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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2938 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 8, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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A new series of potentially re-occuring problems. How do you explain basic things to a young child.

In this week's edition: spitting.

Our four year old is brushing her teeth and we want to start using tooth pastes that you aren't supposed to swallow. They just need to spit it out.

Problem: she can't spit. How do you describe it?

Have you tried demonstrating it? Maybe prompt "blow the water out".

internal mouth stuff happening that they can't see and copy. Also she will just stonewall us with these requests sometimes

"I can't".

"Could you try?"

"I can't"

"Just like blowing bubbles"

"I can't"

"Or blowing out candles"

"I can't"

"Come on, I've seen you do this before, I know you can"

starts crying

You could try tricking her into thinking it was her idea. When you are giving her a bath or shower tonight, have a little sharpspitting competition. Put on your 'silly daddy' face or whatever you call it, catch a bunch of water in your mouth from the faucet and spit at her rubber duckie or the cold tap, over emphasising every action comically and then vocally congratulate yourself for your aim - make a bit of a show of it, make it fun you know? She should try it herself then, in which case you carry on the competition until she doesn't have to think about it. If she asks you to hit another target though, brag about how you could definitely do it but you don't know if she could. Then do it, over emphasising again, and follow that by deciding she probably could do it, but it's not as easy as blowing bubbles! Curiosity should do the rest. Then with the toothpaste bet she can't hit the plug hole.

Fake edit: some people are funny about spit so I went with the least controversial method, but if you don't mind getting your saliva on your daughter or her saliva on you (and remember, she's in the bath/shower) it would work much better if you spit in her face (lol also ignore how it sounds) because it's a much more visceral shock and if you do your 'dad being funny' face she'll know it's fun and want to have fun with dad.

This may or may not work on children, but one thing I found useful when I worked in tech support and people refused to just do X is to ask "what happens / what do you observe when you try to do X" instead of saying "please do X", where X is some concrete specific action (e.g. "click the My Account menu item").

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