Looking back on the situations, it's much funnier now than when my son was in 2nd grade & thought it was fun to call the Fire Dept & report a fire on the street below, after his Dad & I had left for work 20 miles away in San Francisco. After a few times of this, I got a call from the Fire Captain at work. They had traced the call to our house, called & my son answered. He asked him if he'd been calling in erroneous fires, to which my son confessed. The Captain made my ex-husband bring him to the Fire Dept & explained the seriousness of his pranks. Needless to say, that was the end of his calling the Fire Dept. The next time he didn't want to do homework, he told me he was going to call the Hotline if kids though they were being abused. (This was in California, back in the late 1970-'s). I told him to go right ahead & the Counselor calmly told him his Mother had the right to insist he do homework and that he wasn't being abused. The look on his face told the rest of the story. We didn't have any more trouble getting him to do homework. When my son's kids are acting up now & he gets upset, I just look at him & say, "hey remember when.........?" He lightens up & starts laughing. What goes around comes around!