Would you let your toddler pull up flowers in a public park?

[Anonymous]

Interesting question posed in another thread. Why wouldn't you allow your two-year-old to pull up flowers by the roots from a flower bed in a public park when pulling up flowers is both "age appropriate" and even educational?

What about climb on a fragile statue where the signs tell you not to touch it in a public park? Climbing is both age appropriate and educational?

Closer to home for me - would you allow your toddler to push ALL the buttons in the elevator and force everyone riding the elevator to stop at each floor? Why not - this is age appropriate behavior for a two year old?

[Anonymous]

troll

[Anonymous]

Seriously?

[Anonymous]

Actually, I think the question is: if your baby were sitting and looking at flowers in a public park, and a two-year-old came along and started pulling them, would you get into an altercation with the two-year-old?

[Anonymous]

Just because it is age appropriate doesnt make it OK. Hitting is age appropriate, too, but I don't let my kid hit (or bite, or throw massive screaming temper tantrums in public).

Yes, I have let my kid pick a flower at a park, but I probably shouldn't. Someone planted those, and if every kid who walked by picked one, or pulled it up by the roots, there would be no flowers. Statues are for looking, not for climbing. And please do not waste everyone's time by pushing every single button on the elevator.

Even if these are age appropriate, there are right and wrong ways to behave, especially in public, and it is our job as parents to teach our children.

[Anonymous]

No, not a troll, maybe you are. The OP asked great questions, I think.

[Anonymous]

Come on OP - this is DCUM! Of course these mothers would allow their brats to do whatever they wanted because it is just too much work to try and teach them - oh! I mean, because it is developmentally part of their child's stage!

[Anonymous]

no -- dandelions and buttercups, sure. not planted flowers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, not a troll, maybe you are. The OP asked great questions, I think.

No one in their right mind needs to be told not to pull up flowers in a public park.

What is the original thread whose posters you are trying to mock, OP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Closer to home for me - would you allow your toddler to push ALL the buttons in the elevator and force everyone riding the elevator to stop at each floor? Why not - this is age appropriate behavior for a two year old?

This is the one that is different. For most modern elevators, if you press a lit button twice quickly, it will turn off the button. So, you can test one button and if it does that, then you can let your child push the buttons as long as you go and turn off the lit buttons before you exit the car.

[Anonymous]

Off topic: I read on FB that if an elevator button is pushed and you don't want to stop at that floor, you can push it again and it will go off. I haven't tried it yet but I plan on doing so if I can remember.

[Anonymous]

No to everything.

Is this tongue-in-cheek OP?

I didn't read the thread a PP is referring to.

[Anonymous]

No one in their right mind needs to be told not to pull up flowers in a public park.

Depending what state you are located in this also may be illegal.

I did watch a mother specifically place her child around some bushes at the Smithsonian zoo to pee even though the bathroom was right next to her. I guess waiting in line was not worth her time so I would suspect that pulling up flowers would not phase this mother.

[Anonymous]

With the current lazy crap pawned off as "positive parenting" the child would not be stopped from pulling up flowers from your private garden in front of your house!

"Don't pull up the flowers, Austin.... Okay, that's one - Mommy said not to pull up this families flowers... Okay, that's two..."

THAT is the tiresome crap we hear day in and day out - and the two-year-old always wins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, not a troll, maybe you are. The OP asked great questions, I think.

No one in their right mind needs to be told not to pull up flowers in a public park.

What is the original thread whose posters you are trying to mock, OP?

Oh, I found it. Sorry OP but your examples here aren't the same as the library bin thread. That kid was in the wrong at the library IMO and so was his mom. Sorry more didn't agree with you. the flower pulling is not the right analogy.