i grew up in a household where everything was lead by fear - if we did something wrong, we were punished pretty harshly (usually completely irrelevant to what we'd done wrong - overkill yada yada yada) - anyway - i don't want to do this. i want DD to understand boundaries and safety, but don't want to do it by frightening her into submission

she has recently become mobile and this is starting to become an issue. she has a couple of things she is obsessed with - the TV cabinet (which has a cupboard that looks like a drawer but actually drops open - right at eye level for a crawling baby) - and our heater. we move tell her no and move her away from them all the time, but our little girl is very strong willed and cries like her heart has been broken EVERY SINGLE TIME! it's doing my head in. i want her to know that it's dangerous and she needs to not touch, but i can't bear to hear her cry like that. i don't want to hold her for long periods when we move her though - that feels like we're removing her from the problem and not teaching her boundaries - i want her to have freedom but to understand limitations!


we're going great guns with most other stuff. she is mostly really gentle with how she approaches people because of how we've manage pinching and scratching. she was biting at feed time but that has now stopped. she settles herself in bed (usually wants us in the room for five minutes, but that's no biggie) - everything else we've been able to work out - but i really don't want to be making her cry like her heart has been broken everytime i move her away from something dangerous! HELP!!

oh yeah - 2 minutes after she is moved from one thing and cries her heart out, she is either back, or goes to the other!)