Boundaries

Today we learned how important it is to establish boundaries with 6-year-old boys who can ride a bike. Charlie was going to go move our neighbors' garbage cans up to their houses as an act of service. He said that he was going to ride his bike and I said that I'd be out in about 5 minutes to meet up with him.
Yeah, well, apparently, we had different ideas of what a bike ride meant. I thought he was going to go around the block. You can see the star that's at our house. We picked Charlie up and the other star.
Isaac and I saunter outside to meet up with Charlie. We walked the Cedar loop and saw him not. We returned home, I got the bike, put Isaac in the Burley and we did the loop again. I accepted my neighbor Hilary's help to drive around. Another neighbor, Steve, was sitting outside of his house and I asked him if he had saw Charlie, and he pointed in the direction that he had gone. Later on, Steve drove around in his truck. I called Brian to let him know and he told me to call 911 so then we had 2 patrol cars looking for him. My neighbor Ken drove around, our friend Craig drove around...
Charlie was fine, had no idea he did anything wrong and I was a wreck.
Now would be a great time to talk about specific boundaries with your kids. Use a map.

Oh, I should tell you that when Steve drove up and "found him," Charlie would not get in the truck with him. Good boy.