# People who don't keep an eye on their kids—how to handle at Thanksgiving?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-dont-keep-an-eye-on-their-kids-how-to-handle-at-thanksgiving/474339>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [November 24, 2008, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-dont-keep-an-eye-on-their-kids-how-to-handle-at-thanksgiving/474339 "2008-11-24T22:20:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2008, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-dont-keep-an-eye-on-their-kids-how-to-handle-at-thanksgiving/474339/61 "2008-12-01T08:25:53Z")

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**xanthous**  
Congratulations on surviving! At least you know the kid’ll be a year older and (hopefully) wiser the next time Thanksgiving rolls around (admittedly this may mean they’ve found new and more creative ways to destroy things, but they should also be more receptive to the Steely Glare of Doom when you tell them not to. You have a year to practise!)

**RickJay**  
Unless you’re going to take the position that “sucker” refers to “anyone who childproofs even a little more than me” I think you’re going to have to admit that you _did_ do childproofing in your house (just not very much) and that other people might put the threshold at different points without necessarily being idiots.

F’rinstance, I’m getting the vibe from your posts that you were mostly (or even solely?) just dealing with one preschooler at a time. I, on the other hand, can cheerfully report I’m not even in the same room as my one year old son for a good chunk of the average day, and unless I were to haul him bodily with me every time his big sister wants a drink or his middle sister needs her nappy changed, I don’t see how it could be any different. He’s got plenty to practise his “doing what mummy says” skills on just with “don’t pull the cat’s tail”,“don’t thump your sisters on the head”, “don’t push buttons on the computer” and “don’t throw crockery on the ground” - I’m not going to add in another dozen breakable things at hand height that I have to run around saying “no” to all day

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**Author:** ![Hokkaido\_Brit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d26b3c/32.png) [@Hokkaido\_Brit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hokkaido_Brit)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2008, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-dont-keep-an-eye-on-their-kids-how-to-handle-at-thanksgiving/474339/62 "2008-12-01T10:11:00Z")

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> [@fessie](#):
>
> Put your television in there, too, while you’re at it – my dd broke our TV at 16 mos. She pushed the on/off button rapidly. It was the only time she ever got near our television and it only took once.
> 
> Nowadays when I watch my friend’s 2-yr-old twins I always unplug the TV.

My husband had a great work around to this when our first son went through this phase. He snipped a toilet roll tube into legs and duct taped them to the tv with the button at the bottom of the tube, which was cut just long enough for our fingers to reach the button but was way too deep for our little vandal’s to reach. It looked really tacky but worked very well!

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