I have two small children. And it feels like at least one of them is doing something that I would consider ill-advised at any given moment in time. Whether it’s physically dangerous, messy or just demonstrates a general lack of foresight, I am frequently gobsmacked by the stuff I find my kids doing. This is no big surprise, really. Children don’t yet have the judgment to make the best choices, which is why they have parents. Our job is to keep them alive long enough to develop that judgment.
Because my kids so clearly don’t understand the potential consequences of their actions, I feel compelled to warn them. If you were to come up with my full title it would something like, “Mother of Hannah and Jacob, Wiper of Surfaces and Children, Maker of Meals, Driver of the Family Car and Provider of Dire Warnings”. Oh yes, I do provide rather a lot of dire warnings.
On this occasion, I warned against dirty hands and ruined clothing
If you are a parent, you have likely provided some dire warnings yourself. And if you’re not, you were surely on the receiving end more than twice during your childhood. Here are some examples of dire warnings that I have personally provided, many of which I am thoroughly embarrassed by:
- If you run into traffic, you’re going to get killed by a car!
- If you lean over that railing, you could fall into the water and I don’t want to have to jump in to save you!
- You’re going to have to clean up all these toys all by yourself before you can eat dinner!
- For the love of Mike, there’s dog poop on this playground! Put your shoes back on!
- If you break your bed I won’t be able to buy you a new one, so you’d better stop jumping off the headboard!
- Stop! Don’t eat that! If you eat berries without checking with me first, you could be poisoned!
- If you guys don’t stop fighting with each other, I am going to run screaming into the street!
- If you can’t take care of your toys, maybe we should find a kid who can!
On this occasion, I warned against butt slivers
All of the warnings, you may have noticed, involve exclamation points. This is because they are rarely never delivered in a calm, measured voice. No, you’re issuing these warnings to put the fear of God into your child, and you may even be justified in doing just that. Like I said, kids lack judgment. Sometimes they’re doing something that could actually kill them at any moment. And other times, you may be on your 247th dire warning of the day, and you’re not thinking so clearly anymore.
I don’t think providing dire warnings is what you would call the most effective parenting technique. Somewhere between, “Cars drive quickly on this street and they may not be able to stop in time to keep from hitting you,” and, “If you’re not careful your face will freeze that way,” we cross from needed information to irrational threats. We’ve all had irrational threats lobbed in our general direction, and once someone resorts to that, we tend to take them a whole lot less seriously.
I had already warned against getting stuck up there, and now he is stuck up there
The other problem is that dire warnings naturally lead to lectures. Because, as it turns out, those little dears of ours just don’t appreciate our wisdom. They don’t understand the potential danger of their actions. And so we must make them understand. By droning on and on and on and losing whatever tiny remnant of their attention we actually had. Sometimes I can actually see the moment when all of my words just become the Charlie Brown style ‘wah wah wah’ for my kids. They completely tune me out, their eyes glaze over and they sit motionless, waiting for me to stop.
And yet, I can’t stop. Even though I know they’re ineffective and make no difference, I have to keep providing these warnings. Because I can’t just let all of the ill-advised actions pass by without notice. It goes against every parenting instinct I have. So I persist in warning, my kids persist in ignoring, and we all just wait for the day when they’re old enough to know better than to eat candy they find in a puddle. (They will eventually know better, right?)
What is the most ridiculous warning you’ve given your kids? And do you think warnings are sound parenting, or a waste of words? I’d love your thoughts!
PS – Every month I do a monthly review of things I learned. Some are serious, some are funny, and all are hard-won. I will be running my April review on Monday, May 2. If you want to play along, there will be a link-up, so write a post on or before the link-up date and come back here to include it.
my mum overdid the warnings about stamping on the bathroom floor – she told the wee guy there were trolls living under the floorboards which got annoyed by him stomping. she then had to deal with the wee guy possibly not wanting to go to the bathroom ever. i love it when the consequences catch up with the perpetrator. if they’re not fatal or maiming, i try to leave it that way as a learning experience for ignoring what i say (for both my boys).
i have threatened to leave home during The Warning of Dire Consequences To All and Sundry – they don’t think i mean it so nothing happens (i will have the last laugh one day, at least for a while when i swan off to a spa for the week with minimal warning!)
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I heard my husband once telling my daughter that if she stood too close to the upstairs landing in a hotel we were staying at, “You will fall and you will DIE!” It was clear to me, and probably to her as well, that there was no way she would ‘die’ from falling 12 feet onto the sofa bed below.
I honestly worry that such ridiculous statements do nothing but make our kids not trust us.
LOL to the butt slivers!
I can feel the warning monster within me starting to rise up…
For me, the dire warnings tumble out when I am feeling impatient and not in the mood to get face-to-face with my almost-two-year-old and wrack my brain to find simple ways to get through to her about the consequences of her actions. (Which, let’s face it, is actually quite a lot of the time!) This post was a good reminder to me to brainstorm some other ways of making my point.
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Part of my problem is that sometimes, in moments of severe lack of of 2-year old judgment, I can’t even bother with the warnings of what could happen. Queue picture of me screaming “You do NOT grab a knife out of the drawer and go running down down the hall!!! You do NOT! EVER!!!” followed by alarmed and confused expression on said 2-year old’s face as to why his mother is so hysterical. What could possibly happen, it’s not like he could lose an eye or something?!
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The older they get, the more reasonable my warnings become… like Shana I didn’t take the time to make reason when I was panicing at their dangerous antics – blowing my top at the foolhardy behaviour (then again my boys were pros at hurting themselves the nurse hotline, and emergency room were frequently called on.
