@sozobe,
Quote:Everyone seems very comfortable reprimanding their own child. Still going for whether you're comfortable reprimanding someone else's, and if so what the stakes would need to be. (What if sozlet had won both fish, given one to K, and then K had been the one to ask for sozlet's prettier fish?)
I wouldn't have reprimanded anyone - I would have let my daughter decide what she wanted to do and that would be that. If the girl is someone who wants to have the prettier fish - that's who she is...how're you gonna reprimand her for manifesting who she is?
I never reprimand other peoples' children unless their parents aren't present and they are endangering themselves or another child or someone else.
But, being a teacher, I have no problem with walking up to unattended children when they're doing something dangerous or questionable and making them aware that whatever they're doing isn't a good idea.
Once I saw a kid stripping bark off the trunk of a tree and twisting this branch as if to break it, and I walked over and said, 'Did you know that if you keep doing that, you could kill that tree?'
He said, 'No.'
And I said, 'Well you could. So you need to stop, okay?'
If the parent is present but unaware of what the child is doing, I make the parent aware of what the child is doing.
But if the child is just being him or herself, maybe obnoxious, but not dangerous - I mind my own business.
Once a woman reprimanded me for reprimanding my daughter. My son was at swim lessons and Olivia and I were sitting on the bleachers waiting for him - she was about two - and she saw some gum sticking out of a woman's purse and she took it - right from the lady's purse. I took it from her and handed it back to the lady and said to Olivia, 'No - you don't take things that belong to other people' and the lady said, 'Oh, she's so cute...let her have it...how can you take that away from her?' and handed it back.
I told her, 'No, I can't let her have it- it won't be okay when she's thirteen and not so cute for her to be putting her hands in someone else's purse and taking their things.'
The woman didn't seem to understand my reasoning - but I also didn't get hers. Where did she get the idea that she could she tell me that my standards of behavior for my child were wrong?
If a child is at my house - I make them stick to my rules - but it's never really reprimanding - so much as informing. Most kids I've run into appreciate being respected enough to be informed and then allowed to make their own decision.
One kid, Jesse, wanted to walk on my four foot high picket fence. And I caught him in the act - he was pretty good at it - I told him, 'Jesse- you have to get down from there - that's very dangerous.'
He said, 'Not for me- I can do it...see?'
He was about ten and very agile and coordinated.
I said, 'Well, yeah - maybe you can - but not here at my house. You need to get down or I'll have to send you home.'
He got down.
