Sitting At the Little Table
So Tessa decided she was going to start sitting at the Little Table like a big girl when she eats her breakfast. The only problem is, she wants to stand on the table. All the time. All day long. Every chance she gets. Someone might say, just move the chair you stupid idiot! But... that doesn't really teach her anything does it? Cole and I are on the fence with this kind of stuff. Do you just seal everything up in the house, block off everything she can potentially climb and fall from? Or do you try and reinforce right and wrong? We don't want to fall into the trap of feeling like we need a million gadgets, and gates, and locks so we can walk away for 5 seconds, but we also don't want to drone on and on with a constant barrage of NO! I walked into the living room after washing out a cereal bowl and Tessa was standing on the table trying to reach the blinds. My immediate reaction was 'Wow, how awesome! She climbed the table." Then I was like: "Oh, right, she shouldn't be doing that... NO." But I think it is really amazing that she can climb onto the table.
When my niece was here, I broke out the old slide projector and showed her a bunch of slides from the 70's when her mom and I were kids. Seeing these old images reminded me of how things didn't used to be all about "OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN FROM EVERYTHING!" It seems like it was more like, keep the bleach on the high shelf, and don't let the babies get near the stairs. I have been thinking about this watchdogging over protective thing a ton, and starting to really gravitate towards the writing and thoughts of THIS lady. I remember hearing the report on CNN a couple years back about this woman who let her kid ride the subway, and I was all like: "Geez assholes, leave this lady alone it isn't a big deal at all." I am linking to her, because for me it has become a real comfort in reading her blog. I'm realizing that the fact that I'm not interested in all the scary fear mongering to get us to buy more shit to protect our babies is a good thing... it doesn't make me weird or a shitty parent. I like her thoughts. And so, if anyone else out there that is reading in this space thinks from time to time, geez all this pressure to never let our kids get a scratch is getting crazy, and are looking for some words from some other people about it. Take a look at her blog.
So seriously... should I just move the chairs from the table? :)
All the Love in the Universe ~ Me
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I read that blog too, and it's nice to see another parent that is able to mix parenting styles together (AP/crunchy and more free-range). It seems like a lot of people think it has to be all or nothing but picking and choosing seems to work for our family.
I say, leave the chair there and she may fall once or twice, but I guarantee she'll learn the proper way to get down without hurting herself. Kids are pretty tough! My daredevil 2 year old is proof.
Oh my gosh, we struggle with this ALL THE TIME. In some ways, it just makes your life easier to "move the chair" but only if you're going to stay home all the time. Because you're going to be places where you can't move everything. Restaurants and friends' homes and stores and everything other place in the world that isn't designed specifically for kids. Which is why we don't really childproof. I want to be able to go out into the world and know that my kid can behave.
I think it's absurd to expect that our kids never get a scratch. Gates fail and products malfunction and nothing is 100% safe. It just isn't.
i remember when my kids were little, we used to try to correct the most positive way possible.
like our feet need to stay on the floor. tables aren't for our feet, they're for our hands! (happy voice)
it's the consistency and the repetition that work. at least for us.
i agree that we're all too hypersensitive to our kids failing/hurting themselves.
am i a bad parent that i let my toddler fall off the bed?? he could not grasp the whole feet first concept. so i let him fall. funny how he learned super quick after that. now… 20 years later… that would probably land my kid in child protective custody.
falling and failing are part of life. and we're not (imho) doing a very good job of teaching that to our kids.
maybe tess will grow up to be a gymnast.
then your heart can REALLY skip a beat when she does an arial off a 4" thick piece of wood.
well, since you asked... :)
i don't have kids, BUT my mom has had a daycare in our home since i was born and i have babysat since i was 13. and honestly i'd say, don't move the chair.
like you said, she needs to learn right from wrong without you protecting her from every single little thing. Not that i'm going to judge you if you DO move the chair though. :)
I think as a parent you know what's best for your kid more than anyone else. So do what you're gut tells you. That's the one thing i've learned over all these years.
ok...enough rambling...hope that helps!
-Tina
I have a 6 year old and an 8 months old... and I would just move the chair. With my first daughter, I was so concerned with the outcomes of similar decisions that I forgot children are pretty resilient! If you move the chair while she is adjusting to the "big girl" table, I doubt it will have any significant influence on her views of right and wrong down the road. When I look back on my older daughters first 3 years, we had some pretty interesting things going on in our home. I can assure you that she is a perfectly well behaved and wonderful little girl despite the forks in the road! Good luck with this, and remember to follow your instinct.
