In the abstract, the severity of the lecture should not necessarily follow the actual damage - sometimes it should follow the potential for damage, perhaps? For instance, when I was a kid, I ran out into the road to chase a ball. A car stopped about 1 meter from me. Nobody and nothing was hurt (unless you count terrifying the driver and my mother on the sidewalk watching). Was I in trouble? Hell yes. If my mother had said 'well, nobody was hurt, no problem' then how was I supposed to learn how stupid it was?