forgot" to "show you", and that would be something you will have to deal with in its own way.
At the same time, I am in love with the timer on my stove, and without it would for sure burn a million things (mostly due to pg brain at the moment.) Would something like that help in the whole chores thing?
Sorry I don't have any advice about the smoke... febreeze maybe if there is fabric (curtains) in the kitchen?
Good luck!
Vinegar or coffee grounds for the smell.
Honestly, I think that I'd just keep having her help. She made a mistake, but instead of giving her less chores (which is what every preteen wants, right?) I'd keep giving her more chances. I burned a zillion things and ruined a million pots and pans, but kept cooking. My sister messed up a few times (like mac and cheese soup, yech) and wasn't expected to cook any more. Guess which one of us can feed herself!
Just a little more supervision, or a few lessons on not leaving the kitchen while the stove is on...