As you read this, note that the mom who wrote this, Alisha, is herself a retired “paramedic/firefighter is very aware of what is truly dangerous and is tired of EVERYTHING being treated as such.” Me too. Not tired of precautions. Not tired of safety. Tired of seeing all of childhood through the lens of the worst possible thing that could happen in ANY everyday, normally pretty darn safe situation. – L.
Dear Free-Range Kids: So there is a big story going around all the mommy websites about kids choking to death on grapes. Apparently you are supposed to cut grapes in half length-wise before feeding them to toddlers. However in the same article that recommends doing that also lists the age of 8 as to when kids can eat grapes whole, with careful supervision still of course! So apparently 7 and 8 year olds are the new toddlers instead of adolescents! I can’t believe no one has called CPS on me yet seeing as how I have been sending those little balls of death in my daughters lunch, uncut even, since she started preschool at the age of 3. I’m sure its just dumb luck that she hasn’t choked to death yet instead of the fact that when she first started eating grapes I taught her to chew carefully and to remain seated instead of running around while eating. One articles headline reads:
Tragedy of children who choked to death on grapes: Little Jacob Jenkins is the THIRD in a decade
Notice the bold print? That was not my doing. The article goes on to say that the little boy was eating at a Pizza Hut at the time and now Pizza Hut has made the decision to stop serving grapes in their kids meals. Of course the article makes that sound like the only reasonable and responsible thing to do. So because of something that has only happened 3 times in a decade we are going to remove every grape from the kids meals in all the Pizza Huts everywhere! That’s crazy! I’m pretty sure more than 3 kids a decade suffer from obesity, diabetes, etc that will eventually kill them that could benefit from some healthy fruit to balance out the yummy-but-not-so-healthy-for-you pizza, but now that can’t happen because of a couple freak accidents! It’s tragic and for those 3 kids’ parents it is devastating, but do the risks of death by grape really outweigh the benefit of healthy eating choices? And by Pizza Hut jumping on the safety band wagon it just adds legitimacy to the helicopter parenting cause. It should be noted that all the kids who died were 2yrs old or less so the age 8 limit is a little, ok a lot, excessive!
I even love the title and wording throughout the article. Instead of saying something like “practical way to slice grapes or something” instead they jump to “Slicing grapes the RIGHT way could SAVE YOUR CHILD’S LIFE!” It is basically saying not only is there a right and wrong way to slice grapes but that if you do it the wrong way you are endangering your kid’s life. It goes on the use words like “horrific,” “trauma” and “lucky to be alive!” Those are words I use if I had just survived a terrorist attack not a run in with a grape. Part of this whole mentality seems to also be that after any sort of bad experience it has to immediately be labeled a major trauma with extensive post incident discussion and treatment.
Sorry didn’t mean to rant. — Alisha
Sometimes a rant is exactly what we need. I agree with Alisha: We are in overkill overdrive. NOT that it doesn’t make sense to take some precautions. But that it also does not make sense to treat everyday activities as if they are all fraught with danger. – L.
Mwahhhhahahaha!
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122 Comments
Someday someone will have a class on how to differentiate between a legitimate news site and a blog. Unfortunately, mother-centered sites are filled with this stuff.
On a side note–
Kinda strange, I never see parent sites catering to dads . . . I’m sure it’s just an oversight and not a plan to further push fatherhood to the sidelines.
Now I have a new idea for a monetized blog. I can do articles on “How to Grill with Your Kids” and “Hand Tools for the Kindergartener.” Special monthly feature: Overdose of Fear, taking the most egregious stories (like the above one) and actually doing an analysis of the content, including real statistics and what they actually mean.
Dangit, now the day’s shot because my brain is now trying to determine if I can pull this off.
“Sophie Jackson’s toddler almost choked to death on a grape and she’s issued a warning on social media that every parent should listen to.”
Sounds like she’s really raisin hell about this issue.
@Doug There is not much difference between legitimate news and a blog these days. Legitimate news are in intense competition to the bottom fueled by need for clicks. Pretty much only difference between the two is the range of topics.
@lollipoplover
I saw what you did!
I thought same thing.
Guess grape minds think alike
LMAO @lollipoplover!
My husband’s aunt gave me grief over Thanksgiving for not cutting up the pineapple chunks from the fruit platter for my 5-year-old. I can’t remember exactly what she said but the gist of it was that when she turned out to be right, I’d be sorry. (Turns out, my 5-year-old *is* perfectly capable of taking a manageable bite out of a too-big chunk, then chewing it up & swallowing it before taking another bite. Just as I knew he was, since, you know, I eat meals with him every day…)
There was a similar story on the Fox News website, and I think it was also on the CNN website, about a teenage girl who was allergic to wifi. That’s right, wifi. I guess it had something to do with the radio waves within the air. Needless to say, and I think everybody here would agree, this type of allergy is extremely, and I mean, extremely rare! Turns out the girl died from it.
Well wouldn’t you know that her mother, whom I have heartfelt condolences for, is now on a crusade to warn parents of the dangers of wifi and I think she’s even on a crusade to keep it out of the schools. In other words, because of this very very very rare type of allergy, the schools will need to go back to the stone age. Now I don’t think the schools have catapulted to any demands for wifi removal / limitations……just yet. But this is how American society reacts to a grieving parent ANY time a child tragically dies. We must do anything and everything in our power to prevent this tragedy from happening again even if it means severely limiting, and even eliminating, the conveniences and quality of life for everybody else in the country.
This case is very similar. More and more and more American OVER REACTION to tragedy involving children.
@lollipoplover, @bobmagee –
Some folks just need something to WINE about.
The most shocking news here is… Pizza Hut has kids’ meals???
My kid is four and has never choked on anything in her life. She has been eating uncut grapes for quite some time now (it helps that we did not do baby food when she started solids). One time when she was three I sent her to preschool with some grapes uncut and when she came home she had a few left. One of her teachers had cut them. *sigh* I wondered if I was secretly viewed as a terrible mother for not cutting the grapes!
PS. I still don’t get them or grape tomatoes.
In Spain there is a tradition on New Year’s Eve. People eat 12 grapes with the 12 chimes of the clock at midnight. Everybody does it, young and old. Obviously the chimes are always too fast and you end up with a big mess and juice dripping down your mouth and everybody chokes, old and young. But no kid has ever choked to death on New Year’s Eve.
