[thechat] The youth today... [WAS: santa question - quickie]

Martin Burns martin at easyweb.co.uk
Wed Nov 27 08:41:04 CST 2002


On Thu, 28 Nov 2002, Lachlan Cannon wrote:

> Drew Shiel wrote:
> > At 00:13 28/11/2002 +1100, Lachlan Cannon wrote:
> >
> >>>   Given that it's impossible to completely make safe a normal household
> >>> environment, what do you suggest instead of a slap for this purpose?
> >>
> >> Make sure your house is safe before you have the kids?
> >   Short of removing all the furniture and covering the electrical outlets,
> > is this possible?
>
> Obviously not totally possible, but you can do your damn best.

Or take the opposite approach - if you never expose your child to risk,
they'll never be able to handle it. Naturally, deadly dangers are a wee
bit different (so our sockets are in use or covered, and we're a bit
careful with upper floor windows), but on the whole are we going to wrap
Morgan in cotton wool? Hell no. We do do a lot of encouraging of safe
behaviour as well btw.

I really think that the lesson of "don't do that, then" can be learned
without an accompanying lesson of "Fear your parents".

> >> is always keeping an eye out for them?
> >
> >   Is that possible either? I know that even though my mother was a
> > full-time at-home mother, she still had to take an eye off us occasionally
> > to answer the door or the phone, or to attend to housework. What you're
> > recommending here seems to be that someone be there 100% of the time, just
> > to child-mind?

Yes. But 'child-mind' is a bad term. It's not a chore - it's part of
forming a relationship with your child.

> Not necessarily 100% of the time but there should always be someone who
> knows where the kid is, and looks over to check on them every few
> minutes. If the parent is cooking what's wrong with putting the young
> child in a high chair beside you while you're making the stuff, for example?

Exactly what we do, which also teaches Morgan a lot of lessons about
cooking being something fun which everyone does, rather than food being
the thing you go to McD's for.

Cheers
Martin


--
"Names, once they are in common use, quickly
 become mere sounds, their etymology being
 buried, like so many of the earth's marvels,
 beneath the dust of habit." - Salman Rushdie




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