When Annemarie was little, she had no interest in her Playskool kitchen with plastic food. She wanted to help us do the real thing: fix our real breakfast in our real kitchen.
We’d set up the step ladder, and she’d climb up and happily measure ingredients and mix pancake batter.
It was a great arrangement. She was fully engaged in meal preparation, and we felt like such great parents, teaching our little girl life skills at an early age!
Then Annemarie became fascinated by the electric skillet.
We warned her that it was “HOT!” That only peeked her curiosity.
We moved it as far out of reach as possible, but if we turned away for a split second, she’d start to climb the counter, one hand outstretched toward the skillet.
We tried everything we could think of to distract her, forbid her, instill a sense of respect in her.
Nothing worked.
Annemarie’s obsession became an all-out determination to touch the electric skillet.
After many near-misses, we came to the unthinkable conclusion:
Our little girl was going to experience the natural consequences of her curiosity.
The only question was when.
Daniel and I discussed, prayed, and ultimately made one of the hardest choices we’ve ever made as parents: we decided to let her touch it when we were present.
The next morning, we wiped the skillet clean of oil and turned it to the lowest setting. Daniel stood on one side of the ladder; I stood on the other. At a pre-arranged signal, we both acted distracted.
Sure enough, Annemarie’s tiny hands shot toward the electric skillet. Eagerly, she grabbed its sides.
Her triumphant face registered shock quickly followed by pain. She stumbled and, as Daniel caught her, began to cry.
“Hot!” she wailed, pointing to the skillet with reddening fingers. “Hot!”
I dabbed soothing medication on Annemarie’s hands, and we took turns holding and rocking her until she calmed down. After tucking her in bed for a nap, Daniel and I let down our stoic guards and held each other as we cried.
After that experience, whenever we told her that something was “hot” she repeated “hot!” in a voice of respect and gave it wide berth. And her budding fascination with electric outlets completely vanished.
Letting Annemarie touch the electric skillet worked. But two decades later, I still tear up as I tell this story.
I still feel torn between my desire to protect my child from harm and my responsibility to teach her about consequences.[Tweet “I still feel torn between my desire to protect my child from harm and my responsibility to teach her about consequences.”]
I also better understand God’s heart toward me: always wanting to protect me but also letting me experience the consequences of my disobedience:
“So, what a blessing when God steps in and corrects you!
Mind you, don’t despise the discipline of Almighty God!
True, he wounds, but he also dresses the wound;
the same hand that hurts you, heals you.”Job 5:17-18
Your Turn!
What’s a necessary “shocking” parental choice you’ve made or experienced? What was the motivation behind the choice? What were the results?
My bad mom friend and author of today’s Bad Mom Monday challenge is Cheri Gregory. Cheri has been married to her college sweetheart for over a quarter-of-a-century and has two college-aged kids; she blogs about expectations, “baditude,” and hope at www.CheriGregory.com.
Hey there! I’ve been reading your site for a while
now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from
Lubbock Texas! Just wanted to mention keep up the good work!
When my brother and I were five and eight years old! we bit our fingernails all the time? I remember vividly one night we were watching tv and apparently biting our nails. mom and grad mom came in to supposedly check our nails. Unknown to us at the time, they. Had covered their fingers witan hot red pepper. We’ll, we found out. Real soon what they had done. I remember crying and was in agony nearly all night long. I still think was bordering on azbusive and could have had severe repercussions had we rubbed our eyes or other sensiTive parts. I’msure they thought it would deter our biting, but it didn’t.
Donna, I totally agree! I had a thumb sucking habit when I was a child, and my parents tried to break me from that habit, too, by using hot sauce and other awful tasting liquids. I also feel like it was bordering on abusive and was actually abusive when one parent bit my thumb so hard blood was drawn! My parents eventually gave up, or realized there were better things to focus on, I guess. I eventually quit sucking my thumb at age 17. Yes, some may say that was a long time to suck one’s thumb, but my childhood was not comfortable and I realized afterwards that I had that habit because sucking my thumb was a comfort to me in the same way a child dragging around a favorite, dirty, ragged blanket or well-loved doll or toy is a comfort to them. It was literally my security and comfort. When I didn’t need it anymore, I quit on my own. I’m 46 now, have 4 children, and I never focused on my children’s thumb sucking. They really never did have a thumb sucking habit, but the little I did see, I just let it be and they quit as quickly as they started.
