"I'll snip all of your fingers off...."

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It was written around 1850, and the idea of "educating a kid on purpose" was a rather new idea for average people, so it was highly discussed how it should be done. Additional as well normal fairy tales were far more cruel, then we know them nowadays. Around that time it was pretty modern to try to teach your child morale by a for kids understandable book, instead of simply beating the s**t out of them, whenever they do something you dislike. From a modern perspective its horrible. ^^

I came across a book for 4-year olds that included in this collection of short stories was a tale about a dog going somewhere and losing its limbs, its tail, and on, and I thought it was gruesome for a 4-year old to read and didn't understand who in their right mind would read such a story to a 4-year old! Talk about the stuff nightmares are made from!

I found out how gruesome nursery rhymes actually are. But children don't even notice the meaning behind them so I wouldn't ban them from kids. I didn't even know either.

I think we're getting a bit obsessive about kids these days.

Seriously-- they're people, not china. Obviously they should be protected and respected, but-- sacrosanct?? Really?? One hates to use terms like "child-worship"-- one feels so much like a child-beating caricature of an Independent Fundamental Baptist doing that (and I've known people who beat their kids for the Lord's sake, and it isn't Godly-- or funny, either).

But-- they're little humans. I don't think being unable to have a sense of humor about them, having to treat them like sacrosanct worship objects-- I don't think that's realistic or healthy.

For parents, or kids.

That's just more stress all around, which nobody needs. We're all of us stressed enough.

My mom knew a parent who always told her four year old son she was going to kick his ass if he didn't stop what he was doing. My mom of course would correct her about how she talked to her child and her excuse was her own parents talked to her that way and she didn't say it to anyone else and she turned out fine ad my mom thought "really?" and didn't buy what she said. The mother thought it was all normal to talk to your kid that way. Sometimes a parent doesn't know any different when they were raised the same way they are raising their child. They think it's all normal.

I ask my kids if we need to chop off a limb to help cure their minor scratch/bruise/mosquito bite. Can't remember saying it about taking anything though

To say a statement like this... which even a NT kid who's young enough will take literally... I fail to see how this is NOT extremely frightening for the child!! ! That your own parents could actually take a knife to your fingers and cut them off just because you took one piece of candy (or worse, something you didn't even know shouldn't be taken!) ... kinda makes you question whether it's worth the food, shelter and structure provided by your parents if the slightest transgression means you LOSE LIMBS...

I do not know how common that particular statement is. I've never heard it before.

I don't think it's helpful to threaten something that you won't do. And cutting off body parts is obviously abusive.

If they are merely odd threats and the parents aren't also abusive, I'd chalk it up to the parent being overly frustrated.

This seems like a very adult view of the world. Both of my ASD kids have spent a lot of time asking me what non-literal statements mean. I've honestly never had them (well until the oldest turned 13) question whether what I told them something means actually meant what I said it did. We have things that are understood to be jokes in our house, because that is how they were explained, that would be unpleasant if taken literally.

Little kids don't have a lot of knowledge. To take it as literally losing limbs, they have to even have the concept that losing a limb is possible in real life. Unless they've personally seen someone with a missing limb, and have been fully convinced that it won't grow back cartoon style, a small child isn't going to have that concept. Then they have to have the concept that it is a real possibility that their parents would hurt them, which unless something is very wrong, they don't have.

Maybe an older child who is starting to learn about the dangers of the world would be more likely to be scared by this. How old are kids before people make a point to show them graphic images of famine and genocide and ethnic cleansing wars? I realize my big kids are pretty sheltered, but they are only starting to learn these really atrocious things happen (without too many graphic images) and they are 12 and 13.

Here is an interesting experiment you can do with small kids that shows how vastly different their way of viewing the world is from an adult view of the world. Take your small child--kids on average change from this to more adult thinking somewhere between 5 1/2 and 7, very rarely earlier, and can be delayed to older--and place two strings in front of him, one clearly shorter than the other. Ask him which is longer. Assuming he is old enough to know shorter/longer, he'll point at the long one. Then, WHILE HE IS WATCHING, curve the longer one into a snake so it is significantly shorter linear length than the short one. Ask the child which string is longer. Not which one takes up the longest space, which is longest. A small child will insist that the longer string is not just more compact, but actually shorter.

You can do the same thing with water in glasses. Have four glasses. Two the same size, one short and fat, one tall and thin. Pour equal amounts of water in the identical glasses. The child will say the amount of water is the same. Pour the water, with him watching, into the other two glasses. Ask if there is the same amount of water in the glasses, he'll insist that no, there is more in the tall thin glass, because it takes up more vertical space.

For a more mundane example, think about how hard it is for small children to grasp the concept that a single quarter is worth more than 20 pennies. Even kids who can tell you that a quarter is 25 cents and a penny is one cent, up to a certain age would prefer to have the 20 pennies in their hand.

Rubbish Iam afraid.

Maybe its instinct, but little Children are fully aware of the reality of losing appendages.
I was 7 or 8 when my step father said he would cut off my fingers, I fully believed him and certainly didnt think they would grow back.

Around that time, I used to have a friend and his older brother told me how in the Mens public toilets "Bummers" would hang around waiting for small boys so they could cut their balls off and throw them against the wall, I stopped using Public Toilets after that.

Every night in the Children's home from the age of 5, I would have the same nightmares of being chased by Lorries, cars, trains and aeroplanes, the cars would even follow me into the house in their attempt to run me over, I was fully conscious of death and maiming at the age of 5.

I think I was probably scared the first few times my father/mother threatened bodily harm, but after those threats didn't happen I knew they probably wouldn't.

The threats that I DID know would happen:

"I'll get the belt out on you"
"I'll wash your mouth out with soap"
"I'll wipe that smile off your face"
"You're going to get it" (the "it" was some sort of punishment)

The threats I knew would likely not happen:

"I shipped you in, I can ship you out of here"
"I'm gonna kill you"
"I'm going to mop the floors with you"
"I'll going to chop your fingers off"
"I'll burn you"

Then of course there were the third-party threats:

"God will punish you."
To which I would reply,
"He already has."

"You're going to get it" and "wash your mouth out with soap" heard those in my childhood. I also got "I will spank you until your skin bleeds" and that never happened of course. I only got soap in my mouth once for saying a bad word.

I think most small children (ASD or NT) capable of understanding language would first assume the literal in a circumstance like this.

MiahClone, your response certainly has me thinking though. My NT daughter (who is only 3) has already begun to understand some things that my AS 6-year-old still struggles with. I am AS as well and I typically speak fairly precisely or at the very least expect to explain figurative language. For my AS son, I habitually rephrase unclear wording for others for him. When his grandmother says, "be nice!"...I will say, "what she means is give your cousin half of the Legos" or whatever. At some point, before she was 3, I noticed that I didn't need to do that for my daughter (though, I started out doing it because I thought kids popped out not understanding these things...and she did, but she caught on a LOT quicker than I imagined kids do). So, maybe young kids might think the way you say.

I still think it'd be best to not say things that suggest you will cause someone small bodily harm.

I should have been more specific, I meant preschool age by small child and had around age 8 in mind when I said older child.

Around here you already knew with 2-3 years, that limbs and eyes can get lost. At the end of second world war, around every second men in suitable age, had been sent to battle, so every little village had its portion of crippled veterans, having lost eyes, arms, legs, ... I think part of the german/austrian resistance to wars, simply come from that early toddler experiences, that war simply must be a total sh***y thing, causing you to become a cripple a life long.