Each age comes with their own issues. I personally find the age where they want to help with everythin but don’t quite understand their limitations to be my current challenge (4 year old niece). It was interesting finding out that she could open the heavy glass door by herself and was tall enough now to open the fridge. My sister’s regret was when she carried out the mini potty into their living room asking if she could dump it in the toilet. She could carry it by herself, but not without spilling it over the sides everywhere.
Normally I find preschools to be fairly easy in a short time setting, as they are typically fairly good at wanting to follow the rules and eager to please. The opposite side to that is they tend to find their own ways to “help” if you don’t provide them with options. Things such as trying to give the cat a bath, trying to clean other things in water that shouldn’t be cleaned in water, etc.
I know that when I was a child, I would normally get in trouble for things I would do for curiousity rather than malice. Even a teenager’s brain doesn’t always have the experience or wisdom to catch on to an outcome that adult me normally can see. For instance, making more flames in a citronella candle does not help keep the mosquitoes away and instead just completely melts the candle. Also a torch is not just a stick set on fire at one end, but involves cloth and oil. That was how I got banned from playing with fire by my friends. Didn’t catch anything else on fire other than the candle and stick, so I was lucky that there was no harm done.
Or like how 14-year-old-me thought “electricity bills are stupid! Why do grownups even bother?? When I get a house I’m gonna replace all the lights with TORCH BRACKETS on the walls! I’m a GENIUS!!”
36-year-old me, however, realizes this would be not only an insurance and fire hazard nightmare, but there’d be nowhere for the smoke to go and the smell…
There are a lot of people that still use woodstoves for “cheap affordable” heat, even though they live in a mountain valley and get a lot of inversion. I don’t find the health issues that everyone gets from breathing in the smoke during inversions to be cheap or affordable. If you live in an area where they recommend limiting driving on bad inversion days, I personally think that allowing any fires (outside or inside for heating) should be illegal. It’s not just your health at that point.
Just to add:
From what I’ve read, it’s best (despite the difficulties) to help them learn how to do these things properly rather than outright forbid them from helping, if it’s a practical option. In the long run, children who are encouraged to be helpful tend to become more cooperative and better connected with their families, apparently, as well as being more self-sufficient (you won’t always be there to do thing for them, even if you want to); by contrast, training a child to depend on others to do everything for them has some pretty obvious long-term downsides.
Of course, it can add a lot of work in the short term.
It’s definitely a challenge! My twins are 4 and their help makes everything take twice as long. But my personal least favorite stage is the early toddler bit. There’s about a year from 16 months to just before 2.5 years where they’re learning new things every day and they’re constantly surprising you. Most of the time it’s amazing and adorable but sometimes you have a suicidal ninja on your hands and that ninja is utterly pissed that you won’t let them just die already. It was extra bad with my twins because they learned early to split up so you could only physically pull one away from their mischief. Their own grandmother refused to babysit them over it for a time because of an incident where, in her words, “I’m sorry your son ate the dog food but I was busy keeping your daughter from licking the electrical outlet” and I just said “good choice and no worries, this is totally their usual bit, he gets in the cat food at home so often that we’ve just started calling it ‘meat cereal’ and she’s always after cords to bite them so we call those ‘spicy pasta’.”
Each age comes with their own issues. I personally find the age where they want to help with everythin but don’t quite understand their limitations to be my current challenge (4 year old niece). It was interesting finding out that she could open the heavy glass door by herself and was tall enough now to open the fridge. My sister’s regret was when she carried out the mini potty into their living room asking if she could dump it in the toilet. She could carry it by herself, but not without spilling it over the sides everywhere.
Normally I find preschools to be fairly easy in a short time setting, as they are typically fairly good at wanting to follow the rules and eager to please. The opposite side to that is they tend to find their own ways to “help” if you don’t provide them with options. Things such as trying to give the cat a bath, trying to clean other things in water that shouldn’t be cleaned in water, etc.
I know that when I was a child, I would normally get in trouble for things I would do for curiousity rather than malice. Even a teenager’s brain doesn’t always have the experience or wisdom to catch on to an outcome that adult me normally can see. For instance, making more flames in a citronella candle does not help keep the mosquitoes away and instead just completely melts the candle. Also a torch is not just a stick set on fire at one end, but involves cloth and oil. That was how I got banned from playing with fire by my friends. Didn’t catch anything else on fire other than the candle and stick, so I was lucky that there was no harm done.
Or like how 14-year-old-me thought “electricity bills are stupid! Why do grownups even bother?? When I get a house I’m gonna replace all the lights with TORCH BRACKETS on the walls! I’m a GENIUS!!”
36-year-old me, however, realizes this would be not only an insurance and fire hazard nightmare, but there’d be nowhere for the smoke to go and the smell…
Also, torches still cost money.
There are a lot of people that still use woodstoves for “cheap affordable” heat, even though they live in a mountain valley and get a lot of inversion. I don’t find the health issues that everyone gets from breathing in the smoke during inversions to be cheap or affordable. If you live in an area where they recommend limiting driving on bad inversion days, I personally think that allowing any fires (outside or inside for heating) should be illegal. It’s not just your health at that point.
Just to add:
From what I’ve read, it’s best (despite the difficulties) to help them learn how to do these things properly rather than outright forbid them from helping, if it’s a practical option. In the long run, children who are encouraged to be helpful tend to become more cooperative and better connected with their families, apparently, as well as being more self-sufficient (you won’t always be there to do thing for them, even if you want to); by contrast, training a child to depend on others to do everything for them has some pretty obvious long-term downsides.
Of course, it can add a lot of work in the short term.
It’s definitely a challenge! My twins are 4 and their help makes everything take twice as long. But my personal least favorite stage is the early toddler bit. There’s about a year from 16 months to just before 2.5 years where they’re learning new things every day and they’re constantly surprising you. Most of the time it’s amazing and adorable but sometimes you have a suicidal ninja on your hands and that ninja is utterly pissed that you won’t let them just die already. It was extra bad with my twins because they learned early to split up so you could only physically pull one away from their mischief. Their own grandmother refused to babysit them over it for a time because of an incident where, in her words, “I’m sorry your son ate the dog food but I was busy keeping your daughter from licking the electrical outlet” and I just said “good choice and no worries, this is totally their usual bit, he gets in the cat food at home so often that we’ve just started calling it ‘meat cereal’ and she’s always after cords to bite them so we call those ‘spicy pasta’.”
Okay, show of hands. Who saw the FWUMSH and thought it was the girls writing out the letters in the air?
You’re the one who tempted Fate, Pohl, this one’s on you.