I believe the gist of this article is focused more on disobedience rather than habits. Habits are harder to break and I would consider thumb sucking and nail biting as habits. Outside influences, or people, cannot really break other people’s habits. The one who has the habit has to break it when they are ready and don’t NEED the habit anymore, whether that is thumb sucking, nail biting, smoking, drinking, or whatever other habits we as people can form.
As a parent I do agree with the ultimate point that you can tell your children what to do but you can’t make them do it. It would be great if children would do what they’re told simply because their parent said so. But children are as willful as adults can be and we all sometimes just want to do what we want to do. Stepping back and letting the child make THEIR CHOICE as to whether they will obey or not is sometimes the only way they will learn. It IS hard to do, watch your children be hurt, but like you illustrated, God, who is the first parent, has had to do the same for all of us. He tells us what is good for us and what is not. But He ultimately lets us make the choice whether we will obey or not. And surely He is grieved when we hurt ourselves just as we are towards our own rebellious or willful children. Great article!
I well remember my daughter still somewhat wobbly on her feet and stubbornly wanting to walk without holding a hand while on an unbalanced surface. I let her willfully pull away knowing she would fall and skin herself up. She did and I held her and cried with her and told her that next time Mom said to hold a hand she might want to make a different choice.
Sometimes all we can do is let our children experience the consequences for themselves and be there to comfort them at the end.
There have been many times in my children’s lives where I have “set them up” to learn lessons they can only learn by experiencing them first hand.
Parenting is so difficult sometimes, but I think you did the right thing and I love how you connected it to our relationship with God.
Thank you, Cheri, for this brave and honest post! I get it – we call this “controlled failures” in our house – letting our boys experience failures while we are still around to help them recover. And they both had to learn the hot way that when Daddy says not to touch the BBQ, there is a reason…
I don’t think we’ve every let our kids touch something hot on purpose, but we definitely get the “bad parent eye” over some of our choices with the kids, which are very similar in that we let them make what appear to be bad choices because they’re going to learn from them. Of course this backfired on us this past school year when I was tired of my daughter procrastinating on her homework, then staying up late the night before and making us miserable, so I sent her cranky self to bed even though she threw a fit that she wouldn’t get her homework done and then she’d have to miss recess. I told her that maybe missing recess would help her learn to do her homework throughout the week, instead of waiting until the last minute. I probably should have told her teacher what I did, because when she tearfully told her teacher that she hadn’t had time to do it, her teacher believed her and she got to have recess anyway!! My little stinker came home very smug that her teacher said that everyone makes a mistake once and a while and it was okay. ARGH!!
I love that you call them “controlled failures”. if you dont mind, I’d like to apply that title to our house experiences.
When my daughter was a sophmore in high school, her grades cratered, to the point that we were not sure they would let her remain in the school (it was a tech HS, which was by application, so grades were monitored very closely). We got her tutoring and Christian counseling. Here couselor, after a few sessions, told me something startling….my daughter did not have to graduate HS. Not what this mamma wanted to hear and we went around in circles on it for more than 30 minutes. After I calmed down and mulled on her statement for a few days, the light bulb finally went on. She was right, it was my daughter’s choice if she graduated, not mine. So we sat down for a little heart to heart. I told my daughter that her future was in her hands now. She could pull it together with her tutoring and she still had plenty of time to pull her GPA up enough to get into college, if that was what she wanted. And we would help with the costs. I also said that if she decided that some sort of technical or occupational training was what she wanted, that we would fully support that too. If she decided that HS was enough and she graduated, she would have to get a job to remain living with us, pay her share and do her share of the chores (which was not an issue as she had always done that). Or she could quit school; she would still need to find a job, pay her share. I sat there with tears streaming down my cheeks, telling her I loved her and wanted th best for her, but I was taking my hands off and leaving this to God. The next few months were agony for me as she sort of did better in school (thank God for teachers who gave grace). But eventually she decided she wanted everything God had for her and that included education. By the end of HS, she was in the top 20% of her class, had 4 college acceptances and received almost half of her college costs in scholarship and grant money. This past May she graduated cum laude from college. Was I absolutely terrified she would make a bad choice? Yes, but every day I clung to God’s promises and reminded Him that she was his child and He would bring her through.