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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to punish child for killing insects?

126 replies

Unsername1233 · 07/10/2021 19:18

This evening my DS and his uncle (strange age gap, uncle is 8 and DS is 5) were playing out in the garden. We have been watching this one particular spider who has welcomed the outside of our living room window as his new home. We have loved watching the different webs made etc. I thought they were playing nicely in the garden, however it transpired that they were finding insects to kill, including the spider in the window!

I am equally horrified as disappointed that my son has done this!

Anyway, I taken a star of his chart (which led to him not having his treat today - a small temporary minion tattoo thing!) and explained why this was wrong (although he already knows this!).

My DH thinks I’m being unreasonable as it’s “just something that all kids to”. I obviously don’t agree with this SO was I being unreasonable removing the star from the chart, therefore ending in no treat? I don’t want to raise a child who thinks this behaviour is ok!

OP posts:
toolazytothinkofausername · 07/10/2021 20:58

@55apples

When I was a child (probably around age 7-10) I went through a weird insect killing phase. Ants under a magnifying glass, Catching things to place in spider webs, cutting worms up, putting 2 different types of spiders in a jar together to see which one ate the other and pulling legs out of big house spiders and catching bees/wasps/flies in a plastic pot which I had smeared with Vaseline then I’d watch as they tried to fly off after release but their wings would get stuck together and they’d drop. Looking back I think I was really awful!! I don’t know why I did it and I feel awful
I'm curious to know what job you've ended up in? Grin
Iggly · 07/10/2021 20:58

I think it’s a bit harsh because I bet he’s doing what his 8 year old uncle is doing. The difference between 8 and 5 is pretty big!

I’d have told both boys off.

And next time keep a closer eye on what they’re both up to with regular checks based on previous history.

NeverDropYourMooncup · 07/10/2021 21:00

But it's still okay to "humanely" kill them and eat them hmm

Fine. All omnivores are now banned from telling their children not to kill insects for entertainment. Whilst we're at it, they all have to support fox hunting, badgerbaiting and bullfighting. Because it would be wrong for them to support a ban. Omnivores outnumber vegans hugely, so this now means that even more animals die as a direct result of the Vegans banning them from doing anything in the interests of animals.

All sorted, right?

Or you could just be realistic and accept that the action of an omnivore or vegetarian doing something to protect even one animal life is a life not ended.

Iamuhtredsonofuhtred · 07/10/2021 21:00

I used to dissect insects as a child. I work in healthcare Blush

MinesAPintOfTea · 07/10/2021 21:02

It is developmentally in the normal range... but so are other things we teach children not to do. Not giving him a star seems like a sensible parenting response.

I’m curious as to whether the uncle is your DH’s brother

RedHelenB · 07/10/2021 21:05

I agree with your husband. However, now he knows its wrong he shouldn't continue doing it.

Boredofthinkingofaname · 07/10/2021 21:07

I’m a teacher and have seen lots of kids do this, my Dd 3 has a couple of times and I’ve always felt really cross. But I’ve spoken to her she tried to explain why we don’t do it and how it’s unkind etc, she’s starting to understand a little more though. I think at a young age they just don’t get it and are seeing what happens etc. I always tell her it’s wrong and that we don’t do it. I don’t think it means the child will turn out to be a wrong un when they’re at such a young age. An older child who fully understands and delights in it..I’d definitely worry about

winterchills · 07/10/2021 21:22

I agree with you totally! All kids should be taught this early on

MyVaginaHatesMe · 07/10/2021 21:26

I wonder why some DC do things like kill insects. I haven't RTFT though.

DeepaBeesKit · 07/10/2021 21:27

We swat flies that come in our house in summer but its hunting out things that aren't doing you any harm and hurting them for the sake of it, that would bother me. Yanbu OP.

EvenRosesHaveThorns · 07/10/2021 22:21

Neither child should be doing that

StevieNix · 07/10/2021 22:50

I voted YABU, but not for punishing killing insects (that should be punished) but only for the method in which you did punish him. I think you shouldn’t remove a star he had already earned. Star charts are a reward system not a punishment system so I would have found another way to discipline him personally- but that’s obviously just my opinion and not to say you did anything wrong, just differently from how I would do it.

givingupchocolatemonday · 07/10/2021 23:09

It's understandable that you want to show that it's not ok to kill insects.
Although mothers have different instincts to men which is why he has such a laid back approach.
Neither of you ABU - typical child behaviour

blueberryporridge · 07/10/2021 23:23

www.humanesociety.org/resources/animal-cruelty-and-human-violence-faq

Not suggesting that your son or his uncle are in that league but I think you are right to make it very clear now that animal cruelty is not on.

BeaucoupFish · 07/10/2021 23:32

@ShinyMe

I think you're absolutely right.