Oh my goodness! Some of the stuff that comes out of my mouth at times. I have to shake my head at myself. Happy Weekend!
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My mom did this wrong. She was a teacher and one afternoon I was at work with her and got thirsty. She told me not to go to the closest water fountain because it was “broken.” On my way by I decided to check anyway, and it was working. I used that one and went back and told her it wasn’t broken after all. I can’t remember exactly what she said but I somehow spent the rest of that day thinking the water had been contaminated and that I might die. When really she had just seen some kids putting their mouths on it earlier that day. I’m not sure why she didn’t just tell me that…
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Don’t pick your nose or else you head will cave in. My dad used to say it to me all the time. Now I find it flying out of my mouth directed at Emma ALL of the time. I really thought by the time she started kindergarten peer pressure would have taken care of the pesky nose picking problem she is having a hard time kicking.
Eh, I figure they will learn soon enough. (Best way to avoid butt slivers? Get one.) Is that mean of me? But that’s easy for me to say. I thought my house was childproofed until a friend’s 2 year old ran out of my kitchen slicing the air with my kitchen shears. That’s when I realized I have an abnormally compliant kid.
“DON’T FOOL AROUND WITH THE DOOR!” is a common one for me to yell. Megan loves to fool around with, control, open, and close every door in sight, and often ends up with a door in the face, or a bruised leg or crunched foot because of her door obsession. It drives me crazy! So I keep warning! To no avail!
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Totally hilarious! I remember getting warnings like this from my own mom as a kid and wondering why she really thought I was about to kill myself all the time. Now I understand.
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My mom was over-protective, so when I had my kids I tended to save my big guns for the big things. Of course, I also worked full-time, so caretakers saw most of what they did. Now, I’m retired and three times/week watch my first grandchild. I’ve never raised my voice to her and tried very hard not to say “No” to anything. I’ll say things like, “I REALLY don’t want you to do that” and for the truly dangerous stuff I call out “Danger” and she stops in her tracks. She tends to be very compliant with me. If I say, “Do you think it’s time to change your diaper?” she goes over to her blanket on the floor and lays down. If I say, “Are you getting hungry?” she walks to her high chair. She’s only almost 15 months old now, so the “terrible twos” hasn’t started yet, but my daughter has related that both she and her paternal grandmother think she’s started the terrible twos early.
I’m fortunate in that I don’t need to do anything but amuse the child while I have her for 3-4 hours 3 times/week. I’m loving seeing all the changes that I missed in my own children.
Eating candy off the street? Probably worse thing that can happen is impetigo and there’s treatment for that.
Grandparenting is definitely the cat’s meow. We can spend 4 out of 4 hrs with them not needing to clean, do laundry, etc., so opportunities don’t arise when they’re out of our sight.
Teen years were tough for my grandchild’s mom and me, but I won’t be asked/alive? when this little girl is a teen and my daughter turned out fine despite the angst I felt during the teen years.
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There are times when I can’t stop myself and the stupidest, most extreme warnings come out of my mouth. Trying to get better about it!
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I can’t think of an over-the-top dire warning as parent that I haven’t see either in your post or in the comments. I guess I am just not very creative with my warnings. I did feel horrible once when I was kid though, after repeatedly telling my little sister that if she sat that close to the t.v. she would need glasses (I couldn’t see the screen) and then she did need glasses.
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I had to laugh so much about your dire warnings I nearly choked. And when I read them again and again, I realised I would act just like your children do because your dire warnings are so inviting to try out what happens! All those nice if-phrases – let’s try out whether mummy really runs out on the street screaming, etc.
I’ve tried to imagine what I would say in the situations you mentioned, and I can clearly delineate three different types of situations:
- not dangerous to anybody, merely annoying or not “suitable” (candy in the puddle, butt slivers): I merely give information “by sliding down this rough wooden board, you can get slivers in your butt.” Just the facts. I’m neither pro nor con, I just give them the facts. And it’s up to them to decide what they do with the information, thus I don’t repeat it if they continue sliding down.
- straightforward dangerous (berries, running in the street): I don’t give “warnings” but I straightforward forbid it and take action if they don’t comply immediately. If we are in calmer waters, we can talk over why I was acting so strictly and explain why this is so dangerous.
- even if not annoying, but it’s up to ME to deal with the consequences, it depends on my mood/my means how I react (headboard, dog poop): If I have to time to clean pooped feet, I might just give the facts, but if the evening is busy anyway I’d insist that they put on the shoes. Same for headboard, depending on the state of my wallet.
The good thing with not using warnings at all is that there is clear responsibility on all of us: I take responsibility if I give clear directions (or: orders), and I give them responsibility if I give them the facts and they know it’s up to them to decide. A warning is very much in-between an order (where you have to comply) and just giving information (where it’s up to you to decide what you do with it), because it implies that the sender wants you to act in a certain way.
And I’ve made the experience that children are people like all of us and resist pressure in any form. And if mommy insinuates very strongly that she wants me to act a certain way, I just HAVE to do it the other way round because she just doesn’t leave me the space to decide myself…
So, if you like, try it out.
Non-negotiables = orders = your responsibility.
The rest: just information, objectively. No reproach, no shining through of what you would like to see the child do. And even if they try it out (and they will!) and get stuck of whatever, just help them out without a comment like “see! I told you so!”. You could just commiserate and repeat the information “Oh! I see this hurts! Wooden boards can be dangerous for sliding down”.
Funnily enough, at least half of the time when they try it out, nothing will happen (no slivers, no getting stuck, not getting sick for the puddle candy). Here I’ve learned a lot to relax.
Have fun!