Obviously, I can’t possibly imagine this in the U.S., kids staying up until midnight 😉
* I still don’t CUT them, I mean.
@bob mcgee
“Guess grape minds think alike”
Especially when they’re in a jam.
Doug – Fathers are men and, therefore, a danger to their children. We can’t have parenting sites catering to such a danger as people bearing Y chromosomes.
“There was a similar story on the Fox News website, and I think it was also on the CNN website, about a teenage girl who was allergic to wifi. That’s right, wifi. I guess it had something to do with the radio waves within the air. Needless to say, and I think everybody here would agree, this type of allergy is extremely, and I mean, extremely rare! Turns out the girl died from it.”
The girl “died from it” in the sense that she killed herself.
Not quite the same thing as a rare allergy to some pollen.
My ex is a paramedic and I remember her responding to several choking calls, ALL involving adults. One time she used tiny forceps to pull chicken out of a woman’s throat in the middle of a very fancy restaurant.
For safety’s sake, the only answer is for ALL people to only consume liquid or very squishy calories. No more chicken breasts, or hard candy, and certainly no more grapes. It’s the only way for us to be safe.
What did the green grape say to the purple grape?
Breathe!! Breathe!!
I don’t mean to make jokes about grapes and choking, but I hate this grape bashing. We are HUGE grape lovers (and pretty much all fruits). I just hate the prices now. My kids have eaten grapes since toddler age…off the vine. I know this may warrant a CPS investigation these days, but we never cut them up or did more than clean them. We also never took the stem off strawberries and let them eat whole cherry tomatoes out of the garden. They never choked on veggies or fruits but did have gagging moments with meats that we did cut up. Go figure.
My son also sucked a Yatzee! cup over his face that was seriously stuck on there (not choking but couldn’t breathe there for a moment). Scary stuff, those Yatzee cups. He had a bruise around his lips to mark this horrific, traumatic event.
As for choking, I was a lifeguard for my teen and college years and had to do the Heimlich several times at swim clubs. TWICE it was for those frozen Screwballs that you get from the ice cream man. The kids choked on the gumballs that were wedged in the bottom. When they drank the bottom of the cone they accidentally swallowed the gumball. Both kids were *saved* by performing this move. I’ve also done a finger sweep to dislodge (french fries) on a choking toddler. Eating and walking/moving likely lead to more choking events than sitting and concentrating on chewing.
I think a better platform to get behind is to teach Red Cross safety CPR/Heimlich Training to be prepared in the event of any choking event as they can happen with a wide variety of foods. Teach behaviors like having kids sit down to mindfully chew food and stop this constant and obsessive snacking all the time. Small children, big children, and adults(especially the elderly with dentures) die each year because they choking on food. It’s the 4th leading cause of unintended/accidental death.
I think the issue is that the girl’s mother believes the girl died of an allergy to wifi, but nobody has proved that allergies to wifi (allergies to electromagnetic fields) are a real thing – most of the science says such allergies don’t exist.
I’ve heard this before, since my sister cuts her kids’ grapes until well into the school-age years. In fact, she’s so paranoid about it she often cuts them into lengthwise quarters rather than just halves to be on the safe side. However, I’m happy to say most of my mom friends don’t do this.
I always wondered why pick on grapes – couldn’t a kid choke on a chunk of hard-boiled-egg or apple or whatnot just as easily?
A safety measure against choking I do believe in, though, is having kids sit down at the table to snack, rather than eating on the run. And it has the side benefit of teaching a good habit for life, unlike cutting up their grapes, which is teaching helplessness.
@ Doug (see Doug’s comment https://www.freerangekids.com/the-grapes-of-death/#comment-398385)
Hi Doug — really like the idea of your parenting website idea. My twin boys are in kindy and if your site was up I could watch it with them and learn how to engage their tool / hammer interests in a constructive way.
Here are some things I’ve done:
My son Raymond (age 5) begged to use the real, grown up hammer. I showed him how to hammer a nail in to hang a calendar. He then practiced hammering nails into the kitchen wall, pretty much unsupervised. He carried the hammer around with him most of that morning. I think I called out a few times about not hammering something fragile, that but was it. Nothing damaged or harmed, and he had a thrill.
I gave the twins (they were either 3 or 4 I can’t remember) real screw drivers, a set of screws, and sturdy cardboard boxes. They practiced making holes in the boxes and screwing the screws in the holes they had made. I did this only because they found our screw driver set and hollered and wanted to play with it so I set up this activity. Did they swallow a screw or hurt themselves? No. I didn’t supervise, other than being nearby doing household chores.
The general fear out there is that 3-4 year olds shouldn’t play with adult tools. Sure, I’e bought them tool sets for kids, but when the pieces got lost and distributed around the house, they got the idea of using real tools. And it all worked out.
i use a large kitchen knife for cutting veggies and the children have been often around me and the knife. I instructed them about being careful and not to handle the knife. My son wants to handle the knife, so this is what he does. He picks it up by the handle and brings it to me: “Here’s the knife, Mommy.” I say thank you for bringing it to me — not “don’t touch it!” Because I don’t hover over them when we are home together, I have to trust them.
I do know of a few parenting sites run by dads, but they are humor / entertainment sites –terrific at what they do, but we need a variety of sites.
there is: “How to be a dad” — hilarious
I just googled and there are a few serious sites out there. Good luck!
Donna, obviously it wouldn’t be a “parenting” site, because apparently “parenting” doesn’t mean what we think it means. It means “create adults who have no skills to cope with the world.”
I’m tempted to register “horribleparent” as the site name, because I want to raise children in a way that’s opposite to how society says they should be raised.
I do not need another project . . . I do not need another project . . . I do not need another project. If I say it to myself enough times, will it come true?
And I sent a bag of grapes with my son for his lunch today. Unsliced.
Living on the edge, that’s me.
Feeding grapes to your baby or young toddler? probably a good idea to cut them… but by the time they are out of nappies (diapers if you are in the USA) then they should be capable of chewing their food! certianly by the time they start preschool they should be more than competent at eating without choking and should be able to use a knife and fork to some degree!
