Getting kids to take you seriously is a tough task. Their growing brains have a hard time grasping the concept of finality and of seeing consequences directly linked to action, and being the one to teach them that is exhausting. Sometimes, when the situation is dire, people feel the need to go “overboard” with stressing the importance of the lesson, but an aunt on Reddit is concerned she took it too far with her niece.
She explained that her mother, sister, brother-in-law and 7-year-old niece are staying at her place, which has a pool. Unfortunately, because they are in a rental property, they don’t have a pool gate, and understandably, the girl’s mother gets nervous. As they were trying to figure out a way to make sure the girl didn’t get out, they asked her if she understood why she wasn’t allowed to go to the pool alone.
AITA telling my 7 year old niece that drowning is the worst way to die?
by u/turtdurt in AmItheAsshole
“She said very monotone in a way that said ‘I’m just repeating what I’ve been told a million times’ [that] ‘I could fall in and drown,'” the aunt said. “I said to her ‘You realize that drowning is one of the worst ways to die? Its terrible for everyone involved and it happens all the time to people of all ages, especially small children. It is so important to be careful around water and to never go in alone because anything could happen, even if you can swim.'”
Her mother took immediate offense to it and said she was going to “give her nightmares,” but the Redditor claimed she just wanted to make sure the girl seriously understood it.
The rest of Reddit was pretty much unanimous that the aunt did the right thing.
“My son liked to play with lighters. At 7. His paternal grandfather let him flick his petrol lighter (won’t name the brand). I completely forgot I had a long nosed lighter I used for a coal fire back in the day,” explained one parent on Reddit. “He found it and burnt a hole in a few things before I found out. A carrier bag gave him up. The smell. I was soooooo scared.
“The lighter was destroyed and to combat the ever wanting to play with fire I showed him two things. The fire services short film of how quickly a bedroom fire can take hold. And a photo or a burn victims arms,” the commenter continued. “My son is in his early 30s now. He’s never even smoked a cigarette. So in my opinion Not the A-hole.”
“I have two kids and a pool. sometimes brutal honesty is the way to keep our kids safe,” added another commenter.
Drowning is an incredibly serious and scary risk. According to the nonprofit organization Stop Drowning Now, in the US an average of 3,500 to 4,000 people drown per year, with drowning being the leading cause of death for kids 1 to 4 years old. What’s even more shocking is that 80% of those child drownings occurred at a residential pool while an adult was present.
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