[Judgmentality]

Plenty of people raise their kids this way. When I see parents laugh when their kids fall down instead of panic, I smile. And the best part? The kids smile too, because they're actually looking to their parents for how to react.

I'd rather raise daredevils than anxious wrecks. My best friend has a kid who's always climbing on stuff, falling down, getting hurt. That kid is going to grow up to be awesome.

[tw04]

Plenty of people need to rethink their parenting then. I laugh when my kid falls down.

I scream when I saw my kid trying to stick a key into an electrical outlet, and I screamed when I saw my kid trying to put a finger into a vornado fan.

Modern fans aren't the same as the box fans we grew up with. And adult would likely walk away with an emergency room bill and a bunch of stiches. A small child would likely lose a finger.

[brmgb]

If it makes you sleep better, most household fans are designed to not severe fingers. They use plastic blades (please don't buy household fans with steel blades) which are both light and dull. You might break it but a major cut is highly unlikely.

[saurik]

Yeah... if anything I would have said the opposite: I remember when fans were made of metal or at least had sharp plastic blades. Now, everything's designed for some combination of cheap construction and liability reduction. (And, also, feels a bit more "disposable"... the fans my parents had when I was a kid were designed to be taken apart to fully clean, and I do remember taking them apart and running them without the covers as I was "one of those" kids ;P but I think I'm just expected to throw these plastic fans I have away if they get dusty?...) I just purposefully stuck my pinky finger into my fan on fully speed and it didn't even hurt. (I guess I'll admit that the Vornado on the other side of the room looks a bit more intimidating, but I'm not sure I could actually get my finger into it anyway... the one where I succeeded was actually really hard as, despite my fingers being pretty slender and long, I could barely find an angle where I could touch the blade.)

[StillBored]

Ever stuck your finger in a fan with a metal blade?

I have, know what happened? Nothing.

I have a couple 80-100 year old GE fans. Putting your finger in the front doesn't do anything but push it out. Which makes sense if you look at the shape of the blades. The side and back are a little scarier, but i'm guessing unless you really jab it in fast, or get unlucky in some way the worse that will happen is some scraped up skin. They are definitely not _designed_ to sever fingers, for that you need a tablesaw. And none of them have enough rotating mass or HP that you can't stick your finger in the back and actually stop them by keeping your finger against the blades as they try and push your finger.

So, I'm not saying it cant happen, but your kid probably has a greater chance of losing a finger in your car door, or various other places like that before you have to worry about the fans. If you want to experiment with this find something approximating a finger and give it a try, maybe the woody bits of a leftover piece of asparagus.

[finnh]

I have a scar from a poorly-stitched cut on my finger from a "vintage" fan. I wasn't trying to stick my finger in it; i was absentmindedly directing it away from me and my finger apparently missed the cage and interacted instead with the blade!

Glad I still have that finger. It didn't feel particularly close to being severed, it just cut to the bone and then pushed my finger out of the way. Kinda NBD, but ER visits to teaching hospitals are always annoyingly slow...

[kwdc]

> designed to not sever fingers

Where is the fun in that? I say sharpen the blades and make it a real teaching moment.

[tremon]

Only the worst teachers teach by maiming.

[flak]

This is debatable I think

[efreak]

As a side effect, it's probably also more efficient.

[alasdair_]

At least at learning the lesson "did my teacher have anything at all to do with this? If they did, I'm not getting anywhere near it because that person is a fucking psycho."

[rmason]

I watched my dad putting on a rubber glove to pull out a single prong from a broken plug stuck in an electrical outlet. I was perhaps 2-2.5 years old. I asked why he needed the glove. My Dad with his wry Irish humor said it was to get a strong grip.

I told him that I thought I could do it without the glove. He told me to give it a try and I did. What I did was promptly fall on my ass and that's how I learned the power of electricity.

[alasdair_]

Was your dad actually Irish, or was he from America? The Irish use 240V and that shit will kill you.

[rmason]

Dad was an American but strongly identified as Irish. He said my great grandfather who I never knew spoke with an Irish brogue.

When I was 16 I was working on my ham radio's linear amplifier. I was certain that I had shorted all the capacitors but one still held a charge and once again with much more force knocked me on my ass.

For days I could see the line up my arm where the electricity travelled. After that I always grounded the capacitors three times just to be sure!

[mPReDiToR]

As posted above, I had 240v as a child. Twice in my life I've had 240v,it hurts, but not fatal.

At least, not so far. I don't plan on finding out if it really is "third time lucky" lol

[brian_cunnie]

I didn't put a key in an electrical outlet, but in Paris when I was a kid I was having trouble sticking the plug in the 220V outlet so I held it tight by the prongs & plugged it in & boy did that feel weird. I never did that again.

I never told my parents about it because I would have gotten yelled at.

At camp we put crickets on the electric fence, but nothing happened to them, so I grabbed the electric fence, and that was a powerful jolt. I never did that again, either.

