Parenting 101

Every morning I have a cup of coffee. I use a French Coffee Press which means I boil some water in a teapot, pour it into a glass cylinder along with some ground coffee, and then use a fancy screened widget to push the mud down so I can pour out ...my coffee...

So, every morning I put the teapot on the stove to heat. About a week ago, after the teapot started to whistle, I asked my eldest daughter to turn off the stove.

Now, my wife and I had taught our daughters that the stove was dangerous. They don't touch it. It isn't to be played with. It is dangerous ... and so my daughter had no idea how to turn it off.

With that came the realization that we had been delinquent as parents. It would be OK for them to not know how to turn it on, but they certainly needed to know how to turn the stove off.

So I held a short class in how to turn the stove off. They each got a turn to do it.

It seems like such a simple thing to make any fuss over, until you realize it isn't about working a stove. It is about understanding stove safety. Being prepared for the possible danger. Knowing what to do. Sheltering them from the stove only prevented that safety.

So now, when the teapot starts whistling the girls rush in to ask me if they can turn it off. OK, so long as they're careful.

...being too sheltered from the dangerous often means not being prepared to face the dangerous...