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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to show 5 YO pics of burns victims

68 replies

lola88 · 20/04/2012 13:27

My 5 YO DN tried to put her hand in boiling water the other day to fish out a dummy i had just put in to clean for my DS i told her that she would burn herself and not to do it, her response was i don't mind i like hot water it's fine to put my hand in. I explained that boiling water is not like having a hot bath it will hurt you very badly so it was not a good idea to go putting your hands in it or anything hot like kettle cooker sterliser but she said it is a good idea because she will do it quick and it won't hurt.

Obviously i was very worried she's goin to start touching hot things so i asked if she would like to see a picture of someone who has burned thier hand badly she said yes so i googled showed her and she agreed no it was not a good idea and she won't do it all sorted. Now my mum has told me i should never have shown her these pictures as they might have scared her but that was sort of the point to show her how badly she could be hurt.

AIBU in showing her theses should i just have explained and left it there.

OP posts:
ripsishere · 20/04/2012 15:52

I would have been furious if you had shown my DD pictures like that. My child, my methods.
I honestly think you overstepped the mark.

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 15:54

The Police say that do they six? The question that my 5 year old asks me about death and the nature of it beg to differ. And, being her Mum, it's safe to say that I know how much she understands of what she's been told. Coming down to me in tears three weeks after asking me about death, saying that she didn't want me to not be in the world hardly shows lack of understang.

I didn't relish in that original chat, but we have several family members who have passed and are remembered fondly so the question was always going to come up. Like how me getting pregnant with and having her younger siblings spawned some basic chats about where babies come from.

BulletProofMum · 20/04/2012 15:54

Six - that's my original point - they don't make the connection!

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 15:55

*understanding

tazzle · 20/04/2012 15:57

what works with one child will not work with another ..... as with adult learning some children will process auditory information better and some will process visual information better. Some children will trust the information adults give them, some will need to experiment and see if what the adult says or true ..... or try to prove them wrong ( move on a few years and substitute smoking Wink for example.

Or the playing with matches

I am so sorry bullet about your DD . I worked for some time as a nurse in a burns unit and in A&E so have seen first hand the pain caused by burns and scalds. If a little "shock" tactics can stop one child experiencing such injuries , even someone telling the truth ( doubt the mother was being maliscious or cruel about the person in the picture) such as playing with matches can lead to you getting badly burnt, then imo it is worth it.

I can totally empathise with you being uncomfortable and not wanting anyone to seeing pictures of your DD but I have heard other mothers saying the total opposite, that they wished they could show the result or either accidental or deliberate use of fire / matches /boiling liquids / fireworks. They did not want to see any other child experience a stay in a burns unit.

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 15:59

tazzle that's how I feel. When my DD had her orginal accent and got burned she was too young for me to be able to explain consequences to her after it happened. I so wished that I could.

I wouldn't just sit them down and show them slideshows of all the horrirs that they could endure but I would DEFINATELY show something if I felt the need arose.

BulletProofMum · 20/04/2012 16:05

I am most vocal about scalding (my daughters injury was a petrol explosion but most of the burns injuries to children are due to scalding) and would be more than happy to use pictures of my daughter to highlight to adults or older children the dangers. However I think 5 is too young here.

Around scalding, the OP was at fault leaving scalding water, presumably in a see through container, with an object a child might want, in reach of a child. Of course most of us have a hot drink accessible to a child but even a 2yo can recognise it as a hot drink. A dummy in a glass container (or whatever it must have been visible) - how was the child to know it was hot? A graphic picture wouldn't change the risk

sixlostmonkeys · 20/04/2012 16:06

Yes Autumn the police say that. You read it correctly :)

A child may understand death in the way you say you dd does, but it's a different thing entirely for them to make the connection of walking too close to the cliff edge/ riding friends brakeless bike down hill/throwing bricks at people being something that can 'result' in death.

(and.... I'm not asking for a debate on whether my quickly thought-up examples are good ones) :)

BulletProofMum · 20/04/2012 16:07

I agree

RevoltingPeasant · 20/04/2012 16:08

I think children's level of apprehension of this kind of thing must vary so enormously.

When I was 4-5 my DSis3 had cancer and the drs thought she would probably die. I know my parents explained this to me and I remember quite clearly having a picture in my head of the cemetary so I knew I understood in some sense what they meant.

But it meant nothing to me. There is no emotion attached to that memory. I think the age at which that idea starts to become scary - like for Autumn's DD - is the age when real comprehension starts to set in.

Noqontrol · 20/04/2012 16:10

I would do it if the need arose. I showed my dd pics of rotten teeth when she went through a phase of refusing to brush. I wouldn't do it with a niece though, not without asking permission first anyway.

Emmielu · 20/04/2012 16:10

OP i wouldnt go ahead with showing someone else's child pictures like that. Not only might it scare the child enough to have a nightmare it might also backfire on you. i.e. the parent coming to you fuming saying that her child said you showed her pictures of burns victims.

However, with my own child. Yes. Again like a previous post said "my child. my rules." (i think that was what the post said.)

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 16:11

six I wasn't going to debate you. I was merely going to say that we'll have to agree to disagree. I just can't generalise like the way you and Bullet can.

BulletProofMum · 20/04/2012 16:13

Why is it generalising?

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 16:14

saying that all children of a certain age are capable / incapable of a certain understanding seems massively like generalising to me Bullet

sixlostmonkeys · 20/04/2012 16:16

see it as a guideline maybe? and then err on the side of caution?

BulletProofMum · 20/04/2012 16:16

We'll agree to differ as I hold my my view that a 5 yo child cannot truelly understand the cause and effect when it comes to danger

BulletProofMum · 20/04/2012 16:16

unless they have experienced it

MeKathryn · 20/04/2012 16:19

I wouldn't do it with someone else's child.

FWIW small children can understand strong warnings, my Mum warned us that medicines, bleach etc would kill us and we never drank/ate them. Her reasoning against locking them up or putting them in high cupboards was that my brother would get into them anyway!

Though I'm still not keen on pills and hate bleach now 40 years later...

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 16:20

I don't see it as a valid guideline though sis. I take my cues from my children on what to tell them and when through thier ages and the questions they ask. I can't just say "The Police said you're too young to know abouut this."

As I say, I wouldn't show any pictures flippantly but I do see them as an invluable tool and would use them if DD put herself in wreckless danger with regard to being burnt again.

Her younger siblings aren't capable of the understanding it would take for this method of education to work with them but I say that based on thier individual levels of understanding and not by being general about their ages.

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 16:21

six not sis (sorry)

yousankmybattleship · 20/04/2012 16:22

If you'd done that when looking after my five year old I would have been livid that you A) chose to have boiling water within sight and reach or her and B) thought it was ok to show her the pictures. Both actions irresponsible in my opinion.

AutumnSummers · 20/04/2012 16:24

*not through their ages but the questions they ask

SardineQueen · 20/04/2012 16:28

YANBU you asked her if she wanted to see a picture and she said yes. As long as you didn't show her anything too nightmare-inducing then why not.

tazzle · 20/04/2012 16:39

It is not clear from OP where the bowl and dummny were .... there is a difference between it on a low table and very easily accessed ( that very careless but prob no longer done as OP too will have learned from this) and it at the back of the kitchen top with a determined five year old desperate to "help" dragging a chair over to go climb up and get it for auntie when auntie busy with DC.

OP also did not say ( I dont think) but she may have asked DN mum before showing pics ?

This reminds me of the only thing that stopped my DC (30 years ago before socket covers available) sticking her fingers in a socket was a hard smack (and I was sooo dead set against smacking and never had occcasion to ever smack any of my 3 DC after).

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