@Doug: I have a feeling it’s because the same people who have these “crazy” mommy sites, would think having a site about Dads, would be creepy.
“Why is a man so interested in children?” mentality. I don’t think I need to say anymore. I’m sure most hear no what I’m referring about.
In this day and age, it’s become difficult being a man. We get the crap end of the stick because of people’s paranoia. People like to throw many things into one category. Like “apples and oranges”, just because they are both fruits. Never thinking about appearance and taste differentiating the two.
“Kinda strange, I never see parent sites catering to dads . . . I’m sure it’s just an oversight and not a plan to further push fatherhood to the sidelines. ”
Menfolk? Asking for directions?
Conveniently forgetting that you’re less likely to choke (at any age) if you start with something that’s big enough that you HAVE to take a bite out of it. It’s not big stuff you choke on; it’s little stuff that’s easier to suck down the wrong way.
As if you couldn’t choke on anything else, but… ya know, the only safe thing to do would be to give up eating. And drinking. After all, it might go down the wrong way. Better restrict each swallow to only one drop.
Hmmm i think it might be possible to choke on half a grape. I would sudgest to those moms to carfully chew the grapes for them and spit them in their kids mouth like a little baby bird. How fun preschool snacktime will be!!!
You could also peel them like my grandpa used to love to do. Takes forever!!
Doug – I suggest a site where fathers share stories of encouraging their children to do new and not entirely ‘safe’ things, how the children suffered a minor injury as a result, and nothing else happened other than their child learned a new skill and gained confidence in their abilities.
I built a zipline for my 7 & 9 year-old sons this spring. I let my son’s Scout Pack leader know, inviting his son to come over. He looked at me like I was crazy. Fun was had by all children that visited this summer. I can’t recall any injuries.
Thank you, Alisha and Lenore!
Btw at what point are these supermoms called out for keeping their kids dumb as bricks?
I remember struggling mightily with too-long spaghetti strands before 8. It didn’t kill me, so apparently made me stronger. I bet someone died of it, though. Hope not. Major press release: “Spaghetti over 1/4″ could be life threatening! Even 100% whole wheat won’t save you this time!”
I don’t think 7 and 8 year olds are considered adolescents, no matter what’s in their milk these days.
More importantly: 3 documented cases of children choking on grapes in 10 years is pretty good evidence that grapes aren’t particularly likely to cause choking. “My child has never choked on a grape” doesn’t mean anything beyond just that.
My former mother in law always freaked out when the kids would have gum, while playing and running around. But then again this is the same lady that told my daughter to not over do it on her bike, because she did once as a child and got Scarlet Fever.
Also the same person that saw my girls prepping fruit for fruit salad, and took the knives off them, to give them regular table knives. I immediately gave my girls back the sharp knives, and informed my mother in law that they are more likely to hurt themselves with improper knives than the proper ones.
“More importantly: 3 documented cases of children choking on grapes in 10 years is pretty good evidence that grapes aren’t particularly likely to cause choking.”
Well, that or it means they are, and parents are vigilant against the danger.
Only a couple of people have been killed in outer space, but that isn’t evidence that outer space isn’t particularly dangerous.
President Bush was almost done in by a pretzel. No toddlers under the age of 60 should be allowed to eat pretzels!
When my first was very young, I was told the rule of thumb that anything larger than a pea is a choking hazard. So, for instance one large pea would be a choking hazard (bigger than your average pea!). I lived by that rule for a couple of years and it worked. My child did not die of choking or anything else. Proof!
By the way, if you eat a pea each day for a hundred years, you will live to be 100.
I think a better response from Pizza Hut would have been to commit to having their servers trained to preform the Heimlich maneuver. Oh, wait. That might actually be effective in preventing a choking death in their restaurant rather than the-does-nothing-sounds-extreme policies America loves.
I choked on a tiny lettuce leaf once and a stranger did a Heimlich maneuver and we got it out. I was over forty at the time. Should I have waited until age fifty to have my first salad?
I had a baby-proofing moment in from of my step-mother once. I realised that the small object was fine, because the kid was now big enough to just swallow it, rather than choke on it (no recollection as to what it was, but it was tiny).
I commented as such to her… and she sternly reminded me that kids can choke on water.
I don’t think I even responded to that… just stunned silence.
Everyone who has posted about grapes has good knowledge and good solutions. Whenever you see an over reaction posted on a parenting blog, a news blog or any kind of blog share what you know. Overcome fear with facts. If we all do this we might help even one person clear up a misconception. You don’t have to make it a hobby or do if all the time. However if some topic strikes you, grape danger – really?, give people the facts.
Worst first thinking is OCD. It’s worse than compulsive hand washing. This is because if you are scrubbing your hands until they are raw then you are causing the pain to YOURSELF. However if you are a worst first thinker, you can be passing that pain onto your children.
Even though mom has the best wishes for her kids, they are continually hearing the message, “You’re too frail. You’re not smart enough to look after yourself. You’re helpless without my help”.
When they get bombarded with this message for enough years, they start to believe it’s true.
For a thorough treatment of the WiFi story, see http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/12/04/did-electromagnetic-hypersensitivity-lead-to-the-suicide-of-a-teenaged-girl/
The girl was experiencing physical symptoms such as severe headaches and bladder problems, but the family didn’t seek medical attention, instead deciding that the problems were caused by WiFi.
@Warren That story brings back memories for me! I was in HIGH SCHOOL when my grandmother took a sharp knife away from me in the kitchen. Grandpa promptly gave it right back to me. I had been using sharp knives to help my mom can tomatoes and peaches from our garden since I was 7. She also wouldn’t let me carry in the groceries for her – they were “too heavy” for me. I was a middle school kid, and she had a back so bad she couldn’t stand up straight. Go figure.
In general, choking on anything (at a life-threatening level) is a relatively infrequent event. General public education on dealing with choking isn’t a bad approach.
I remember being so excited in 4th grade because we were finally old enough for BAT (basic aid training) at school. We spent part of each school day for a week learning CPR, choking care, first aid…so we would have some knowledge before we started taking on babysitting jobs for other people. I know our schools don’t do that anymore around here. How about where any of you live?
I wanted to sign my 12 yo daughter up for the First Aid/CPR class with me at the local YMCA, and I was told “she wasn’t old enough.”
