Spare the rod, spoil the child

[pocaracas]

Anyone leaving a four year old unattended for five minutes is asking for trouble. Four year old children are naturally rambunctious, adventurous, and curious.

Life does send a few curved balls...
It is common for parents to be in one division of the house and the kids, even younger than 4, to be in another.
Say, parents in the kitchen, kid in the living room, watching tv... and jumping on the furniture, or climbing it, or whatever... dangerous stuff.
You have to teach them to be careful, but if you see that they fail to understand the gravity of their situation, it's better to circumvent the actual case and "force" the kid to behave properly, until such time as he will understand the reasoning for it.
I'm not saying spank and leave his flesh raw... I'm saying cause some discomfort, pain, or something that will actually make him not want to repeat that behavior.

My 5 year old can have a shower by himself and I never had to be aggressive to keep him from behaving properly in the tub, he just does... but sometimes he can take a long time in there, that's when we intervene, because he's wasting water and heating and must be made aware of it... of course, on a few instances it's far from effective to just tell him that he's wasting water, unless I threaten to keep him from playing computer if he takes much longer to leave the tub...

As for the chair, there are other ways to influence behavior besides spanking.

Sure there are... many, many... but there are some kids which seem to only respond to physical pain.

I'm not saying it should be the first and foremost option... it should be the last... but the parent's experience with that particular child may yield that information that a slap is the only way to get a response and, so, it becomes the first option.

Kids love to climb for several reasons; the biggest reason is that it is simply fun. Other reasons have to do with the fact that the world around them fits people that are much taller. I would do anything in my power to get higher if everything was out of reach and all I saw around me were people's asses. There's a reason why children's parks are strewn with equipment designed to be scaled. It's not difficult to teach young children that climbing is acceptable outdoor behavior and is not allowed inside.

On climbing, I'm a bit more relaxed, as long as I know they're climbing something sturdy.
A chair, or a stack of chairs is far from sturdy, it's rickety and unstable.
It's important to make them see what they can climb and what they can't... like once upon a time it was important to make them see what they could eat and what they couldn't.
The trouble starts when they fail to learn what they shouldn't do, because it's too risky. And fail again, and fail again, and fail, and fail...
Parents can go crazy with kids like that, specially if they know other parents who never have to go through that trouble! Comparisons become inevitable and it's no fun to end up with the short straw!

If the focus of the fun was dancing, then remove the chair and get down on your knees and dance with them. Take care to separate the unacceptable part of the situation from the acceptable. Disney has a Mickey Mouse show that ends with what's called 'The Hot Dog Dance'. I might be oblivious to the show, but when I hear "Grandpa, hot dog dance!!!", it's my cue to drop what I'm doing and dance along.

I don't know what the focus was... it was an example of repeated risky behavior which, if left unchecked, could very well lead to a trip to the hospital, at least.

Also, you don't want to always be there. You want to teach them some independence. Being in the next room, at first... then leaving them home alone for a few minutes, while you go shopping for something small... then, as they become teenagers, leaving them home alone for days... and knowing they'll behave.
I think this is the ultimate goal: provide them with the required rules to be left alone in the world and survive.
Some learn them quickly and painlessly... others require a few nudges here and there.
Some parents fail to realize that children are future adults and turn them into some form of project and never leave childhood... becoming the present-day generation of 20 to 30-somethings which still think the world owes them everything, while all they do is pout.