Children learn what they live
So, there’s the never-ending debate online (and in real life, I suppose) regarding spanking… One of the arguments you always hear for spanking is, “If my child is going to touch a hot stove (or run into traffic), it is better that I let them feel the hurt of being spanked, and, therefore, learn not to touch - rather than let them be burned (or run over by a car)”.
I’ve always wondered why
1) a parent is letting their child be by a hot stove (or dangerous road) unsupervised if they know that their child doesn’t yet understand the danger of a hot stove (or dangerous road). Why is the child being punished for this?
2) If the parent is able to grab the child in order to spank them, when they are going for the hot stove (or into the dangerous road), why can’t they grab the child, bring them to safety, then *teach them with words, facial expressions, tone of voice, role playing & role modeling* about the danger (or keep them supervised better until they can learn about the danger)?
Anyway, even though we believe that some of life’s lessons are best learned by letting the child deal with the natural consequences of their own choices, we don’t mess around with safety. So, we supervised the kids in all situations until we knew that they knew how to keep themselves safe. And, we taught them to be safe by discussion, tone of voice, facial expression, role modeling & role playing.
Just last night, I was in the kitchen, working on dinner. All nine puppies were in there, too. As were Annie & Shelby. I had heard Annie talking to her favorite little puppini (she & shelby now call that dog ‘little big bark’, but I still call her puppini 
). She was saying something like, “You don’t want to be a too hot dog, do you?” over & over again. I started paying closer attention to her when I went to the stove to cook, because she was right there in my way & noticed what she was doing.
She was holding puppini & warning her about the hot oven, which I had pre-heating to warm some pretzels to have with our dinner. She was reaching out & touching the hot oven herself (it wasn’t hot enough to burn), then pulling her hand back, with an exaggerated ‘ouchie’ look on her face, saying “Ow! Hot! Don’t touch!” to the puppy. She was trying to teach the puppy how to be safe, in the same way that we had taught her.
I’m not sure that the puppy learned much last night. But, I know that I learned that Annie’s going to be an awesome mom one day! And, I felt good that she remembered the gentle lessons that we had taught her.