My daughter almost choked on a grape when she was six years old. What is interesting is her body knew what to to do. I was about to turn her around and try the Heimlich maneuver, but although she was not sick, her body responded by throwing up the grape and everything else.
Think the whole small children choking on a grape and dying is actually more common than that as there have been two instances in the city I live in in the last eight or nine years alone. That said, eight is a bit high of an age limit.
Warren, I recall high school cooking class, way back in 2002, and the teacher ranting about the dangers of dull butter knives and why a sharp kitchen knife is safer and, most importantly, best for food prep. Got into my Scouting career and found myself oft teaching the dangers of dull knives and the efficacy of a sharpened knife. Use a good knife, folks!
My 2-year-old is addicted to grape tomatoes. We have never cut them for her. Never thought to.
I choked on a piece of lettuce as a kid. It just happened to get stuck in a perfect position to block my airway. Mom noticed I looked odd, asked if I was ok, I shook my head no, she then asked if I could breath, again shook my head no then I was treated to a chair type Heimlich (sp?) and here I am today. I still ate salad regularly as a young kid and I still do. Choking and near choking has got to be fairly common. Banning an item like lettuce or grapes is stupid.
I’m probably going to hell. I give my 15 month old grapes that have been frozen, then quartered. The problem isn’t that they’ve been quartered…..it’s that they’re frozen. He’s going to choke. He’s going to die.
*gag*
Three times in a decade, while tragic for those specific three families, does not necessitate grapes being removed from Pizza Hut children’s meals.
Also, I think it means that my son’s Montessori teachers/school are going to hell, too……..grapes are on the “approved snack list” for his class (preschool/pre-K). I bring them in all the time.
Children choke on food. Adults choke on food. Anything that you swallow has the potential to choke you. Should we all start eating pastes through tubes in our noses to remove that risk?
I think the best way to prevent such deaths is for people to take First Aid and CPR courses. 80% of people who learn CPR will use it at some point.
TEST
Warren: I am back. I see you have not stopped. You must be stopped.
Have you been banned from school yards yet?
Analyzing your posts, you must avoid all children
Sigh, will the stupidity never end? Our helicopter parents are now being helicoptered by bloggers making money off of every click to their page. So now you don’t need to think at all, bad advice is at your fingertips.
Each person who posts must end the post with
STOP WARREN STOP WARREN STOP WARREN.
He must be stopped. We owe it to humanity, current generations, and future generations.
His posts increase pollution. He posts cause global warming. The madness must be stopped.
He is basically a moron who is an idiot. He must be stopped. Eliminate his user id
Am I the only one who routinely chokes on my own spit? Guess it’s time to get that feeding tube, you just can’t be too careful these days.
I mean to say…. if your 8 year old can’t chew a grape you’ve failed as a parent.
The whole “choking hazard” thing used to vex us mightily at the seasonal novelty company I worked for years ago. We had a lucite “choke tube” that was about 1.5″ in diameter, and if any part of anything we produced would fit in it, then we had to have the little triangle with the ! inside it with WARNING: etc.
The fun part was when those packages had to be bilingual, French and English, for export to Canada. Some of our packages were more fine print that product.
Remember to condemn warren in all posts. He must go back to his cave. He is useless.
Warren must not post. Eliminate his user id. Remove all his old posts. The madness must stop.
By consensus he is evil.
The problem with warren is that he lacks the power of conversation but not the power of written speech.
Demand he be removed from this website.
Becks: Good post, but please condemn warren. He is satanic.
Backroads: Please continue to post, but do not address warren. It only encourages the simpleton. He must be ostracized forever.
Warren: Grasp your ears firmly and pull; you might just be able to remove your head from you ass.
Why don’t you go to the library and brush up on your ignorance?
If I want and shit from you, I’ll squeeze your head.
You used to be arrogant and obnoxious. Now I see that you are just the opposite – you are obnoxious and arrogant.
You have got your head so far up your ass you can chew your food again on the way down.
I hear you changed your mind at last! What did you do with the diaper?
Warren: You must stop. It must end… Your post must cease.
Donna: You have good posts but remember to avoid anything with Warren.
Great, now there are two people we have to ignore. There must be something more productive you could be doing with your time like cutting up grapes.
It’s like the tragedy of the gumtree killing a child at a NSW primary school- whilst awful for the families of the little girl, it is one death from a falling tree at a school in the history of schools in the country. Yet the NSW government ordered the removal of EVERY tree at every govt school in NSW
Becks: If ignoring me means we all ignore Warren, then that is a VICTORY. Silence from Warren demands vigilance from all people great and small. Silence from Warren is what we must aspire to, to ensure the greater good, peace and tranquility.
Warren’s posts detract from all good in the world.
Two minutes without Warren is like a thousand years without being in jail.
We must aspire to a website without Warren posts. It will help all if he never posts again.
Here’s a game I play with my kids (I’m sure we’ve all tried it), ‘who can be quite the longest’. The best bit is they love it and really try to win. You and old Warren there can play that while the rest of us fairly more constructive (for the most part) contributers play ‘who can ignore you two the longest’. It’s sure to be a winning combo 🙂
Right, the game starts………
NOW!
Pizza Hut sells a pie with hot dogs in the crust.
Hot dogs are responsible for 1 of 6 choking deaths for children 10 and under
Pizza is also a choking hazard for smaller children
But…the grapes must go!
I think most of this helicopter/overly safe/scared to death of letting your child out of your sight for a second (or else a grape-wielding child abductor will snatch them from your very fingers) society we have sadly come to has a lot to do with the fact that many Americans have (again sadly) become so “sue happy” that no companies want to be on the defense side of a “wrongful death by fruit” (or whatever the company is being sued for) lawsuit. And likewise, no other parents want to be sued by little Johnny’s (or little Mary’s) friends’ parents for doing anything that anyone could deem dangerous. So instead of teaching morals and manners and courage and confidence, we are teaching our kids to be afraid of the very air they breathe (among millions of other real and/or imagined fears in the world)
What I want to know is how many kids have chocked on pizza in the last decade?
Nadine — you laugh, but I knew someone who bit all the uneven hulls off every piece of popcorn before she let her toddlers have them.
