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These aren't my methods. These are the methods my mother used to raise me and my brothers and by many of her peers to raise mine. And we grew up in a world without childproof lids; when people thought nothing of putting kero in a coke bottle (and no I don't consider that to be a good idea); There were no pool fences.
Not at all harsh. Which end of the child psychology spectrum do you work? The neurosies(sp?) of spoiled rich kids, or the social welfare end? I suspect the former, rather than the latter, since if you worked there, you'd know a whole lot of parents who's parents should have been sterised.
Yeah fair enough to hide the knives, but should I also be expected to locate every breakable, valuable or potentialy dangerous object and put it out of reach? I spilled a bottle of asprin a month ago, how can I be sure I got them all? Where do you draw the line? There is potential lethalitly in virtually anything: A dog's water dish; a piece of kibble; the cable on your mouse; a rat pellet (shit); Any piece of string; a pencil or stick; Any number of toys (They'll all have at least one shot at using a Tonka truck as a skateboard). The list is endless.
Of course you have a whip around to remove the worst dangers, and your best crystal, but there is no way to render all environments childsafe. However, properly trained, a child rasied my mother's way, is relatively safe in most environments, up to and including the engineering workshop I grew up in.
It takes a special kind of person to train an 800 lb gorilla. Particularly if you start with an 800 lb gorilla. A very special kind of person, which demonstrably, most people, most definitely are not.
For the record, I'm a trained child carer. I know the methods, of which you speak, and yes I agree they do work. If properly executed. But there's the rub. If they're properly executed. Badly executed, the methods you advocate are disasterous and potentially lethal. To give one example, a boy I know and used to occasionally care for, developed a very bad habit of running into the street (and not at a todler, but as a 9 yo). Many, many times the world rearranged itself to accomodate him, then one day it didn't and he ended up in hospital for a week or so. A couple of months later he was nearly killed when he did exactly the same thing again.
In certain controlled environments, with properly trained carers, the methods you speak of are wonderful (and necessary). In the real world, with real people, real, dumb as dogshit, ignorant people, who won't or just plain can't learn, those mthods are a recipe for disaster. It takes a 20 week course to train a child carer to the most basic level, at which point they are quallified to provide limited care under the close supervision of a far more quallified carer. What training do parents get? A few basic mothercraft tips for their newborn and that's basically it. Anything else they pretty much have to figure out for themeselves.
As for hitting. I'll stake tens of millions of years of evolution up against a little over one generation of theory, particularly when taken as a whole that generation of children has been one of the worst behaved in history. Consider virtually every single species on this planet that cares for it's offspring. How are the acceptable limits on the behaviour of those ofspring established? Pain.
Pain evolved as a way of telling a creature that its behaviour, (or at least its current circumstances) is injurous or potentially so. And guess what? For hundreds of millions of years, it has worked. And for tens of millions of years violence, or the threat of it, has been used in a directed fashion in the raising of ofspring by creatures we consider to be possessed of at least rudimentary intelligence, up to and including the great apes, elephants and dolphins and whales.
BTW: I do not consider a clap on the nappy to be abusive as you intimate above. Short of hitting so hard you crack the kid's head on the ceiling, it can't possibly hurt, but it sure does get their attention. The greatest pain I have ever intentionally inflicted upon a child would be about that of a flicked rubber band, far less than they inflict upon themselves and each other on a daily basis.
Moving downthread.
"The other person", me, advocates occasionally smacking chidren, when their behaviour has the potential to cause serious harm or even death. Otherwise I use my voice (fortunately a strong baritone) or a turned back to let my disapproval be known.
"There's no excuse for negligence, giving a kid a choking part is STUPID.
That's why there are warnings on CHOKING HAZARDS on toys are McDonalds, etc."
Did you actually read what Coventina wrote? Her (I shall presume) case paralleled this one, in that an older child gave something (a small ball) to a younger child. What was the negligence? Probably nothing more than a moment's inattention. Something we are all guilty of and which we 999 times out of a thousand get away with without disaster.
"Because some people are just too fucking STUPID to keep their children safe."
Couldn't have said it better myself. Those people are also too stupid to learn how to raise children, "the civilised, scientific way". Very few of them however, are too stupid to learn how hard to smack a kid, and most too can manage when, according to "the old barbaric methods", that we poor benighted people used for the 8000 or so generations that modern humans have walked this earth, and the untold tens of thousands since we came down from the trees.
"The father wss culpable for leaving out something that a child could use to kill another one. STUPID."
So every single corner in your home is padded. You obviously have no funtiture, or your kids might have climbed on it, fallen and broken their neck. By the same logic, all of your windows are barred. And there is no item harder than a Nerf toy, and lighter than (say 40 lb) within 30 inches of floor level. (Better make that 48, so they can't pull something down on their heads) Further you have taken all your doors down in case a small head just happens to be in the way when the wind blows one shut.
Am I being ridiculous enough yet? It could as easily have been the stuffing out of a stuffed toy. There is no such effing thing as absolute safety, and that goes squared if you insist (as you appear to do) that all safety measures are external to the person being protected.
NOT YOURS! DON'T TOUCH!
We're not dicussing Grandma's mental capactiy. For the purpose of the exercise the presumption is that she can care for herself. However, her physical capabilities might not be up to childproof caps and high shelves. Should she be required to have someone come in to sanitise her home before she may have her grandkids come to visit?
"Grown ups are in charge, not kids."
¿Que? You completely rearrange your world, and expect the rest of the world to follow suit. Kids my not direct your world, but they definitely control its makeup.
"It IS the parents responsibility in the end, some parents don't care, my ex wife would go to the beach, slather on the sun tan oil, put on the sunglasses and crash out in a lounge chair. Two minutes later my son was in 8 feet of water at age 3."
Even when you argue your case, you prove mine. My three year old nephews (raised my mother's way) won't go near the water, unless accompanied by a responsible individual. Your kid, rasied your way, nearly drowned the moment your wife took her eyes off him.
There is no substitute for proper supervision. However, training a child to avoid the novel/dangerous is of immeasurable assitance.
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