However I know a huge amount of adults who kill spiders, and joke about hoovering them up or flushing them down a drain, using the excuse that they're scared of them. I hate that too.

Or ‘burning their houses down’ because of…..a spider Really ? 🤷🏻‍♀️
lllllllllll · 07/10/2021 23:39

YABVVU to describe a spider as an insect. A spider is not an insect.

55apples · 07/10/2021 23:44

@toolazytothinkofausername ive had a few jobs, no actual career although maybe I should have gone into pest control !!

I’ve been an admin assistant, a court clerk, a cleaner, a carer and now a sahm

QuestionEverythingBaby · 07/10/2021 23:47

Or ‘burning their houses down’ because of…..a spider
Really 🤷🏻‍♀️

Urgh I hate it when posters on here think they're oh so funny and original by suggesting that. It's not funny.

My Nan always said a house with spiders in is a healthy house.

newtb · 08/10/2021 01:33

Personally, I'd nuke horseflies. I'm allergic to the bites, and can feel them pricking me with their stings. My drain is almost horizontal, the spiders are the size of a teacup. My bath is in my bedroom, they wear hobnail boots, they come back.
The Asian hornets are as big as your middle finger. You get stung, you ring the paramedics and give a gps reference and say 'frelon'. They send a helicopter out. It's a strange area with salamanders in the drains and foot long bright green inch wide lizards that wander in and lurk on walls. Like a boomerang.

I was told a story by a local man, his wife from Paris, who'd reared sheep, kept rabbits and chickens for food and saved the life of our Maine Coon thinking it was a young fox on his several acres in the middle of the village. The nasty vet revved his tractor engine seeing her heading for the surgery after the nice one had cut her claws. He was rough with her and she used to bite him. It sent her hurtling across the road and up a tree in fright. The weather turned cold and we thought she was dead. Asking the neighbour passing on his tractor - he gardened next door where she used to mouse, he came running to the house 2 days later when I had wet hair and xh wouldn't talk to him, saying he couldn't understand him. She was huddled between his old rabbit cages behind some old stakes, so nearly dead I could carry her home in my arms.
I found out from the physio he liked Ricard and took him a 1.5l bottle.

Invited into their very swish kitchen where he was chopping windfalls to make purée to bottle I was told the following story. And given a drink otherwise he wouldn't have accepted the gift. I was just glad he hadn't shot her, she was about 18.

He was in his 80s, French his second or third language after Oc/Oeil and Occitan, not a great many teeth and almost helpless with laughter at the memories of village life. And about 1/4 pint of Ricard.

A local granny, a hard'un by all accounts, used to castrate her pigs with a pitchfork, rather than paying a vet to do it or buying a special tool. But then she probably distilled her own fruit-based beverages and had been drinking it since she was 10.

Isolated communities, rural poverty, and a limited gene pool all have their effect. As does alcohol, obviously.

Anything that leads to a 'ghetto' mentality and seeing people as anything other than people leads to problems. Recently i've been told by Arab muslims from Halal shops where I've been buying spices for Indian cookery (thanks Brexit) that I deserve to be raped and killed as I have no right to have a man's intelligence. Killing me would not only give him 90000million virgins in paradise but would mean that my intelligence would be free to lodge between the ears of a good Arab Muslim like him - sitting on a terrace in the dusk drinking whisky during Ramadan, probably after a pork stew. Many eat pork, drink alcohol and are devout, apparently. I've had the misfortune to meet 1 or 2 who do just that.

MrsSkylerWhite · 08/10/2021 11:36

Are you ok, newtb?

PlanDeRaccordement · 08/10/2021 11:41

@newtb
You should write a book. Your style is very Bill Bryson. I’m not being sarcastic, I mean this truthfully, I’d buy a book of yours.

FindingMeno · 08/10/2021 11:43

I'm not one for punishing but my dc's know killing for ' amusement' is not acceptable.

LaBellina · 08/10/2021 11:45

YANBU. I don’t kill any living creatures unless they’re a health risk/ really bothersome so only fruit flies and mosquitoes. I hate spiders and I’m scared of them but if I find one in my house, I carefully catch it with a tissue and put it outside.
I intend to teach DS the same and I would definitely punish him for killing a spider.

DoucheCanoe · 08/10/2021 11:49

House spiders can't survive outdoors so you'd be better squashing them than putting them out. At least that's a quick death!

Tal45 · 08/10/2021 11:51

I think you did the right thing but I think you need to do more than punish in this case - you need to encourage empathy. Talk to him about what if a giant thing came along and killed him just for fun - would that be ok? If not why is it ok for him to do it to something so much smaller that's not hurting him? Just get him thinking and try to get him feeling some empathy. I would also talk to him about not doing things just because someone else is - that someone else doing something doesn't make it an ok thing to do. He needs to think for himself about what is right and wrong.

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