Learning from experience

A long time ago I heard a sermon of which the only thing I remember was the preacher saying that there were three ways that children learned to stay away from harmful things. He illustrated his point with the hot stove that many houses had for heat, 50 years ago when he was a child --

- Those who could be told "don't touch the stove" and would never go near it after that.

- Those who were told, but didn't really get the message until they saw another child get burned.

- Those who had to touch the stove and get burned themselves before they learned.

To which I would add a fourth type, which describes so many of our difficult children: those who touch the stove and get burned over and over, and only gradually or never at all do they learn.

It's complicated by the fact that like with that stove in the summer time, sometimes they can get away with "touching the stove" without getting burned (e.g. driving drunk but not getting stopped or hurting somebody).
 

crazymama30

Active Member
My mom used to call it "hitting the wall" My brother has hit the wall many times and never learned, I learned after I hit it once, and my sister (the youngest) just watched us hit the walls, and she never did the same things we did.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
My difficult child did this in REALITY. He was about 2. A friend and I were trading kids to attend summer classes. difficult child was at her house in the morning 2 days a week, and her kids were with me in the afternoon 2 days a week.

One morning my friend was had cooked oatmeal. She told the kids to stay away from the stove because it was still hot.

Her kids stayed out of the KITCHEN.

My son went up and put his hand ON THE BURNER (she had turned it off adn moved the pan). He screamed, pulled it off and she was running in as he put his hand BACK ON THE BURNER A SECOND TIME!!!

This was before cell phones, but luckily she had my mom's office #. I checked with the secretary for any messages most days (sometimes it was an unexpected park trip, usually there was nothing).

I checked and had to call her and go get my son and her kids. She was so upset. It never occurred to her a child would do that. (Her kids did pretty much exactly what you told them)

I was already used to this. This is how difficult child learns. And each time the stove is on is a totally NEW situation.

He is much better now, and had no scars. My friend has some though, PTSD ones!

Susie
 
well luckily chris did learn after getting a blister from doing basically the same thing but when he was still crawling we had some mouse traps set and thought they were all out of his reach he was confined to the living room when crawling on the floor but of course we misjudged him and he loves cheese by the way you guessed it he went for the cheese on the trap and got caught not once but twice the first time i like to had a heart attack but the second i kinda left it on a little longer to see if he would get the hint and moved it further away once it was reset he still tried to get almost let him just to see what he would do but i didn't i just went and got him a piece of cheese and he was happy
 

Fran

Former desparate mom
I watched my best friends baby crawl into the sliding glass door window. He bopped his head but he kept trying to get through that glass. He did it over and over. I was struck at his inability to not learn from the obvious.
Yep, you guessed it. He grew up to be a huge difficult child and cause a great deal of grief and pain to the family and the neighbors. I guess I wasn't surprised after watching him when he was still crawling.
 
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