I'm not a parent, so I probably have no right to comment. Except that I did work with 3-4 years olds for about 3 years so I've been placed in situations where there were a lot of restrictions based on safety.
I think parenting now has become insane and I'm a bit scared for the day I have to put my future children in school and tell them they can't hug other kids and they can't do this and they can't do that and they can't do all of these completely normal little kid activities because of everyone else's fear and hysteria.
And I think parents get caught up in love and protection and the media feeds on that with consumerism saying "Buy this or your child will choke" "But this or your kid won't learn how to walk" "Buy this or your kid will eat every chemical in your cabinet". And it's like, holy crap... generations survived for centuries without all this garbage. Babies are still surviving in other countries with 1/100th of the shit we've got. I'm about more of a back to basics kind of mentality I think.
Gosh, it's a good question. There are some things around my house which are unresistable to my 10 month old. She's walking and gets into everything! If it's something that she can actually break, I move it, but otherwise I just try to leave the temptation there and teach her that she is not supposed to play with it. It's hard and requires tons of "NO!"'s, but I think in the end it'll be worth it.
Well...we're doing it all over again. Three in Three years then a ten year gap. Now we have THREE teens and toddler :0/ eeeep short of wrapping them up in bubble wrap I'd say if you're REALLY stressed, buy Tessa a bike helmet and let her go for it. She's only gonna fall a few times before she gets the hang of safe ways to scramble over tables :0) Experience tells me if you move the chair...she'll find something else to drag over to the table to get up on it LOL <3
What ever works for you I wish you Luck
Cheers
Jewelz
i struggle with this too! i fight back my instinct to make everything super safe because dude- the world is not super safe. the world outside my house isn't baby-proofed. so at a certain point they're going to have to learn to navigate what's safe and what's not. the only downside to that more liberal approach is that sometimes (when they're still very young) it requires constant supervision.
our coffee table has low ledges and it's perfect height for our son to climb up onto/fall face-first into. but instead of moving it out of the room or padding it we're just trying to teach him safe ways to interact with it and keep and eye on him when he's around it.
i admire free-range parents. i'm not sure i have the balls to do it, but i think it's a better alternative than this weird super-plastic padded bubble kids are raised in these days.
I should also say, I am not sure I could pull off the 100% free range idea either, as much as I would like to think I could sit back and let them roam I feel better landing somewhere in the middle.
OMG, I agree. I don't have children yet but I'm certain that I wouldn't coddle them so much to the point of suffocating them. Let them skin their knees, fall off the bike, etc. It'll be ok. I wouldn't move the chairs though. It's awesome that she knows how to get up there but she'll also learn to not climb on them one day.
I don't have kids, but I'm a preschool teacher and I deal with these issues all the time. If you want to train your kids to make good choices, leave the chair. It might be a struglle of no's for a little while, but you'll be setting your kids up with the tools to think logically, assess danger, and learn to follow guidelines. The minute there's no baby gate, most kids will tumble down the stairs. Yours might just look at the staircase and think : "yeah, I remember that time I fell down, and it hurt. And now I know not to do that anymore." :)
I try to divert my 1 year olds attention to something else. She loves to play with the dog water. So I bring her away from it to some toys or get her a snack. I will say we do not play in the puppy's water. That is for him not you to play in. Does she know what I am saying..Probably not. Will she over time, Absolutely. My 3 year old knows the difference so I think it is working out..Only time will tell!!
I read this woman's blog before. I'm on the fence about some of her views. I'm not comfortable with taking my kids to the park and leaving them there (that was what she wrote about when I went there before). In my neighborhood, I let my 7-year-old go outside and play. I seldom check on her because she's typically in and out so much (bathroom, drinks, etc) I don't worry. She has limits, she's not allowed into anyone's house without checking with us first, she's not allowed on any other street without us, she's not allowed to leave the yards/front areas of our unit of town homes (each unit has 6 town homes). This is the first summer I've done this. She knows her limits, she follows the rules pretty closely and she is having a good summer. Now, for my 11-month old, I am having the same trouble with the climbing. I haven't baby proofed beyond putting baby gates on the main floor where the steps going up and down have gates. My oldest fell down the stairs at my moms onto concrete. Stairs scare me. But other than that, I distract as I go along. If she shows interest in the electrical outlets, I say No that'll hurt then show her something that she is allowed to do. But thats me. I don't think we have to always be hovering over our kids, but we do need to know where they are. Find what you are comfortable with and go with it.
