One evening I was caring for my 18-month-old son after I had put his older sisters to bed. My wife was at an evening class at Cal State LA. I carried my son into the garage to get something. The lightbulb in our garage door opener had burned out. As I reached up and unscrewed it my son saw the cylindrical, shiny light bulb and excitedly said, “Ball!”
I corrected him, “It’s NOT a ball, it’s a lightbulb. You can’t play with it!” He was having nothing of that. I began to search for a new light bulb in the cabinet drawers but had no luck. I set my son down on the concrete floor of the garage so that I could find a light bulb. He continued to cry for the “ball.” I was having trouble finding the new lightbulb and my son was starting to bother me. I decided to just hand him the lightbulb. No sooner had I done that, he threw the lightbulb on the concrete expecting it to bounce. It shattered into fragmented pieces. My son then picked up a little piece of glass and cut his hand. I felt like such a fool. It was my responsibility to say “no” and to stay firm because I knew the dangers invoked that an 18 month old didn’t.
I would rather that he had been a little angry at me instead of cutting his hand in my care.
After cleaning him up, comforting him and putting the new lightbulb in the garage I had some time to think.
Good parenting involves setting limits. Sometimes we know more than our children do. They don’t always fully understand the risks involved with some of the activities they want to engage in. In this case my son mistakenly believe that the light bulb, since it was a sphere, would bounce like a ball. He thought I was being mean by not letting him play with it in the way he thought it would function. One option would’ve been to say no to the light bulb but to get him a ball from the closet. Maybe I could have thrown the light bulb (or let him throw it) into a trash can. He would’ve seen that it shattered and didn’t bounce.
It’s ok to say no and to divert our children to something that won’t hurt them.
