Criticism and the nature of "accidents".

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That sounds reasonable and helpful to me.

Also, I think "accident" implies that there wasn't anything someone could have reasonably done to prevent it. If you know that something is likely to cause an "accident" and you do it anyway, then it wasn't an accident-- it was purposeful. Almost like that "when you fail to plan, you plan to fail" mantra. If someone is warned that doing something may cause something else to happen, and they do it anyway, then they disregarded what they knew was a possible consequence. Just because they didn't actively desire for the consequence to happen doesn't mean that it was really an accident.

The word is ambiguous.. you use it to describe pretty much any car wreak, but if someone was driving drunk and gets into a car "accident," it's not really treated as an accident-- the person who was driving drunk is at fault and open to consequences because they did something that they knew was likely to cause something bad to happen. They can't just dismiss it as an accident that they don't have to take responsibility for.

I think things can still be accidents even though you didn't mean to do it but they still could have been prevented. Like if you kill someone because you were drinking and driving, yeah it was an accident you killed someone but it could have been prevented if you laid off the booze or waited till you were sober. Now you have to face the consequence of going to prison and having your lisence revoked.

If you have your cup on the floor and you know it can be tipped but you decided to be careful anyway and bam you accidentally kick it, yeah it was an accident but it could have been prevented. Now you have to clean it up.

I remember seeing a thread somewhere a while back about someone's son punching a hole in the wall and then he said it was an accident. I thought that was BS but then I looked at it another way. He did hit the wall on purpose but he didn't do it to make the hole so therefore the hole was an accident. When I threw a cell phone at my husband and left a bruise on his arm, the bruise was an accident because I didn't throw it at him to leave the bruise, I threw it out of frustration because he told me these two words "Calm down" and it set me off. I was already having a meltdown and the last thing I needed was those words. My husband still teases me about it to this day. I tease about it too.

I guess everyone has their own definition of accident.

The point is less the definition, and more how to explain to the kid the difference between an accident that could have reasonably been prevented and one that there was no way of foreseeing. It's just rather difficult that the same word applies to both.

That's what we do with my daughter too. After all, if I spill milk I don't scold myself for carelessness. I just clean it up. So that "what would an adult do?" approach works with her too.

Punching a hole into a wall is not an accident.

Only if it was intentional.


Are meltdowns not an accident? We don't intentionally have them.

I agree that "accident" should be defined, but plain and simple if any child is in your home, they should obey your requests. I've learned with our AS child that over explaining things just leads to a tug-of-war. If she says, "I'm cold. I want the blanket." I say, "go get dressed in your sweatsuit". I don't even give her the option to use the blanket. I don't know if this will help you or not. I know it's tough when you are looking out for their best interest and don't know what's the "right" thing to do. Sometimes it's just trial and error.