Yes, some children can be taught ‘no’ well. And some can’t (or aren’t.) Some tidying is necessary. To what extent? It varies.
Have these parents taught the kid never to go near the top of the stairs? Has the nanny?
I get the impression, probably not. Which is the problem.
I know this is a real shocker and all, but I think everyone needs to remember that different kids are different. They come out of the womb different. Some kids can be told “no” once, and curiosity satisfied, they won’t go near the clorox again. Other kids find it impossible to believe that just because they’ve been burned the other twenty times the’ve touched the stove that it will still be hot. Some kids you can sit down in the front yard when they are two, tell them “stay where mom can see you” and be perfectly confident that they will do just that. Others two year olds you have to padlock the doors and windows shut to keep them from wandering the neighborhood at 2 AM.
Furthermore, how you are as a parent has little, if anything to do with which of the above type of kids you get. There’s no point in feeling smug if your todler minds well, and there’s no point is wasting energy feeling guily if he tries to take a screwdriver to an electrical plate when he can barely walk. They’re just different: it just happens. An intelligent parent spends time watching their own kid and makes judgements about childproofing based on the behavior of that child. Furthermore, they don’t stay too invested in whatever they assumed would work bewfore this actual child came along, and they sure as hell don’t make judgements about what other parents are having to do to keep their own children safe. The "my children mind, what’s wrong with yours? attitude really irritates me, and methinks is tempting fate, in any case.
If the OP’s sibling had made several trips to the emergency room and still refuses to change the house at all, that’s a problem, but in the meantime, if your brother has always been sensible in the past, have faith that his judgement-as-a-parent is as dependable as it has always been.
Well, it sounds to me as if your brother and his wife haven’t done quite enough to babyproof their house. There is a difference between turning your house into a playground and installing simple, temporary safety practices. However, as their child is very young, they may not realize the neccesity just yet – AND it sounds as if the strained relationship with your parents made them dig their heels in a little. Given the dynamics between them and your folks, they probably felt that your parents were being overly critical and giving them a hard time.
Personally, I just procrastinated on baby-proofing. Each thing I did, I did at need. I moved all the cleaning supplies where he couldn’t reach them the day after he (at 9 months) crawled into the kitchen and dumped an entire large bottle of Wesson oil all over the linoleum. I moved breakables out of his reach the day after he broke one of my favorite chingaderrys. The only thing I did early was socket protectors and that’s only because the people who lived in our house before us had already installed them before we moved in. We didn’t have stairs when the kids were little, so I never used a gate – except at my in-laws house. We visited them when Nick was about a year old and had to buy a gate there. Nick was the first grandchild for them and, 16 years later, they’re still using that gate for the littler grandkids (the youngest of whom is 5 months old). We also had to install hook-and-eye locks on both doors of our house (something not on the usual ‘babyproof’ list at the time) because our particular baby figured out how to work the regular locks on our doors – a fact we discovered the day he got out of bed at 5 AM, opened the door and went out on the front porch :eek: Fortunately, the milkman had come and, instead of going off down the road, Nick contented himself with eating half a pound of butter, smearing the other half onto the screen door and breaking a dozen eggs…
My point is that, they will discover what needs to be done as it needs to be done. More than likely, whoever next visits their house will find it a good deal more babyproof than it is now.
When the youngest was about 14 months old, she toddled over to something, mom said “Don’t do that” and even though the kid couldn’t talk, she stopped and moved on to something else.
Bwahaha! You’re making just the mistake my sister made. First baby was good, obedient, never did what you told her not to. They congratulated themselves on their good parenting.
Then came baby number two. I laughed.
The truth of the matter is, yes, some children will hear “Don’t do that” and actually stop, or respond to a small hand-slap. You can’t depend on your child being one of those–even if they seem like it at 6 months. Once they start walking, they’re into everything, and it’s impossible to predict if or when the keys/outlet idea will burst into their mind with all its irresistable clarity and brilliance. Or when the two of them, putting their heads together, will concoct a game that involves diving headfirst off the couch while you’re in the kitchen.
While there’s no reason to wrap your house in foam rubber, outlet covers, gates, and moving breakables and sharp things out of kiddo’s way is basic good sense, and hardly neurotic.
Bren_Cameron… truer words were never spoken 
Two kiddies are never alike… even with the same parents.
I’m pregnant with number 2 now and my 2 year old is an inquisitive little imp. She’s not a bad kid… just two (parents know
My hubby and I wonder sometimes with dread what life will be like when two of them are plotting against us!
Oh forgot to mention… I’m a firm believer in letting kids learn on their own why I don’t want them to do something…
I said in another thread that my daughter learned hot when she got impatient with some french fries in a restaurant. She takes me seriously now when I tell her things are hot. Yay!
She also learned not to stand up under the table by bonking her head a few times. (with a lot of disapproving stares from well meaning grandparents who need to learn she’s MY kid not THEIRS)
However there are things I can’t teach her innocently… there’s no way to mildly electrocute the kid so I cover the outlets…
Poison… locked in a cabinet.
