As the number of people in the US catching the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, increases, a generalized sense of panic has seized the nation. Although there is a lot of debate around the level of panic we need to exude, one general consensus is that the best line of defense we can have is following "common sense" health practices, namely and arguably most importantly frequently washing hands.
For those of us wrangling small children, getting them to get on board with hand-washing can be really tricky.
Just like hiding vegetables in their mac and cheese, parents are getting desperate for ways to "inspire" their little ones to participate in this very necessary practice.
One dad on Reddit may have taken it a little too far with his 5-year-old daughter in an effort to get her to understand the seriousness of hand-washing.
The father, who lives in an area with a handful of cases and works with the elderly, feels it's imperative his kids increase their hand-washing, but his 5-year-old in particular is refusing to cooperate.
So he concocted a plan.
"I came up with the idea to throw out one of her dolls and tell her it died of the coronavirus," he shared in the post.
He went on to explain that his wife is extremely upset at him for doing this, and his daughter is utterly devastated, but the dad insists it was for the family's own good.
"I just want to limit the chances of us all catching the disease, especially since I work in a care home," he further explained.
Fellow parents on Reddit were none too pleased about the dad's aggressive tactic
"Yes. It’s stupid," one Reddit user bluntly replied. Instead, "maybe buy her a scented hand sanitizer, or go on a special outing to get fancy soap. NEVER LIE TO YOUR KIDS. bending the truth is okay, but not lying."
Parents noted there were about a "million" different ways the dad could have (and should have) handled the situation.
"He could have made the doll wash her hands too and play pretend any stuff so she won't get sick or something. Imagine going to this extreme," wrote one user. "This is so silly it's almost funny, in a sad way."
Another person slammed the dad. "There are MANY other ways you could have handled that. Something like that is enough to traumatize a five year old. You could have bought her a special soap or something to encourage her to use it. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT."
Luckily, the dad seemed pretty receptive to the criticism, and asked Reddit how to atone for his indiscretion.
Redditors almost unanimously said honesty was the best apology policy:
"You could try telling her the truth. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart, I didn't mean to scare you. I was trying to get you to wash your hands more because I'm scared and I want to protect you. But the way I went about it wasn't very nice to you.' And then give her the doll back," one person wrote.
A few other suggested performing "surgery" on the deceased doll.
"Make a HUGE hospital play, were you revive the doll back to life," one suggested.
Overall, keep calm and keep washing those hands.
There's no need to off any dolls in the process — just have an honest conversation with kids and remind them at every turn to keep a-washing.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