I never realized how many people read her that don't have kids. That is cool.
We're in the same boat with our 9-month-old son.
We have decided that a few tumbles and scrapes are okay within reason. I like my home. I don't want a bunch of plastic sleeves on the doorknobs and all my belongings in baby-proof baskets.
The words "no," "stop," "hot," and "be careful" will be very overused, but I don't want to raise a child who is afraid to explore and discover the world.
Totally agree with that woman's way of parenting. It's nice to see that there are other parents out there that don't want to be the "hover" kind.
My husband and I struggle with this daily. He doesn't mind the repetitive "No" and I can't stand repeating myself. so the whole "free range" thing is good for me, not for my husband.
I guess it's easier to just move the chair, but in all honesty we have to be an example to our children. Sit down with her and reassure her that the table is for eating and that we need to sit in the chair.
Don't move the chair. Good luck!
My 15 mo son learned to climb our bar-height stools and get on top of our island in the kitchen. We moved the stools into the garage. However, we wouldn't move the little chairs from a kids table. He's the type to learn how to get down quickly, and would probably still get on the table even if the chairs weren't there. If Tessa's the type to find a way up there no matter what, I'd leave the chairs there.
Growing up, my mom was always trying to get us to not climb on things or do any dangerous activities that would hurt us. No wrestling each other, no wandering off into the woods, no running around the pool. To this day I've yet to break a bone, or even get poison ivy.
But now, over 20 years later, I'm rock climbing and jumping out of planes. I guess kids will do what they're gonna do at one point or another?
I don't know, leave the chair. Babies bounce.
We barely baby proofed for our 13 month babe - just covered the outlets and moved the bad stuff to the high shelves. No child safety latches here, we purchased them but never installed them and I'm glad we didn't. He learned that it hurts to stick your fingers in the doors while closing them and all kinds of other things. Just keep a watchful eye and hope for the best is our motto.
Good luck!
"Landing somewhere in the middle" sounds like a good place to be. I'd say let her do her thing while it lasts (which probably won't be for long until she finds another thing to explore in her fast-expanding-fascinating world), but at the same time do your best to keep her from harming herself? Wow, how's that for generic, half-assed advice?
Thanks for the link, that definitely a blog I'd like to discover.
The only protective measure I'd go for would be those plastic things in any electrical sockets that she could potentially reach, and a baby gate in front of tall stairs. If your house is clean (which yours obviously is!) then there's not much a baby could seriously hurt themselves on.
When I was a younger, we had this huge stove in the middle of our living room to keep us warm in the winter, and my parents couldn't just hide it from me, so they taught me that it's hot, and that I shouldn't touch it. It's a pretty simple concept that I think most people don't grasp, or are just too lazy to do. It's easier to move the chair, than to teach your kid to sit on the chair, and that's not very good parenting.
Tessa looks like she's preparing for career in the boardroom grilling underlings. Or maybe a prosecutor.
I'd wait it out. My guy just started doing the same thing, though with the big dining room table. My only change has been to keep the laptop and pitcher of water off the table (especially both together), less trouble to get in that way.
Oh man, she's so cute.
No kids either - but I say if you move the chair, won't you also have to move the DVD player, the cool candle holder, the basket of remotes, etc.? Seems like the 'no touch' thing starts with some of my friend's kids as early as earring grabbing before they're even one.
But when our baby actually comes? who knows....especially if it's this climbing thing. Cute, impressive, adventurous, developmental, etc.
I have a baby almost exactly the same age and we have a similar problem. Obi LOVES to stand at the table and ON the table too, but the chair/bench does not pull out, otherwise I would have moved the chair and just let him stand at the table. He does understand some things, but I think he is just a little too young to understand why not to stand on the table. I give it 6 more months before this one really kicks in...
P.S. Tessa is so freakin cute! How do you get anything done!?
I love Free Range Kids! My cousin's kids get hurt, but they're like bumbles- they bounce! I don't think I ever got hurt from playing with mud in the yard alone or walking places alone or taking the train. Hell, even getting injured was an experience and I certainly learned not to push glass doors open while running. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Don't move the chair. You're right to want her to learn right from wrong, etc. That said, I do believe in locking things up; I would spend most of my day picking up and washing all our pots, pans, etc. if I left our cabinetry unlocked. And the silverware drawer goes without saying.