If I can get her to adulthood with a minimum of ER visits so much the better
After reading Manda Jo’s post, I realize that I need to clarify a bit more.
My brother has NEVER BEEN an otherwise sensible person. He has always been extremely self-centered and materialistic. I think that we all thought that once he had a child, he would be forced to be responsible and would automatically care about someone besides himself.
The responses help, though, because I do realize that there is just nothing to do or say and that many kids are okay, even with (what can seem like) irresponsible parents.
Jeez, I’d like to see a couch child-proofed against that! Some sort of heavy duty flypaper along the top so if they climb up, they can’t get off? Maybe razor wire, so they don’t dare climb up there in the first place. 
It’s threads like this that reaffirm a decision made many years ago, never to have kids.
Lots of games involve diving, jumping or climbing… Most of the time I just shake my head and tell the hubby that the munchkin is busy playing suicide again.
The perfect childproofed couch would probably have to sink into the floor and have the hatch slide shut over it when the adults leave the room
Well, I was thinking about the corners on a coffee table in front of the couch…couches themselves aren’t very child-proofable, but it’s only prudent to get rid of the glass-topped table.
How in gods name did the human race manage before childproofing came along??
They buried a lot of small children, that’s how.
Yes, that’s a very good point!
For me personally, I did the basics right off the bat just because it was so simple and it saved us from potential disaster. Like covering the electrical outlets, locking cabinets, keeping dangerous (or precious) items up, etc.
Basic child-proofing takes so little time and is inexpensive. So why not?
I’d like to echo this sentiment.
Lots of kids got hurt, some got crippled, and some died. There’s an awful lot of selective memory these days by people saying “back when I was a kid, we didn’t have all these safety things, and we did fine”!
Percentage-wise, many more infants and children died and suffered permanent injury in car crashes before safety seats. There was a higher percentage of brain injuries before the advent of bicycle helmets.
QtM, MD
When the youngest was about 14 months old, she toddled over to something, mom said “Don’t do that” and even though the kid couldn’t talk, she stopped and moved on to something else.
What planet was this kid born on?
True that. As I said before, some people have more luck than sense–but not all will be lucky.
I don’t see what is so obsessive about keeping cleaning fluids out of reach, covering electric sockets, or putting up a babygate.
As a child grows, becomes verbal, it will become much easier to reason with him or her.
For the time being, prevention is preferable to hovering over the child while yelling “no” all day long. Sooner or later, you might end up at the emergency room; we certainly did. Better to go in at age ten for a few stitches in the leg than at 14 months for a concussion or poisoning.
We have gates, I’ve had to go to the emergency room to get stiched up after tripping over it. We have outlet covers, but my kid pulls them out and chews on them. He doesn’t get into the outlets, though. Gotta do it, though…
I envy people with kids that merely have to be told once not to do something, IF, in fact, they actually exist…
Our first child was like that. We congratulated ourselves on our superior parenting. Oh, if only other parents did what we did, the world would be a happier place!! Then we had our second child…
One illustrative anecdote (of thousands):
I still remember the visit to the Grand Canyon. Running ahead towards the cliff without the rail, and with the unstable rocks.
We stopped her in time, but she sure didn’t respond to verbal direction.
Eternal vigilance is the price of competent parenthood.
Heh. I had exactly the same experience. I thought I had this parenting thing down-pat, and wondered what those other parents were doing to end up with difficult kids…until…
Aaron isn’t a bad kid, but he is stubborn. (Wonder where he gets THAT from! ;)) He’s also pretty inquisitive, which means everything he can gets picked up, tasted, inspected and so on. And he’s a pretty strong kid, so he can pick stuff up that looks like it’d be too heavy or big for him to manage. But he does. (I’ve seen him lift the local phone book. The book is 8.5x11 inches, and weighs a little over a pound. This morning, he came close to knocking a full 750-ml bottle of whiskey on himself.)
We’re lucky in that he’s not mobile yet. When he’s in one of his truly inquisitive moods, and everything looks interesting (including stuff that I can’t move), it’s time to physically move him to a safer place, like his playpen. He gets mad for about 30 seconds before he finds something else to do. I don’t know what we’re going to do once he’s mobile. We don’t have a lot of space for things as it is, and finding more childproof storage is going to be a challenge.
I did get an e-mail from my mother (several times, but that’s a rant for a different forum ;), kvetching about how babies today are coddled because of all the safety measures parents today take. When I read it, I thought about my own childhood, and how lucky I was to make it alive: The sharp edges on furniture. The ashtrays full of cigarette butts. (The television show Quincy, M.E. had an episode about a baby who had been poisoned by nicotine when he chewed the butts his parents had left around the house.) Hell, the secondhand smoke from my parents’ smoking. Not being properly restrained in the car. That kind of thing. Honestly, how many kids did we never get to meet because they were killed or handicapped by their parents’ stupidity?
Robin