How to safely teach a child to use tools, real tools from knives to hammers.

Safety is paramount or is it?

“Safely” teach a child almost does not need to be said. Safety and children just plain go together. Let us look at doing dangerous stuff safely. Tools of a trade or hobby are keys to success. Safely learning how to use them in any area leads to success of a child. Let us take a look at that. “safely giving a 4 year old a knife?” What are we crazy here? Nope. Respect will be our first lesson. Now put on some glasses and safely read this article.

First things first and that is play toys. We see many who think nothing of giving toy guns to children. Swords are every young pirate’s toy, whether they make believe one or have that plastic one. Children in general make believe heroes who save the day with violent toys. No, not all but most. So get your child plastic and/or wooden tools. Get them in her hands early. (We know generalities about boys and girls but let us leave that for another article and think asexual here) Tool kits are important as taking care of tools is quite important.

Young Tim gets sharp crayons and pencils and even scissors in pre-school by age four. How do they do that? Meaning how do the teachers do that with 20 children at once? Younger children can learn how to “work” a remote control at barely 3 years old, how do they do that?

There was a 3 year old that stack 14 building blocks in a tower all by herself. That is incredible the author has been doing it for well over 50 years and can only do 20 or so. A 3 year old can build amazing things with Legos. Most 3 year olds can build sand castles with or without tools. Watch a 4 year old with crayons stay right within the lines in a coloring book, make no doubt a crayon is a painting tool.

So how do they do these things? Because they can and they want to and the try hard and they started out poorly but learned. And we hope in all these things a parent helped also.

There are wooden and plastic tool sets that come with screws and nails that have special holes already for the nails and screws to get put into them with the right tools. And likewise with saws and knives. So start them out playing with such tools. And leave them alone. Show them once or twice or play with them but let them discover how to use them. Be nearby, spying, so you can applaud and or laugh with them about how hard it is or that wrenches cannot saw, and saws cannot screw in screws, and that knives make bad hammers.

Here is the "How to"

“Do as I do and say”. Setting the example is critical. The first part is letting them observe. The second part is letting them take care of and clean the tools. The third part is hand in hand participation and the fourth part is close direction and your observance. The fifth is watching but keeping your mouth shut. The sixth is feigning lack of observation and proximity. And the hardest is the seventh – actually, and the know it, leaving them by themselves.

The above steps are not suggestions they are mandated and set in stone. But we strive for progress and not perfection so try to follow them but do not worry too much about them.

Now we are ready for a knife. Knives do four jobs properly. The slice. They chop, they puncture and they carve. None of which we care to do to our fingers. We suggest that slicing is first and then chopping and then puncturing and then carving. You have already gotten out the play dough and taught the art of all three with a butter knife. After just doing it with their play knife they are amazed and how well it works. You follow the same steps as above. Give it a while until they are adept, just like the building blocks. Now it is time.

The stool comes up to the counter. The green onions are cleaned. The cutting board is laid down on the counter. The boy steps up. (drum roll please) and the sharp knife is brought out. A carrot is there and quickly with one chopped the carrot is whacked in two by you in front of the boy. The lesson is emphasized that this knife can cut off your finger, and that he is not ready for something hard like a carrot. Now hand in hand you begin to cut(slice) the green onion and then chop the green onions. They will get this quick because they already know how from play with dough. Now as you feel comfortable follow the above steps.

Now above we went right to the dramatic knife but the same method is for hammers and nails and screws and bolts. Never forget the clean-up and putting away safely. This is the building of a young person. What was taboo and “no no no no” is now allowed and taught and shared. And self-esteem sky rockets and the sky is not even the limit anymore.

This takes the bugaboo out of things. Any self-reflecting person will tell you that fear is one of the most disabling factors in life. It not only prevents us from doing what we should it leads to such negative behaviors as alcoholism and abuse. Walking through something understood to have danger with a parent and getting the job done is huge. Overcoming what once was a “can’t” and now is a can is so essential to development it overshadows reading.

We have also just taught the proper use of a tool and the proper tools for the occasion or job. Even notice that the proper first knife was a play knife, the second a butter knife and the third a real knife. We do not use a sledgehammer to drive in a screw. And we do not use a power saw to cut onions. (query: should we use a blower just for our front yard instead of rake and broom?)

Guess what else we just did that is so awesome. We helped once again to teach young Amy how to learn and take instruction and help from others. How important is that?

We firmly suggest that this be done by one parent without the other around. Mixed signals are worse than wrong ones in these circumstances. And of course we will be doing this this weekend here and we will have fun and put on helmets and safety glasses, to make fun but also to set us up for the hammer and more “violent” tools.

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