P.S. Tessa is insanely adorable! :o)
I know you don't want her on the table, but if you're worried about her safety, could you show her how to get down safely? I don't really know the best way to get her not to get up there in the first place, since my son just started pulling up on stuff and crawling up stairs.
I think people let their fears for their children's safety dictate way too much of their lives. I started reading FreeRangeKids when I was pregnant, knowing I didn't want to be "one of those parents" who bubble wrapped their kids.
I think in the case of your table and chairs it's a case of removing the temptation until the whole concept of why you're saying, "no" can be understood. Of course whether you leave the chair or not depends on how often you want to hear yourself tell her to stop climbing on the table. For me if I remove the chair that's one less battle I have to enter into.
In regards to over protection I like to think that we keep it in the happy medium stage, a few bumps and bruises aren't going to kill her and are an excellent learning tool (you know as long as they are gathered with out any help from Mom and Dad :P) I say thiese things only because this is how it works for us. How it works for you or anyone else is another thing entirely
I'm all about free range but damn since the kids have become pre-teens that has all changed. I want to keep the locked up! No matter how much you try and shield the kids, there is always another kid out there who is going to take away your child's purity. I'm not talking sex but innocent minds.
I'm all about calculated risk. I've learned that some lessons are best learned first hand. For example, I can recall when my son was young & he'd run in front of other kids swinging. After repeatedly dodging the swings myself to retrieve him & accentuating the importance of not doing what he was doing, I gave in (or up). It only took one take down for him to realize the importance of not walking near anyone who was swinging. No lasting damage was done & more importantly a lesson was learned.
I would stand on the back of the chair (the back, back. that back that should support a normal person's back and not be stood upon), to play in the kitchen sink. My mom would always freak out in her head about it, but let me learn for myself. And learn I did. I smacked the heck out of my chin on the counter one afternoon and never stood on the back of a chair again.
(I was fine. Just some tears.)
Hi we have a 14 month old girl who is like a monkey. Last month she was jumping on the top of the couch and I had no idea how to react. We try to use the word stop instead of no when there is a safety boundary. Our daughter lives on top the big peoples table which is where I previously hid my hot cup of coffee so we're keeping that as a no go (or at least trying to).
Otherwise, I do a small calculation in my head - how high? how big will the bruise be? is it likely to result in hospital? no, no, no? ok go for it kiddo.
Hi Ryan, this is my first time commenting here, but I enjoy reading your blog quite often.
In my experience, it's better to leave the chair and establish that it's not okay to climb on the table. If you move it, she'll eventually figure out how to pull it up to the table anyway (or counter or stove or whatever). In my opinion, it's not so much of a safety issue as an issue of developing appropriate behavior.
And believe me, you don't notice your kid's bad habits until they are doing it at the home of your friends. I've been embarrassed enough times by my daughter's behavior only to realize that I've allowed her to think it's okay by letting her do it at home. Eating on the couch is one of my failures!
I have a 2.5 year old now and we are working on boundaries more than ever it seems. But at the end of the day, my girl doesn't seem to remember the no's or time-outs as much as she does the praise, love and cuddles. Good luck!
Sam climbs on the chairs, so i turn them sideways. Then he climbs on the sideways chairs, so I just give up and keep saying, "sit on the chair" and make him sit.
He likes to sit on the chairs. Almost as much as he likes to climb on them.
But, of course, he tasted dog poop today, too. So. What does he know?
I say leave the chair and teach her the word "sit" instead of no as best you can. My son just 12 months and when he screeches for more food instead of saying no, I redirect to an appropriate way to ask for more. Now he says "num" instead of howling :)
No kids yet but I nannied for quite a few years there - kids from as young as two to as old as fourteen. In my experience, the kids whose parents "left the chair" were far better decision makers & critical thinkers than those whose parents prevented the tumbles. Makes sense - kid climbs table, kid falls off of table, kid learns that falling hurts and standing on the table is likely to lead to a fall. So the next time they're getting ready to do something, they pause and think, "Am I going to fall doing this?"
Plus, those kids often respected their parents (and adults in general) quite a bit more. I think they realized that mom & dad weren't just trying to keep them from doing what they want to do... In warning the child, and then letting the child screw up, they were essentially telling the kid "Hey, we're not idiots. We know about life, and you should listen to us."
