AITA for punishing all my children for the actions of one?

My kids have been doing really nutty things over the past month or so, but they’re young and they’re still learning. <br><br>I have six kids in total, two of whom are adults and three of whom are too young to know better. The remaining kid/ eldest minor is the one bringing me here today. <br><br>My eldest minor child is ‘Jake’. Jake is three years old and has a fixation with throwing things into the toilet and watching the water spin. I don’t know why. <br><br>Over the last month I’ve found: multiple matchsticks floating, an open pack of ramen noodles, six Lego bricks, a dead mouse (that he had also tried to drown in the sink because it was ‘thirsty’), and a full tube of toothpaste. Before I could get in between them, my husband even managed to get the matchsticks down his throat and I spent all of my free time on Monday rushing him to the hospital, sitting in the waiting room and listening to him complain that his mouth burns for the rest of the day. <br><br>Jake was sent to time out for all of these things. My husband was less than amused with me for scolding Jake and sending him to time out because he saw the incident as ‘an accident’ but I thought that Jake was displaying manipulative tendencies by throwing something into the toilet every chance he got, in front of me, when he was very aware that he was not allowed to do so. <br><br>‘Why are you putting toothpaste in the toilet?’ <br><br>‘I wanna watch the colours spin.’<br><br>‘Okay. You can’t put toothpaste in the toilet because it’s not for flushing. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’ <br><br>‘Yes ma’am.’ <br><br>‘Good. Now go to time out.’ <br><br>Jake was punished for every single incident, and my husband was getting tired of Jake being punished for things he didn’t mean to do. <br><br>Yesterday I finally understood why. <br><br>My husband and I were both in the master bedroom with the door closed, when we heard the first thud, followed by the eventual ‘flush’. <br><br>My husband groaned and said to let it go. <br><br>A few minutes later, another flush. <br><br>I went to check it out and found Jake sitting in the tub with his head in his hands. <br><br>‘What did you put down the toilet, Jake?’ <br><br>‘Some of my toys ma’am. I forgot that I’m not allowed to do that.’<br><br>‘I know that you aren’t. That’s why you don’t do it!’ <br><br>We went digging through the toilet with a wire coat hanger and a pair of needle nosed pliers and eventually found the culprit; a small plastic dinosaur that Jake had managed to get completely down the pipe somewhere. We couldn’t get it out and the bath tub began to overflow with water so we had to call a plumber and shut off the water completely for the day. <br><br>When Jake found out that we were going to call a plumber he started to cry and told us that he wasn’t alone. <br><br>Jake’s siblings, who are all under the age of four, including the baby, were also guilty of throwing things down the sink. Jake was the leader of the operation and the mastermind behind every incident. <br><br>The other night I had gone to check on Jake and caught the baby sitting on the floor in front of the toilet, staring up into the bowl, mesmerized by the spinning water. <br><br>I asked the children why they were doing this and they told me that they were only doing it because Jake had told them to. <br><br>Like the fucking pied piper of Hamlin, Jake had been leading his siblings to the toilet and telling them to put random objects in. The children were also aware that they weren’t allowed to do it because Jake was always telling them that it was our little secret and that if mom or dad ever found out he would be ‘in big trouble’. <br><br>I punished every single one of them by taking away all their toys and only giving them back two at a time over the course of three days, forcing them to spend the rest of their time bathing, sleeping, eating or playing outside. <br><br>My youngest two spent most of their time playing outside, while Jake spent most of his time bathing and sleeping. <br><br>Jake is very upset with me and told me that it wasn’t fair to punish his siblings for something that he did, but that he would accept his punishment and do extra chores around the house while the others played. <br><br>My husband thinks that this is an excessive punishment. The children don’t have enough toys as it is and taking all of them away isn’t going to teach them any lessons. He says that I should find a way to keep a better eye on them and that the children who weren’t involved in Jake’s scheme deserve their toys back.