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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think the best way to deter dangerous behaviour is to give reasons.

35 replies

tenyeardecade · 16/02/2022 14:09

I am coming off the husband cleaning icing chemicals thread. I know you aren't supposed to mix chemicals, but I didn't know that you could make chlorine if you mix the wrong stuff! If i had known that I wouldn't have scoffed at my mum when I was a teen while mixing bleach with every other nice smelling spray I could find.

There are others, my 3 year old for example used to try to put his hand in the lift doors of our flat. (years ago he isn't scarred for life) I used to tell him we Don't do that, it will hurt him, he will get stuck blah blah blah.
He did it one day and i thought fuck it, googled 'child's a caught In lift' and showed him a video of a little girl getting her arm stuck. Never did it again.

Can anyone think of any others?

OP posts:
Original poster
tenyeardecade · 16/02/2022 14:12

Oh when we were swimming we were told by the teachers to keep our hair tied up, obviously we thought they were just making rules for rules sake and 'the boys don't have to'. until one teacher told us it was because a little girls hair was sucked into the drain things and she drowned with her face a few cm from the surface. I put my hair up after she told me that

OP posts:
GastroNuisance · 16/02/2022 14:13

Not what you're after but when my daughter wouldn't wash her hair I showed her a photo of Medusa Blush

GastroNuisance · 16/02/2022 14:14

Picture. Not photo obvs.

LolaSmiles · 16/02/2022 14:16

I thought it was quite common to explain things so that children learn.

YoComoManzanas · 16/02/2022 14:17

That 999 rescue drama on in the 90s which showed hideous real life accidents made me much more cautious. Along with casualty and London burning, etc.
Kids these days just get to watch highly sanitised cartoons 24/7. No peril or trauma for them.

Penvelopey · 16/02/2022 14:21

@YoComoManzanas

That 999 rescue drama on in the 90s which showed hideous real life accidents made me much more cautious. Along with casualty and London burning, etc. Kids these days just get to watch highly sanitised cartoons 24/7. No peril or trauma for them.
Oh god yes. 999 made me fear everything!
Notimeforaname · 16/02/2022 14:21

That 999 rescue drama on in the 90s which showed hideous real life accidents made me much more cautious. Along with casualty and London burning, etc.

Yes to this! Definitely made me more cautious as a child watching these weekly. I learnt a lot too .

FlexibleWorkingDenied · 16/02/2022 14:23

@GastroNuisance

Not what you're after but when my daughter wouldn't wash her hair I showed her a photo of Medusa Blush
My daughter hates getting her fingernails cut so I showed her photos of those people in the Guinness book of records for the longest nails (attached). Now when it’s time to get then cut she does sigh but says she doesn’t want the long curly claws Grin
To think the best way to deter dangerous behaviour is to give reasons.
Ibizan · 16/02/2022 14:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MintMe · 16/02/2022 14:28

Oh I always give very real reasons. DH jokes I'm like Meryl Streep in Lemony Snickett!

Original poster
tenyeardecade · 16/02/2022 14:28

@GastroNuisance

Not what you're after but when my daughter wouldn't wash her hair I showed her a photo of Medusa Blush
classic! I'm using this next time my daughter won't brush hers !
OP posts:
GastroNuisance · 16/02/2022 14:29

She's a fairly well rounded adult now so no real lasting damage. Probably a bit shit looking back.

I love the fact that someone else brought out the big guns with the fingernails!

pateu · 16/02/2022 14:30

That 999 rescue drama on in the 90s which showed hideous real life accidents made me much more cautious.

they should be compulsory viewing!

MrsTerryPratchett · 16/02/2022 14:31

That 999 rescue drama on in the 90s which showed hideous real life accidents made me much more cautious. Along with casualty and London burning, etc.

I still hum the Casualty music to myself every time I'm about to do something spectacularly stupid.

We learn in different ways. Some of us have to learn the hard way.

Original poster
tenyeardecade · 16/02/2022 14:32

@MintMe

Oh I always give very real reasons. DH jokes I'm like Meryl Streep in Lemony Snickett!
My mum used to, she told us a really horrible graphic story about a girl who was kidnapped and horrifically beaten. We were terrified. But when a man at the park asked all us kids to come and see the puppies in his back seat, then it was they were at his house just get in and he will show us. Fucking creep, but our friends younger brother was going to go until we stopped him.

it was a little traumatising but not as much as being killed

OP posts:
Munkustrap · 16/02/2022 14:33

999 had nothing on 1970s public information films. Some of them still haunt me to this day. I will bet plenty of them will be on YouTube.

FadedRed · 16/02/2022 14:34

Is anyone else on here old enough to remember those Public Information Safety short films that terrified us in the 1960-70’s?
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/view_all_films.htm

MrsTophamHat · 16/02/2022 14:34

I agree with this. I've always allowed my children to take small risks at playgrounds etc so that they feel that sense of fear when they've gone too high for instance. I think it's more impactful than me just saying no.

GastroNuisance · 16/02/2022 14:35

@Munkustrap

999 had nothing on 1970s public information films. Some of them still haunt me to this day. I will bet plenty of them will be on YouTube.
Yes! The grim reaper hanging Out next to ponds and gravel pits!
Snozwanger · 16/02/2022 14:35

In the 80s I'll never forget seeing footage of a child's welly getting caught in the edge of an escalator and getting all chewed up. I was alway so careful on escalators after that.

MrsTophamHat · 16/02/2022 14:37

We once had a safety day at primary school in the local park, and as part of it, during a 'breaktime' they had a plainclothes policeman pretend to be man looking for his dog and asking us to go with him to find it. Some of the class agreed and we were told that those people would have been kidnapped.

LolaSmiles · 16/02/2022 14:38

We were subjected to a public information film about tbe dangers of playing in electric substations. It worked, but I'd never thought of climbing jnto one anyway.

Thecurtainsofdestiny · 16/02/2022 14:43

Oh that brings back memories of that public information film about the dangers of old fridges! Definitely put me off playing in one as a kid.

Maybe someone should've reminded Boris of that one!

Alicetheowl · 16/02/2022 15:23

I never understood the one about the fridges. Obviously one tragedy is one too many, but how many kids would, firstly, come across abandoned fridges on their travels, and secondly, think it might be fun to go inside and shut the door? Really, this was a thing?

Labracadabra · 16/02/2022 15:33

@Alicetheowl

I never understood the one about the fridges. Obviously one tragedy is one too many, but how many kids would, firstly, come across abandoned fridges on their travels, and secondly, think it might be fun to go inside and shut the door? Really, this was a thing?
Of course, they were/are often found on rubbish tips or just flytipped in the countryside and kids (especially in the 80s when we roamed about playing a bit more than today) would get in just playing around or hide and seek and then be unable to open them from the inside and suffocate