@julieh… My daughter took a babysitting class a couple of years ago at a local firestation here in WA State. I think she was 12 at the time, taking a class that’s available to 11-13 year olds. My 11 year old has been looking into it lately even though she’s already been doing some babysitting.
I know for sure that she learned CPR, and then learned it again last year when she was in the 8th grade.
They thought CPR was going to save a lot of lives, so it got put into school curricula all over the place. But most people weren’t that interested, in learning it, and either never learned it properly or didn’t retain it, and it turned out that having a bunch of people poorly trained in CPR means that cardiac patients arrive at the hospital with broken ribs in addition to the problems they had in the first place. Now the push is to require automated defibrillators in a lot of places. Not sure what will happen when the wave of people improperly defibrillated starts showing up in emergency rooms.
@James–I just renewed my First Aid and CPR over the weekend, so this is a timely discussion. Anyway, I was always taught that, since adults are less flexible than children, it’s not unusual to break ribs doing adult CPR, whereas with children, you might not. As for the defibrillators, it’s pretty hard to screw that up–you turn it on, and the machine walks you through the entire process. As for First Aid and CPR training in general, who CARES if people “aren’t interested in learning?” It’s a safety thing. I think the schools should teach that every year, and make sure it’s drilled into kids’ heads, along with other things they’ll learn in school. I mean, the schools aren’t going to stop teaching, say, math, just because people “aren’t interested in learning,” and I don’t remember math ever saving anyone’s life.
“As for the defibrillators, it’s pretty hard to screw that up—you turn it on, and the machine walks you through the entire process.”
I got cardioverted in a hospital intensive-care unit, and it was non-trivial.
First, I had to wait, while they gave me blood thinners (it’s a shot that you get every two hours into your body fat, and it stings like hell) Then I got drugged up so they could stick a sensor down my throat to see if there were any blood clots in my heart. Then, I got zapped. Shocking the heart is more likely to cause a stroke if you don’t do all of that stuff first (of course, having a heart that is not beating properly has some health risks, too.).
“I don’t remember math ever saving anyone’s life.”
CPR doesn’t save that many lives, either.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/10/health/cpr-lifesaving-stats/
You could probably get better results from teaching HS students not to text and drive, lifesaving wise.
But they’re not interested in learning that, either.
You could definitely get better results from teaching better nutrition. But… same problem.
I would like to apologise to Warren for saying we should ignore him. It was a case of mistaken identity.
With all of Trollhunters messing in this thread and the late hour (it was about 1am here in UK) I agreed we should ignore Warren but I had my names confused and perhaps Trollhunter did too. Normally it’s James P putting a spanner in the works who I normally try to ignore rather than engaging with his comments and it should have been him that play the quiet game with Trollhunter.
I’m very sorry Warren, I like your contributions very much.
Pizza Hut is only responding to societal, legal pressure. The story has gone viral. The lawyer for the this child, and the next one who dies say 5 years from now, will show that Pizza Hut should have known about this possibility and is liable.
The lawyer for Pizza Hut will point out correctly that a grape is a natural food, that it is not inherently dangerous, and that not all bad outcomes can be avoided.
Regardless, the jury will award $10 million in damages, reduced to a “reasonable” $3 million on appeal.
The state legislature will not prevent such lawsuits, because no politician will be labeled heartless and anti-child.
Pizza Hut realizes that it is in the pizza business, not the healthy-but-dangerous food business. So, why fight to serve grapes?
The people in their wisdom are getting the society they want.
What we need is a kind of age of consent for eating grapes. Is a seven-year-old mature enough to understand the possible consequences of eating grapes, the advantages of cutting grapes in half the right way, and the alternatives available (e.g. trading the grapes for unhealthy but safer mashed potatoes)?
Lmfao! I packed uncut grapes yesterday for a school snack for my daughter & her friend. Thank God the girls are 10 years old! Haha.
Totally agree with you! ! Instead of teaching kids to not touch the fire let’s take the fire away. Ugh. And how about parents responsibly take CPR classes so if a terrible thing like choking happens they know how to handle it. Come one people.
That was mean, Lenore, mean! Now I cannot get ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah..’ out of my head ( you know, the Grapes of Wrath are stored there, and the Lord will trample out the vintage, etc!). And it’s companion song, ‘Glory, glory, whatta helluva way to die…’. That one was about the girl who lay upon the tarmac like a lump of strawberry jam. In her case, her parachute didn’t open, but I guess choking on the Grapes of Wrath (Death?) would also be a helluva way to die. 🙂
“What we need is a kind of age of consent for eating grapes. Is a seven-year-old mature enough to understand the possible consequences of eating grapes, the advantages of cutting grapes in half the right way, and the alternatives available (e.g. trading the grapes for unhealthy but safer mashed potatoes)?”
If we delay eating grapes, we’ll end up with a lot of people allergic to grapes. Like what’s happened with peanuts.
“Two minutes without Warren is like a thousand years without being in jail” etc etc etc
But you’re a big fan of James Pollock?
Becks,
Apology is appreciated and respected.
Everyone,
My apologies for this troll posting here. I believe it is someone that I disagreed with on the Metiv’s case quite a time ago. Sorry for the language and frequency of this idiot’s posts.
“I don’t remember math ever saving anyone’s life.”
I hope that was facetious, because many, many lives have been saved by a doctor or nurse being able to rapidly calculate the correct amount of a drug for the person’s body weight, and administering it quickly.
Also correctly calculating the load bearing ratios of a building, as opposed to building it until it looks right, has saved countless lives. And then there’s not starving to death because you can actually count how much money you have to spend on food. 😉
I have to say, Warren gets under my skin quite a lot. (And then there are the unusual, but welcome, times when we agree.)
But this trollhunter nonsense is ridiculous and far worse than even the most dubious comments Warren has ever made.
Grapes get a bad rap. Why not hate on the hot dogs? Not only are they cancer-causing meat sticks made up of human parts, but they have equally confusing cutting safety issues. Meat coins? Triangles?
I saw on Facebook someone make an octopus out of a hot dog for a theme lunch (“hotopus”-gross)
So many ways to die with hot dogs….
An don’t forget the e. coli!
“”Two minutes without Warren is like a thousand years without being in jail” etc etc etc
But you’re a big fan of James Pollock?”
