Little shits under 5 are preprogrammed to fucking try to kill themselves at post haste it fucking seems. That's why I support using those damn leashes for your suicidal toddler.
How the fuck did humans become the apex species when their young is hell bent into rushing into a sabertooths mouth?
You would think all those generations would have bred the suicidal tendencies out of toddlers. Instead we got easily fooled eyes and hackable dopamine drip.
Maybe we were never supposed to protect em lol that's why the world pop only got above a billion when we started introducing "Hey let's not let the kids kill themselves" ideas and laws.
The little Jimmy that decided he wanted to pet the Gator didn't grow up to be Jimothy Bodangles, PHD.
My freaking niece. I love her with all my heart but almost every time I tell that little demon to avoid doing something, she daringly look at me with an evil grin and do it just meer moments after. She thinks everything is a game and my sanity is just another toy.
How about letting her hurt herself (slightly)? If she’s old enough to understand you, she’s old enough to learn that people who tell her not to do something mean well.
My nephew based his life on Dennis the Menace. I was cooking a family and got called out of the kitchen where I was working alone.
Two minutes later I come back in to find this kid (maybe 5?) waving my razor sharp french knife around.
I very carefully removed it from his grasp and when I wasn't using it I put it under a towel at the back of the counter. Told his parents to watch him.
Later he's got it again and a steak knife.
I take all the blades, put them in a box, and put them way up high.
Come back later and he's got a chair against the counter, a box on the counter, and he's heading back up the chair with more of mother's cookbooks to pile up to stand on...
Some kids are a little more extreme.
Edit: cooking a family feast, not a family (see first paragraph).
Even when they’re far too young to verbalize the idea, toddlers inherently know that the only time they can attempt certain things is when no Big People are looking.
I remember a comment chain about this resulted in a two-player competitive game where one plays as a baby trying to get themselves killed while the father does their best to babyproof as many hazards as possible. You can eat batteries, put yourself in the oven, drown yourself in the tub, drink chemicals under the sink, or put a fork in the electrical outlet. It was a pretty fun game, though it was very easy to get motion sick playing as the baby due to the low-to-the-ground camera angle.