The AWAL 5-Year-old

I am the meanest mom in the whole world. Just ask my five-year-old. We've had a hard time adjusting to this neighborhood. We have fabulous neighbors. The problem is that the ward basically lives on three streets, and about every other house has children. We came from a neighborhood of retired people and one friend two houses down.

The problem is that I can never find my five-year-old. She will say she's going to one person's house, but if she gets there and they aren't home or that girl wants to play with someone else, they take off and go to another house. I spend every afternoon circling the block looking for Mazie. Yesterday we found her in our next door neighbors' house. I don't even know their names.

We all try to teach our kids about stranger-danger, but I've tried hard not to freak my kids out too much. With this girl, I can't seem to get the point through. I find her hanging out with the crossing guard & talking to everyone that I don't know. I worry about her. She's so independent, and she simply cannot see why I get so upset with her. She thinks by keeping her home, I'm just being mean. I've had to ground her to the house because once she steps foot outside, she's gone. I don't know what to do about this.

I remember when we first moved to Big Timber, Dylan was five. There were a whole bunch of neighborhood kids about a block away. They would all gather at this dirt mound at the end of the street. The problem was that there was a ditch and an abandoned house on the other side. Eventually, the boys would get curious and they'd start jumping the ditch and exploring the outbuildings. I adamantly forbade Dylan from going down there. Worse, he would take then three-year-old Ethan with him. But sure enough about every other afternoon, I'd think my boys were quietly playing on the sidewalk, and then I'd go out to check on them and they were gone. Inevitably, I'd find them at the dirt pile. How did we solve the problem? Eventually, we moved to that neighborhood with all the retired people. There my kids never wandered off, because there was no temptation. Now I'm back to the same problem. My boys are better. They tell me one place they are going, and they go there, or they come back and tell me they are going somewhere else. Only Mazie is the problem.

I'll keep harping on her, and hopefully, eventually she will figure out the boundaries.