Is there some reason you’re trying to drag me into this, or are you just trolling?
Quote:
“Needless to say, and I think everybody here would agree, this type of allergy is extremely, and I mean, extremely rare!”
Allow me to add on to that statement:
“IF allergies to wifi even exist!”
I’m sure more than 3 have died from choking on pizza in a decade. They need to stop serving pizza now.
Yeah, I was a little worried that my three-year-old granddaughter could choke on a grape, but then I read on the internets that the danger can be avoided if the grapes are cut in half.
So next time she had grapes I gave her the carving knife.
I pretty much started feeding with solid food, but I also went through a phase of cutting up grapes. That ended after I noticed that none of the other parents at the Tot Sabbath services were cutting up grapes (and there were always grapes). So I quit. I have never seen a child from the tot services so much as gag on a grape.
What I have seen is the minimum age recommendations for various foods climb higher and higher every year. My operating hypothesis has become that the danger at various ages is related to eating competence. If you don’t let the kids try the difficult foods when they are 2, then they wind up choking on them when they are 4, or 6, or 8, or whenever it is you let them eat it. And quite possibly the foods become more dangerous as the kid has longer experience with being able to eat recklessly without consequence.
Which makes one of our biggest little food mishaps look brilliant. My husband made meatballs to introduce meat to our (then) baby. The balls happened to be just small enough that she could shove them into her mouth whole, and just large enough that it would be a task to get them back out. Naturally I know this because as soon as she saw them, she crammed one into her mouth, and it got stuck. It was so ridiculous we both broke down laughing too hard to be any help to her (she was breathing fine). Just when I was recovering enough to think about how to pry it out, I noticed she had started gnawing on the meatball. We gave her another length of laughter punctuated time to work on it, and eventually she got is small enough for me to remove without too much prying. Undaunted, we offered her leftover meatballs the next day. Well she took the most dainty little nibbles you could imagine. And she has NEVER stuffed her face since. (Even when I urge her to hurry up!)
@Everydayrose Daughter took the babysitter class here as soon as she was eligible. Although they covered some basic first aid and CPR/choking, it was a small part of the class (in my opinion). Daughter didn’t feel the class covered it well enough and wanted something more in-depth for herself.
@James Pollock Cardioversions do stink (although better than the alternative of letting it be). Hubby has had to go through that more times than I can count. He says the TEE portion (echo down the throat) is his least favorite part of the process because it is so irritating to the throat. Hopefully you don’t have to go through it again. On our end, Christmas is coming up, so the chances are high he will be having one again (he always manages to need it at a holiday).
Generally speaking, do you think that the disinterest in learning proper basic first aid techniques (including CPR, choking care, automatic defibrillator use, etc.) is because we aren’t catching people when they may first be interested? When you take a kid and give them bigger responsibilities and tell them they are capable, sometimes that spurs the interest. Wait too long and you miss the opportunity.
I think this same situation occurs in STEM. Schools spend so much time on reading and basic math in the early grades that science is an afterthought (at a time when kids are highly curious about how the world works). Once they hit higher grades and analytical math and interesting science become more of a focus, the window of opportunity is passed for many kids.
@JulieH, I dare say you hit on the problem with most education in this country, and a fair amount of parenting problems. I spent 6 years of my education in Montessori, and found it to be, not only the best educational experience of my life, but also the source of many of my happiest memories. So I reached back to that and read a fair amount on Montessori’s educational theories while I was pregnant, because the more I read the more I realized my parents best parenting habits came from Montessori.
One of the most key and core Montessori concepts is that an effective education must be responsive to “sensitive periods.” Of course these don’t show up on command. She argues that before the sensitivity to a category of information appears, it is truly impossible to teach the subject. And that if you ignore the sensitivity it will pass. The post-sensitive period child remains capable of learning the subject, and by her thinking should be taught it anyhow. But, she notes that the post-sensitive period child will lack enthusiasm for the subject. And lacking enthusiasm, the child will not repeat learning exercises, nor seek to create extensions of that learning exercise, in the way a child within the sensitive period will. Thus the child will not learn the topic with the same depth and mastery.
Well worth reading Maria Montessori’s ideas. (Even though the stuff the veers into medicine is dated and often wrong.) I can attest from experience that her educational approach is effective, and makes all the difference in the world to the child.
Anyone who claims allergy to wifi is lying, nits or both.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivity
Electromagnetic hypersensitivity is not an accepted diagnosis. There are no accepted research criteria other than ‘self-reported symptoms’, and for clinicians there is no case definition or clinical practice guideline. There is no specific test that can identify sufferers, as symptoms other than skin disorders tend to be subjective or non-specific.
The majority of provocation trials to date have found that self-described sufferers of electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to distinguish between exposure and non-exposure to electromagnetic fields,[3][4] and it is not recognized as a medical condition by the medical or scientific communities. Since a systematic review in 2005 showing no convincing scientific evidence for its being caused by electromagnetic fields,[3] several double-blind experiments have been published, each of which has suggested that people who report electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to detect the presence of electromagnetic fields and are as likely to report ill health following a sham exposure as they are following exposure to genuine electromagnetic fields, suggesting the cause to be the nocebo effect.[5][6][7]
So no one died from this.
etc
“Generally speaking, do you think that the disinterest in learning proper basic first aid techniques (including CPR, choking care, automatic defibrillator use, etc.) is because we aren’t catching people when they may first be interested?”
No. In my own case, I got CPR twice, once in junior high school, and again in high school, and neither time do I recall the students being particularly interested. I actually think the biggest obstacle is already corrected… the switch to hands-only CPR. Nobody wanted to put their mouth on the plastic dummy’s mouth.
I think the main problem is relevance. Teenagers are generally healthy, there aren’t a lot of them keeling over from heart attacks, so the threat of heart disease is a distant one. (yes, I’m intentionally ignoring the fact that teenagers interact with people, principally family members, who are not teenagers.)
There’s no faster way to make someone resent learning something than to tell them they have no choice. Mandatory pledge of allegiance for public schoolchildren is a relic of bygone days… and this is a good thing. CPR is useful… sometimes. A person stricken with cardiac failure definitely benefits if someone nearby knows how to effectively perform CPR. But… they only need one, two tops.
