Vacation Traditions: The Amnesty Night Bonfire

There was the 'Elevator Incident,' where I successfully escaped & evaded police on an intense manhunt led by the sheriff's department; I had locked down the only elevator in a very busy high-rise hotel for nearly two hours. Then there was the poison ivy oil that I had greased the classroom desks with in high school. The fish-oil pills prank wasn't too bad, but it was still a very rotten prank to pull on innocent students. These pranks were just some of the misdeeds that were brought up on our annual Amnesty Night bonfires.

My mother is a former attorney. She wanted to communicate with us and give us a punishment-free confession time. The rationale behind this idea was explained to us; kids need a safe way to get their troubles off of their chests and they also need parental guidance to stay out of trouble. As a vacation tradition, Amnesty Night is a great solution for patient, calm parents who want to mentor their teens while on vacation.

In return for hearing what we did and knowing what we'd been up to, each person was forgiven for what they had done. The trick to making this work is time. The event had to be at least two to four years old, or the statute of limitations had to have passed. This effectively helped to remove most of the emotional shock accompanying some misdeeds and allowed the whole family to enjoy these stories from the safe shelter of time-passed-bye.

The bible espouses forgiveness, responsibility, and positive leadership; these traits are what make parents successful mentors in today's nasty world. The Amnesty Night Bonfire allows this to be reinforced. Even though my mom can posses the patience of Job at times, some of my pranks were so outrageous that my mom (very reasonably) had trouble keeping her cool, and she was reminded of the rules that makes this night work so well; Events are brought up to be discussed in a punishment-free "zone" where forgiveness also plays a big role. So be prepared to be shocked.

As for the pranks I pulled - I was stupid. And I'll be very honest - my mother was correct when she said that teenagers really need the most parental attention at times. I could have died when I jumped straight into a murder in progress - an enraged teenager was trying to kill a smaller teen over an offensive remark, and the person was armed. On a positive note, however, my mom did find out on one of these nights that I am directly responsible for saving someone's life. I write from real experience when I advocate for this, because a knock at the door in the middle of the night is NOT what you want to hear. The advice that you pass on to your children today may be the difference between their life and death. I urge parents to consider just one more way to open the doors to effective communication with their children & teens - the Amnesty Night Bonfire.