“The mother brought the three boys to the Loganville police station. The boys were crying as they confessed, police said.”

These three young boys, ages 7, 9 and 11, broke into a business, stole some items, including a fire accelerant, and set a fire that burned four homes…sort of accidentally.

I am very big on accountability and personal responsibility. Very big, I am annoyingly pro-law, I respect authority and doing the right thing. I have boys this age. Yes, I know with 21 sons that I have boys every age, but these are very young boys, and last night, hearing this on the news broke my heart.

I believe that this mother did the right thing. She held them accountable for their actions. It must have torn her up, broken her heart, ripped out her guts, but she did it. Had she not done so, the message she would have sent as an enabler would have been, “OK, boys, let’s tamper with the evidence, cover up a crime, absolve y’all for your actions,” which likely would have just allowed the boys to escalate their negative actions.

I cannot begin to imagine how hard this was for her, she’ll get flack from people for not “standing up” for her boys, but in the long run she has probably saved them from a life of crime.

It got worse for her. And for her family, these boys had no history of criminal behavior.

“But Juvenile Court Judge J. Stanley Rhymer ruled that the two older boys would remain in the county's juvenile detention facility. Rhymer allowed the youngest to return home with his mother.

The boys did not immediately react. But when they saw the expressions on their parents' faces, they began to cry. As did their parents. They stood and hugged one another.”

I disagree with the judge, I believe that all the boys should have been remanded to the parents, obviously these parents know how to follow the law. I believe the boys should not be locked up, they need their parents, and I pray that this wrong gets corrected.

A local District Attorney had recently told me that he was terribly upset, one county over, at a serious sex crime by a juvenile that did not result in a lock-up. I was fortunate, in my county, that the juvenile judge did lock up my seriously violent 14 year old last fall. That’s what juvenile lock-up is for.

I cannot imagine how awful this mother must now feel as I believe that she was punished for her own difficult, yet correct, choice. I greatly admire her honesty, yet I feel she, and the boys, are now receiving the wrong message.

My heart breaks for them; for the nightmare they are living through.

I can only pray that this entire dreadful ordeal will play itself out satisfactorily. I know there are fire victims that want restitution, they deserve it obviously. I hope that these boys, and their families, emerge undamaged as well.

This is one horribly tough situation. I found myself, having faced so many similar ordeals, wondering what I’d do now in her shoes.