So, healthcare professionals absolutely need CPR training. So do people in other jobs where CPR might be required (lifeguards, for example.) So do people who have household family members at risk for cardiac failure. And… office buildings with large numbers of sedentary workers should probably have one or two per floor available. The group that’s missing here? Teenagers who don’t fall into one of those categories.
@Havva I love the Montessori approach. Both my girls were able to attend a Montessori-based religious education program at our church from age 3-about 7. They got so much out of it and still talk about the things they learned. I try to provide a Montessori-style environment in our home to go along with their schooling. I truly believe they learn more at home and through the summer than they do at school because we are able to take advantage of those sensitive periods.
A prime example – my kids love science – not school science class, though – because we made science fair a priority for them starting in Kindergarten (when it was optional). We let them pick whatever topics they wanted – they have studied blood splatter, investigated rust and ways to inhibit it, done bridge strength analysis, built a human-powered “robotic” gripper, built a theremin with a “fret” board for use in music therapy. This year – designing a brick conveyance system for a village in Uganda (13 year old) and studying incidence of micrometeorite strikes in relation to weather (11 year old). Obviously, I am very proud of them 😉 The amount they have learned about all sorts of topics, directly and indirectly, through these projects is astounding.
@James Pollock I think, though, that waiting for the teenage years is too late for the interest. That is a bit my point. My experience with 3-5th graders is that they do have interest, and if you start with some of these topics at that point, I see the interest persisting into the teen years. Just my experiences working with kids K-8th over the past number of years – before 3rd grade, they just aren’t ready for it.
” My experience with 3-5th graders is that they do have interest, and if you start with some of these topics at that point”
What are you willing to give up to make time in the curricula?
I still see CPR as something that should be taught to people who voluntarily seek it out, not something that every citizen needs to perform their duties as a citizen. The Boy and Girl Scouts, for example, could put it in THEIR curricula, and… my local school district has a “health careers” magnet program, where CPR training (and maintenance of CPR certification) is a great fit.
And, of course, parents are free to require their children to learn, if they think it is important.
@James Pollock I am more than willing to give up the insane amount of time put toward standardized testing prep, practice, and test administration. Even just a small fraction of that time would be more than sufficient.
Leave CPR aside (the necessity of such training can be argued both ways), some basic first aid type training and how to help a choking victim are reasonable. And, in my opinion, basic first aid knowledge and how to deal with certain emergency situations one may encounter is a good thing to provide a child who is going to be out and about on their own or with a friend/sibling.
First Aid is part of the badge work offered in Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts – and that is where some of my referenced experience comes from. But it is not mandatory that a troop choose to work on those particular badges in Girl Scouts, and only a small percentage of a population participates.
Never heard of slicing grapes when I was kid. I guess all mothers back in the day were uncaring brutes.When I read your blog I am so gratified my mother isn’t around any more. She would have been thrown in jail and we’d all be in the custody of the state for all the freedom both she and my father gave us.
“I am more than willing to give up the insane amount of time put toward standardized testing prep, practice, and test administration. Even just a small fraction of that time would be more than sufficient.”
Now all you have to do is convince at least 50.1% of the rest of the citizenry, and you’re all set.
” in my opinion, basic first aid knowledge and how to deal with certain emergency situations one may encounter is a good thing to provide a child who is going to be out and about on their own or with a friend/sibling.”
You’re switching things… I’m talking about CPR, not anything else. Should every child learn earthquake preparedness, because they may someday move to San Francisco? Should every child learn tornado preparedness, in case they move to Oklahoma? I live in Oregon… we don’t the hurricanes so much, but we do experience the occasional volcano. Hawaii ALSO regularly experiences volcanic activity, but theirs is different from ours. Teach both?
“First Aid is part of the badge work offered in Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts — and that is where some of my referenced experience comes from. But it is not mandatory that a troop choose to work on those particular badges in Girl Scouts, and only a small percentage of a population participates.”
Are you saying only a small portion of the population joins the Scouts? Or only a small portion of the Scouting population chooses to study first aid? Either way, it’s a sign that people are choosing what they want, and what they want isn’t to learn first aid (much less CPR)
@James Pollock
Sigh…..Oregon does suffer from earthquakes since it along the Cascadia subduction zone in addition to being subject to volcano activity since it is along the Pacific Ring of Fire and can suffer from possible tornadic activity on the east side of the state in particular if the weather patterns are conducive to do so, which is rare regardless, but not impossible. Oh, it can suffer from hurricane force winds if you are along the Columbia River or the Pacific Coast (to include rains). Keep in mind, earthquakes can happen anywhere in the world even if it is not a common activity, e.g. Oklahoma which has been through several earthquakes due to fracking. Knowing what to do in any possible weather or terra firma situation and Be Prepared for it is better than not at all.
Now, back to the topic at hand…..grapes
“Oregon does suffer from earthquakes…”
Yes, I know. I live here. We’ve even had one that affected people in a negative way, the infamous “Spring Break Quake” that damaged Molalla High School enough to force it to close.
However, you missed a few. We’ve also had school shootings, a mass shooting at a shopping mall, and an attempt to detonate a high-power bomb during a large gathering of people in the city of Portland’s city square. We’re currently having flooding that has claimed at least one life, and the notorious “VanPort Flood” more-or-less removed a whole town from the map. Once, during the 70’s, a big airplane fell on us. We’ve had students run over by cars while walking to and from school. And, we haven’t had one recently, but a giant space rock could fall from the sky and devastate the entire population.
And we have a seacoast, so there’s risk of tsunami! We’d better train all the 8 kids living in the high desert plateau what they should do if a tsunami is expected to hit them…
@James Pollock
Yep, I know. I lived there in OR, eastern and western parts of the state…..
James Pollack – Your posts are worth reading. They are informative, provide good information, and represent true understanding and are worth reading. They make sense and are good opinions / facts.
Warren on the other hand is a moron, idiot, insufferable weasel who must not be allowed to post. He disrespects all, and obviously has an IQ of a houseplant / ice cube. Reading his posts reduces our cumulative IQ.
STOP THE MADNESS, WARREN… STOP POSTING
@Trollbuster – really? I’m beginning to think you ARE James Pollack. I can see no other explanation for your rather odd posts.