I heard about that woman a few years ago, after her book came out, and couldn't believe all of the fuss that was being made at the time. Why are we so obsessed with protecting our kids from *everything*?
I look around and see a whole generation of kids who are going to grow up believing that someone will always be there to protect them from the hard knocks of life... Scary.
I read the book, or at least, a good deal of it. I mostly agree. My husband, on the other hand, thinks we should put all kinds of gates and gadgets to protect the childrenz. I am just not going to stress about every little thing. My daughter is the climb on everything type too. She falls, a LOT. My husband's suggestion was to remove all furniture from the house. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. So I just nod and go back to doing what we do. Comforting her when she falls and trying to keep her from really killing herself. I have a nephew who is totally sheltered, though. As in, he's 11 years old and not allowed to walk himself to my house (which is right next door, no street even involved) in broad daylight. People are seriously ridiculous. How are kids supposed to learn ANYTHING if they are never allowed to fall or fail??
Chair or no chair doesn't seem like a huge deal either way, but please don't let your kid "tumble down the stairs"(Soph!)just to teach her a lesson. It might be the last time she does anything. The free range lady has some good ideas but I think she takes it too far. Her reasoning that the streets are safer these days because less children are kidnapped now than 40 years ago, is way off base. Less children are kidnapped now because they aren't all out roaming the streets without a parent to look after them. I believe in giving kids freedom according to age and maturity level, but I still don't think I'd ever let my 9 year old find his way home on the NYC subway like she did.
I think parents that hover are not only annoying but they don't allow their children to grow. Let them play alone with their friends and work things out on their own, but make sure it's in a safe place with adult supervision close by in case something does happen, like a busted chin or sprained ankle, etc. Boys can find trouble wherever they go...;)
-H
SERIOUSLY. My parents let us fall and get scraped up - we're kids for God's sake! It's crazy how there is this huge generation of parents that coddle their kids so much.
We had a family beach party a few weeks back and the brother & sis-in-law brought the baby - she is just 7 months old and they wouldn't even set her in the sand! Mom held her on her lap THE ENTIRE TIME, and wouldn't even let her feel the amazing wonder of sand. Jesus, when I was a kid my mom said the entire summer our diapers were just FILLED with sand. We'd shove it in our mouths and it would have to go somewhere, right? I am firm in my beliefs that this kind of thing has actually made my brother and I stronger - we rarely get sick - and I'm excited to have kids so I can break this current trend of people protecting their children from the world.
And my parents are both microbiologists, so really if there were to be any parents worried about germs, they would be the ones. But they are also badass awesome, so there's that.
Leave it. I half an almost three year old girl and I've learned they do things half for the thrill, half for the reaction. Once she sees it's no big deal she'll move on to something much more exciting (and dangerous).
I would keep that table away from the blinds cord though....
Thanks so much for the comments on this today. Cole and I decided we would go ahead and just start grounding her for climbing. So she is not allowed to date till she is 18 for climbing. If she does it again, she can't have her own phone until she is 20. Stuff like that. she doesn't seem to care, but she will eventually.
I think you're on to something with the grounding!
Im not a parent, so my opinion probably doesn't count for merde, but a great book I read a long time ago called Das Energi said something to the effect that a child does not touch a hot stove because he is afraid, or because he has been "warned" not to. The natural inclination is ACTION, or to touch it. So he gets burned....and the next time, he WON'T touch it, because he has awareness. Of course, we don't want our children (or our sister's children) to get hurt or have pain, but some times it is just good to let things happen.
That's it. I'm convinced. Tomorrow I am going to let Tessa play in the oven.
I heard a childhood historian on NPR a while ago talking about the criticism of helicopter parenting (like the free range movement), and he said it's just an iteration of previous perceived "crises" of parenting. In the 1950s people were concerned that mothers were smothering their sons and making them gay. Now it's that helicopter parents are turning their kids into pussies who can't think critically, and we should all be terrified of the coming generations who cannot wipe their own butts.
My feeling is that the CPSC makes safety recommendations based on research, and they see preventable child injury and death all the time. I personally know two kids who fell out of second story windows; the 4 year-old broke his femur, and the other is paralyzed from the neck down and will be on a ventilator for the rest of his life. He's 9. I know a family whose 3 year-old and 18 month-old drowned in their pool while dad was changing the new baby's diaper, and I'm sure they were told not to go near it. They're kids, they don't understand cause and effect because their brains aren't done growing.
