[imjustabill]

"Do you know what looks like confetti and candy to small children? Screws. Know what else they really love? Saw blades. There would be no way I could both build a feeder that deterred squirrels and keep my children out of the ER."

Have we become so overprotective of children that we can't even have sharp objects in the house with them?

[ChuckMcM]

Do you have kids? It is hard to explain exactly how it works but you have one or two, and they are so precious, that your imagination of the bad thing that could happen, and even worse how you would feel knowing that you enabled it, and it can be paralyzing. One of the things I was determined to do early one was teach my kids rational caution. It is hard, it requires enduring both the occasional injury and the scorn of your friends and neighbors, but for me it paid off with very capable daughters who can take on new tasks, asses the risks, and take appropriate measures to both mitigate the risk and prepare for the result in the event the mitigation was insufficient.

[pavel_lishin]

I would imagine that a child young enough to try and eat screws would be defeated by putting a lock on a door.

[mschuster91]

It's more about breathing in screws and especially the nuts, which is unfortunately very common with kids and small objects.

In my city the ER departments in the hospitals regularly deal with kids having their airways blocked e.g. due to small Lego pieces. I nearly got myself killed at the age of three or something like this by inhaling a small stone...

[zarify]

I came pretty close to choking (whilst home alone) as a young kid when I thought it'd be a great idea to try to swallow a peach pip.

I like to think I'm not that dumb now, but as a kid I did some really idiotic things that seriously jeopardized my safety. I'm willing to believe I'm not alone there.

[pavel_lishin]

Again, this seems to be a problem that could be solved by locking up your project when you're done working with it.