[mPReDiToR]

Some childhood anecdotes...

One xmas when I was less than 5yo I jammed a knife into our 240v socket and blew the fuse on the Electricity Board side of the fusebox. They had to send an engineer out to turn the power on so we could continue cooking the turkey.

The other is from a sibling comment. With primary school, 10 years old, we went to the Lake District and were introduced to electeic fences by everyone holding hands with the person next to them, and the teacher explaining that he would touch the wire with the back of his hand to avoid muscle contraction. Because I was "that kid" I was placed at the far end of the chain, where I assume it tingled more. That was fun.

We used to put PP9 batteries on our tongues for tingles. Just for fun.

I do recall dangerously letting .22 blanks off with a brick and a piece of brick making an entry and exit wound through the outside fleshy part of my hand. Couldn't let mum know that I was even bleeding in case she asked why!

Touching the wires hanging out of the wall where the clock hung was fab, until I flew across the room and sat on the sofa unexpectedly. You really do learn respect for insulation at this point.

[MrYellowP]

> until I flew across the room

What? Why?

[efreak]

We had a broken arcade game at after-school, every so often someone would bump it and someone would have to reach around and push the switch that wasn't properly covered by the backboard in order to turn it back on. I reached around without looking one day and shocked myself. Today, it surprises me that it was using enough current to be noticable, and that it only needed to be pressed to turn on, not stay on.

[eric-hu]

Wait you went to a summer camp with an electrified fence? Is that common?

[Johnythree]

Very common in rural areas. Electric fences are cheap and easy to relocate.

But these are not the lethal electric fences that you see in trashy science fiction movies.

These are specially designed to put out a high voltage pulse which gives a nasty bite, but is basically harmless.

[dagw]

Sure I assume so, certainly ones I've been to. I mean the camp obviously wasn't using electric fences to keep the kids in, but the surrounding farmers where using electric fences to keep their cattle/horses/sheep out of the summer camp.

[MingLEnF]

As a kid - I've put two really long (sweater sewing) needles into power outlet.

I guess luckily I hit earth/ground with one of them - since we had differential (RCD) circuit breaker(s) installed it just shut off electricity in the apartment.

If I managed to hit both into real live and neutral - the differential breaker wouldn't have done a thing, and I wouldn't be typing this.

[jiveturkey]

it’s ok to stick a thing in an outlet. you get a minor jolt that’s it. licking the terminals of a 9V battery (a dare we did as kids) is worse.

[jb1991]

Falling down is totally different than sticking your fingers into a fan.

[semi-extrinsic]

Well, for both cases the risk depends entirely on the (here unspecified) circumstances. Sticking your fingers in a fan where the blades have a low moment of inertia and the motor has low stall torque? You'll be fine. Falling down and hitting your head on the edge of a rock? Could put you in hospital for weeks.

[VRay]

Yeah, if the kid grows up he'll be awesome for sure

[Judgmentality]

Would you rather take a chance at greatness, or a certainty at mediocrity?

No guts no glory.

[catmanjan]

Surely laughing when your child falls over leads to them enjoying others misfortunes

[adolph]

No it’s a cognitive framing thing. The concept is to make a toddlers tumbles into not a big deal for them. I think it is also in part an overreaction to the common “oh you poor baby” response which is thought to encourage children to be upset when they fall. I favor the Montessori guide approach of observing|ignoring and giving a kid a chance to make up their own mind to ask for help or deal with it themselves. The optimal approach probably depends on the kid.

[Judgmentality]

I think you're assuming the laughter is at the child, not with the child. It's laughing about a mistake because that's what makes us human.

[catmanjan]

Do children understand that nuance? I would have thought they would associate people falling with laughing

[harperlee]

When I pick up my children from a small fall, and I laugh belittling the hit, they do not feel mocked at, instead laughing with me. I think the kind of insecurity that makes you suspect that people are laughing at you comes later - and if you don't have crappy parents you don't even come close to suspecting that your parents might be laughing at you...

Obviously you don't laugh with big falls and broken arms.

[thekingofravens]

They aren't dogs. They understand a lot more than you would expect.

[lumost]

Very young children mirror the emotions of their caregivers. Generally if you laugh they will think that it's time to laugh, if you are concerned they will think it's time for them to be concerned. Very young children don't really understand what to do when they are concerned, and so they cry hoping that their caregivers will focus on them and make things better.

[avesi]

Yeah, I think there's a middle ground between teaching a child to laugh at injuries and immediately having a protective, sensitive reaction. Personally, I tell my son, "You okay, bud?" in a positive tone and wait to see whether he needs comfort or is ready to get back to playing.

Everyone parents differently. I would be interested to see which culture the "laughing" reaction parents come from.

[flak]

Dunno, I've known lots of kids - later adults - who had fallen on their heads a few too many times. Most of them - not that "awesome"