Crime and Punishment

Some weeks ago, I made the mistake of introducing the concept of jail to Theo. We were riding on the BART train for the first time, he wasn't behaving terribly well, and when I told him for the umpteenth time not to get out of his seat and he shot back, "What happens if I do?" I sarcastically replied, "They'll throw you in jail."

Yes, yes, I know--not my finest parenting moment. Believe me, I'm paying the price, as Theo wants to know everything about jail now. Our initial conversation about it went like this:

Theo: What's jail, Mom?
Me: It's a place where you go for a very, very long time out when you've been misbehaving.
Theo: What kind of time out?
Me: Not a fun one. You stay in a little room all of the time and don't get to do fun stuff. You don't want to go there.
Theo: Do they have elevators at jail?
Me: I don't think so. Probably stairs. [He loves elevators--the lack of them would be a drawback to him.]
Theo (starting to get nervous): Do kids go to jail?
Me: No, no! Don't worry, honey--you can't go to jail unless you're 18. And you have to do something really bad to go, anyway. You're a good boy--you won't go to jail. Don't worry about it.

Eventually I fielded all of the questions, and I figured the subject was more or less closed. (Well, as closed as any subject is with Theo.) Alas, that was not the case. His teacher wrote me a note and said she was laughing because some other kid brought a toy police car in for sharing, and Theo piped up with, "Police cars take you to jail! You can go to jail when you're 18!" And then later that week, I went to pick him up for his social skills class, and his teacher said, "We had a visit from Buster the Bus today, and Theo really liked that! Theo, do you remember what Buster told us about riding the bus?"

Theo replied very matter-of-factly, "You use a quiet voice on the bus. You don't yell and scare the driver. Otherwise you'll go to jail."

Um, no--Buster didn't tell them they'd go to jail. Theo added that part. :-)

And the last few days, his favorite song, which we've heard over and over and over? "Jailhouse Rock." He even asked to watch the video--and I obliged, as there's nothing questionable in it. But now I realized that the video makes jail look pretty darn fun, with people dancing everywhere. Uh oh--I hope he doesn't aspire to go to jail now!