To think it is a bit pointless to pussyfoot around it?

[TheQueenOfDiamonds]

My 3 year old daughter has been killing some frogs. She's never done it with me (We actually used to have various types of exotic frogs, so she knows they are animals, and she knows to be gentle with animals). S

She did it at her grandma's house. She squashes them and then waits for them to get back up. Her grandma told her that they won't get back up because when you squish them they go to sleep forever.

I'm not here to moan about her Grandma as a person, but to me, that seems a bit pointless. She knows what sleeping is, she knows sleeping doesn't harm you. So surely, telling her the frog has gone to sleep isn't going to discourage her from doing it?

She knows what hurting is, I asked DD what she did to the frogs and she told me she squished them, so I've told her not to because it hurts them.

Would it be better to suggest to GM that she says this if she does it again? The sleeping thing really baffled me.

Wow, thread has moved on fast!

Personally I don't regret being smacked or smacking my own children

I do however realise that we've moved on from this and now agree that not smacking is the way to go.

Because of this, I can't get all pearl clutchy and fussed about parents who haven't moved on from it....and quite frankly some of the threads about tantrums in supermarkets make me think "Yeah but a small smack on the bum would have that sorted straight away".

But I digress...this thread is about the killing of frogs and the grandmother's terminology.

Maybe my smacks weren't hard enough then- exactly!

I also heard a fair bit of " do you want me to give you something to cry for? "

I too feel i have been bought up very well and love my parents very much despite the beatings

You are worried about what Grandma says rather than the fact your dd is squashing frogs so hard they die? Only on MN!

A few stern words rather than 'don't send the frogs to sleep' wouldn't go amiss though!!

Worra Good point! We digress!

I very much doubt that smacking her bum will help her to realise that she is killing and that it is wrong and cruel.- no but until she is 'old enough to understand' she will think twice about doing it again wont she?

Yep, agree with those who find it more disturbing a 3 year old is actively killing frogs than grannys reaction.

Its quite sinister.

Actually shelly yes, there is more to it than just being smacked but there is a very fine line when it comes to smacking, too hard, too often, for the wrong reasons. Remember that people and children can be quite fragile and can react very differently to their environments. One child may not be affected another may be. I've also yet to meet a smacker that doesn't at times smack out of frustration and temper.

Anyway that's my take on it and amazingly ds has got to age 4 without a smacked bum and I have to say he is pretty good 99% of the time maybe I am just very lucky but I do remember having an arguement with my brother who insisted I would defintely need to have smacked him by this age. But no the day never came. Smacking is pretty outdated and generally frowned upon these days, come on get with the times.

And it;s not either a smack or 'please little johnny don't do that', I find other methods work very well.

Haha it's really not sinister. I bet you've all killed some fogs/snails/ant at some point but you can't even remember. And personally I think that most children would/could end up doing this if left to their own devices. i think that it is less the op's dds lack of smacks that is the problem but more the lack of supervision.

And really Worra, a smack would sort a tantrum out? Most children I've seen been walloped across the bum just scream even more.

anditwasyellow I agree with what you say about the fine line and not doing it out of anger.
I guess we'll have to agree on some thing re: smacking and disagree on others. I guess 'cause my parents managed to turn a little monster into a reasonably civilised young woman, I kind of respect the way they brought me up and on occasion, rare as it was , that did involve a smack arse.

Somehow using your bare hands to squash multiple frogs to death doesnt seem quite on par with stepping on an ant.

OP - you are right. Your dd needs to be told something different. She needs to hear that squashing hurts the frog a lot. That when it is squashed it's body stops working forever. That she must never hurt things on purpose.

Then give her Gran permission to say the same (she may have felt uncertain about what she is allowed to say/do in this situation. Give her the benefit of the doubt).

Empathy develops between 3-4yrs. So you could ask her how she would feel if she got squished. Just don't expect a perfect answer at three.

Be firm that it must not happen again. To balance this, aim to find an opportunity to acknowledge kindness and gentleness when you see it. That way, she will have a sense that she can be gentle. Sometimes it needs pointing out if you want to encourage a different behaviour. And we don't want dd feeling that she is a bad person (which can happen when something like this is pointed out.) You just want her to know that she hurt the frog and must never do it again.

Oh the emotive language, what if she squashed an ant with her 'bare hands' but stepped on the frog, would that make a difference?

I wonder if we all left our 3 year olds with some frog unattended for an hour how many frogs would end up squashed.

Did the OP say the frogs were squished by hand?

I assumed they were stamped upon?

But bare hands makes it sounds so much worse like she's a real serial killer in the making.

Honestly nothing like a good old thread for people to get hysterical about, some of the language used here. 'Sinister', 'killing with her bare hands' I don't often say this but 'pmsl'.

I have worked with children for a number of years. Let me think of the times I have seen one kill a frog.

Oh thats right. Never.

Quite frankly I find it odd you are "pissing your pants" (classy) over a child killing frogs. Also odd you feel such a need to defend it.

But whatever rocks your world.

Ohh poor frogs!
don't really care much about terminology, are you gonna tell granny she's fucked up for letting her kill frogs?

'rocks my world' sorry what?

I'm not laughing at the child killing the frogs, I'm laughing at peoples overreaction to it. Funny how people always pull the 'I've worked with children so I must know and be right'. If you had read the whole thread you would see that I have said that if it was my child they would be getting a stern telling off and would not be allowed to play outside until they realised that this was not acceptable. I do also believe that at 3 a child probably cannot differentiate between killing an insect/rat or a frog. Some of which are more acceptable socially but to a child is no different. It might be different to you or I but how can a 3 year old comprehend that?

I know that and have said that all along lemar I also said earlier in the thread that perhaps the dd wasn't being supervised properly to have had chance to do this. Trouble is people come on half way through a thread read a couple of posts without reading the whole thing.

All I was doing was trying to reason out how a 3 year old might see things as people were saying things like 'it's sinister' and 'she's killing with her bare hands'. To us she's killing a frog, to her she's playing with the squishy things in the garden. It's not sinister she just needs to be taught.

Just wanted to point out that frogs can live in gardens next door to where ponds are as well - we used to have baby frogs in our garden when we were children but no pond, they came through from next door.

So the pond safety thing that was mentioned some way up the thread before the smacking bunfight kicked off may well be irrelevant.

Where's the OP gone then, eh?

Why do you all kill flys/spiders? Can't you open doors/windows and shoo them out? I love spiders :(

Flies - because they're dirty fuckers who spread germs around the place and try to get in my ears, and some of them bite (blowflies)
Spiders - I don't unless they're redbacks, in which case hell yeah! Thankfully they're very slow and easy to squish. All other spiders get left alone to do their job of killing the flies.