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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2941 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

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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