I say gate the stairs, plug the outlets, fence the pool, put up a window guard, walk the young kids to school or make sure an adult puts them on the bus and picks them up. Personally, I use common sense to help my kids avoid serious injury, then I relax and let them play. It's not putting me out to make a few modifications, and it's definitely not going to turn them into a pansies. Only affection can do that. You must give them none at all.
I mix up my Free Range with a good dose of "I don't want my kid to have a chin scar just like every one else."
That is to say, I didn't baby proof anything but if I noticed she was playing around the light socket, of course I stuck a plug thingy over it. I want her to learn life lessons safely. I ask her to hold my hand across the street because she's two.
I would move the chair. You don't want to see her get hurt from something you could have prevented. Falling off the table sounds quite painful, and to be honest? Do you want to see her with a bloody nose? I haven't owned a single baby gate, but I did purchase a door finger pinch preventer because a friend's son likes to slam doors and it prevents that. (It's annoying!)
Lenore Skenazy is a wonderful traditionalist, however her breastfeeding outlook is a bit "not my style." She tweeted something nasty about breastfeeding and I've been taking her opinions with a salty dose of reality.
i let them climb. i stay close so i can catch. if something is really dangerous i say "no" without fanfare and put them down so it doesn't turn into a game.
they c a n n o t be stopped.
the second i got done reading this, i instinctively reached behind me and caught my son's head before he fell and smashed it into the corner of the wooden birdhouse that my daughter was playing with. i think it's a happy medium. keep the chairs for the most part. take them away for awhile if you get tired of the constant vigil. :)
yer a big smart ass, aren'tcha. You know I wasn't saying "let her get burned by touching the stove, that'll learn her." I just meant to say that most lessons are learned, not taught, and the most important ones are those we learn through feeling and touching, smelling, tasting.....seeing and hearing are almost not important compared to the other senses
Our house is down right death trap for a toddler. It has ungated stairs, access to any number of chairs and tables to be climbed on and don't get me started on beds and couches. There is a 2 story cubby house + slide (my husband went a little nuts) with a random plank of wood just the right height for bang one's head if you are toddler sized. I figure he'll only fall off/walk into/smash his lil' noggin so many times before he works that shit out (and he still has all 10 fingers and hasn't lost any to jamming them in the thousands of drawers we have, so it works). Leave the damn chair where it is.
i'm more free range than not. setting up their minds with the ability to make choices earlier, will help you in the long run. it takes more work up front, but once they know what they can and can't (should and shouldn't) do, the fruits of your labor can be seen in the choices they make. leave the chair, but know it may take a bit for her to get that she really shouldn't climb up there. especially if she gets hurt.
i say all of this as my almost 2 year old climbs a 5 ft ladder next to me.
I love the Free Range site...it's such a giant relief to know that I'm not alone in some of my more laid-back methods. I like to think I'm at a comfortable middle ground with my kids...
As for the chair issue? I guess it comes down to "pick your battles." We parents have to remove the obvious risks...knives and scissors need to be out of the way because they can cause serious injuries. Stairs should be gated for the same reason. (I also put a gate at my kitchen entrance so I could keep small people away from the hot stove while I was cooking.) But a tumble off that little chair will not be a big deal and can be used as a learning opportunity for her. Yes, it will take a LOT LOT LOT of repetition, but she will learn. It's really a personal choice...you have to decide what you're comfortable with.
@ Mama Cas- I am going to be nice and not tease you for telling me that knives should be put away :) And that it is okay to let her fall off a chair.
Thanks for the free pass! Yeah...I just slapped my forehead when I re-read my comment. DUH. What I was trying to say, in a very bumbling manner, was that there are some giant grey areas in this parenting business. Some things are pretty black-and-white (like the knives) and some are totally determined by your personal comfort. So, quite frankly, if juggling knives is a favorite family activity? Have at it! :)
Don't move the chairs. For goodness sake. :)
We're probably the worst parents ever, but with a 5 year old, a 4 year old and a 2 year old the words "no," "stop," and "don't" were becoming the only words we said.
So - we let them. Within reason, we let them have free range. If they're not going to terribly hurt themselves or someone else, and as long as they are not destroying anything then I let them have at it.
I mean, in the grand scheme of our crazy days, climbing on kiddie tables is not that big of a deal. As long as they're not climbing on things that are for the adults, then I am not all about restricting what they do.
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