“It was an accident” – When to ignore your children and when to call 911

Becoming a step-dad with no previous parental training was not the easiest of tasks, something made harder by the fact that nobody seemed to want to help me out.. Being a nicer person with a greater sense of empathy than you, I have decided to share some of my hard earned wisdom.

Being in charge of small children is stressful business. If you don’t know better, every little sound can be alarming and seem like the end of the world. To help you out I have created the below list of sounds children can make and assigned a threat level to each.

Feel free to print out and hang it on your fridge. This will help you to differentiate the problems requiring immediate attention from the ones you can ignore.

Good luck.

Threat level green – Overhearing one child say to another, “I’m going to tell.” No investigation required. Pretend you didn’t hear it. Hope they get distracted by a bug or something and forget to tell you what happened. Possibly go outside and hide. I promise you, it is something as simple as a child using all the purple Playdoh or throwing a Shopkin under the bed. Seriously, just put on some head phones and turn up the music.

Threat level blue – Crying. You need to investigate the situation but can probably check the football score, throw something in frustration and curse under your breath as you slowly walk upstairs to see who won’t share a toy. Tears can be bad and you should immediately investigate “real” crying (easily distinguishable from fake) but most of the time it is some nonsense that nobody at the scene can properly explain anyway.

Threat level yellow – Silence. So much worse than crying, silence is often an indication that that expensive creams and lotions are being turned into a “potion” in the middle of your recently cleaned bathroom. While you may get lucky and the kids simply decided they needed a nap, this is unlikely. You probably have time to stir your gumbo before going to investigate but the longer the silence, the bigger the problem and the higher potential financial disaster.

Threat level orange – Uncontrollable laughing. It’s possible the kids just did something amusing with their stuffed animals. More likely they are finding it hilarious to stuff the contents of your left-open safe into the toilet. You have time to utter a quick prayer but don’t linger. Uncontrollable laughing is serious and should be investigated as soon as possible.

Threat level red – Large object crashing or shattering. There is a one percent chance that they dropped a full sippy cup and it just sounded really loud when it hit the floor. There is a 99% percent chance that they crawled up on top of the dresser causing it to fall over, pulled a shelf full of irreplaceable collectibles off the wall or threw their sister down the stairs. There is a high possibility of injury. You most likely have an hour of chores ahead of you and may need power tools to fix the situation. This requires immediate investigation.

Threat level midnight – One of your children comes to you with big wide eyes and says, “It was an accident.” Run. You have not a moment to waste. Something terrible has happened. You may need to go to the emergency room. You may need to replace one of the pets. Something may have just happened that will cause irreparable harm to your marriage through no fault of your own. Be prepared to call 911. Or your lawyer. Or your mother. Or all three. There is no telling what happened but you can count on two things: whatever happened is really bad and it was certainly no accident.