@James – the point about 3rd-5th graders learning CPR is a valid one. They do tend to be more interested in all sorts of things at that age. And there is definitely still a place for manual CPR. I can’t believe that everywhere in America is going to have easy access to defibrillators.
As to them learning all manner of emergency procedures, not sure what the problem is with that. We learnt what to do in a bear attack, which is hilarious considering the nearest wild bear that’s not a koala is at least 5000 km away. It was a bit of fun fact learning.
And while virtually non-existent in England, I believe, a little British girl’s recent learning on earthquakes and tsunami saved the lives of scores of people during the Boxing Day Tsunami. Be Prepared and all that.
Which has nothing to do with grapes….
“the point about 3rd-5th graders learning CPR is a valid one.”
What point is that? That they COULD learn it, or that they SHOULD?
“there is definitely still a place for manual CPR.”
Who’s arguing otherwise?
“As to them learning all manner of emergency procedures, not sure what the problem is with that.”
Me, either?
When one is talking about first aid and cpr training, it most definitely should be only for those who wish to take it. Not everyone has the stomach for it, not everyone has the stomach to attend to actual first aid injuries, and not everyone has the ability to act rationally and objectively during emergency situations. That is not putting anyone down, it is just life.
hineata,
This whole thing with James being the trollbuster………..I doubt it. James is too busy pretending to be a lawyer. I think this trollbuster just commented about James, because my personal opinion of him is well known, and trollbuster is just attempting to push buttons. Again my apologies that this mentally unstable person followed me here.
Funnily enough, I was one of those seven years old that choked on a grape. It was free period in second grade and I wanted to see if I could swallow the grape whole. It didn’t go well for me. The grape got stuck in my throat and I couldn’t breath. So I calmly walked up to my teacher and pointed at my throat. She asked if I was ok, I shook my head no, and she asked if I could breath, and again I shook my head no. Once she figured out that i was choking, she promptly did the Heimlich maneuver and I spat out the grape. After the teacher made sure I was fine, I returned to my desk to finish eating the rest of the grapes.
Essentially, I did a dumb thing, but even as a seven year old, I knew to find an adult. And while it was sort of scary, it was an easily fixed problem and learned an important lesson of the necessity of chewing. This was in the early 90s and while my mother did receive a phone call telling her of the “incident,” it was only later in the evening and not directly after it happened. I feel like today, many parents would be informed immediately and pick up their scared child right after, very upset and panicked. My mother packed grapes in my lunch the next day.
@Warren I think that if an adult is unable to stomach basic aid and cpr training, then there really is something wrong with him. Maybe it is some trauma or something similar then ok and I am even fine paying psychologist from taxes to help.
Other then that, healthy adult should be able to get over himself and learn it. Heck, I would be fine with it being part of mandatory biology during high school.
“Now all you have to do is convince at least 50.1% of the rest of the citizenry, and you’re all set.”
I am definitely doing my part to try to convince them.
“You’re switching things… I’m talking about CPR, not anything else.”
Actually, I am not. From my initial post referencing the topic, I refer to CPR/first aid training…not exclusively CPR. First aid classes that will cover the basics of dealing with a choking victim will at least mention CPR and discuss when it is appropriate – so it tends to be part and parcel.
“Are you saying only a small portion of the population joins the Scouts? Or only a small portion of the Scouting population chooses to study first aid?”
Only a small portion joins scouts of some type (there are a lot of options for activities for kids these days, they can’t do everything.). My observation is that most scouting troops (at least in our region) do choose to spend time on first aid. In fact, my troop of 2nd-6th graders chose health and safety as their theme for the year – first aid, bike safety, mental health, etc.
@Warren “When one is talking about first aid and cpr training, it most definitely should be only for those who wish to take it. Not everyone has the stomach for it, not everyone has the stomach to attend to actual first aid injuries, and not everyone has the ability to act rationally and objectively during emergency situations. That is not putting anyone down, it is just life. ”
Unfortunately, not having a stomach for it doesn’t keep one from encountering a situation at some point in life that thrusts them into it at some level. And having had even a little training can help many people have a better chance of being able to act rationally in the heat of an emergency…or at least maybe stay calm enough not to be a detriment 😉
It also points back to if we should address the topic at a younger age, before kids develop the aversions of their adulthood. For example, at our school children start reading for weekday Masses in K or 1st grade, depending on their reading skills. The little ones are so excited to get to be like the big kids! They start getting into “public speaking” situations BEFORE they have much of a chance to develop a fear of it. I notice that the middle school kids seem to have a lower incidence of a fear of public speaking than what I observe among kids at the public school.
andy,
Anyone can learn the skills, that is not the issue. The issue is that many people just do not have it in them to apply them in an emergency situation. They freeze, they cannot stand the sight of blood, they panic, and so on. Not everyone is cut out to handle emergency situations. Then you have the section of the population that is just not physically strong enough to perform cpr, or the choking sequence.
I know people that can change the nastiest of diapers, yet one drop of blood causes them to faint, or vomit.
I know people that handle high stress deals and careers, but are totally useless when it comes to someone injured or dying.
Learning the skills and procedures is nothing. Responding and applying those skills in a real emergency is another beast all together.
@JulieH-
I find that children who are interested in safety/first aid will seek it out beyond organized troops in other ways. Kind of like how nursing and teaching are a *calling* for some? Those who are drawn to helping others medically (good to have these friends btw) will find ways to do it. My daughter carries a first aid kit in her backpack and is known among the bikers (and walkers) as the band aid girl. She loves band aids and hands them out every chance she gets and will triage road rash and other wounds. As someone who gags at vomit and nasty diapers, she has a much better stomach for this stuff- I personally hate the sight of blood. She thinks it fascinating.
.
I started choking in a foodcourt on rice, RICE! Luckily I was with my friend, who nurses disabled people, and recognized what was happening, and rectified the issue for me (then went back to eating like nothing had just happened). Guess we should ban rice too, because it was very much a total occlusion of my airway, and unless there was someone else there ready to jump into action, death was a real possibility.
Anyway, as for basic first aid training. I am pro it. I like systems where people are encouraged to do so (for example, in my high school it was a requirement for graduation). Some people do freeze up when something goes wrong, but it is difficult to predict if you will be one of those sorts, and it is much easy to action if you have a vague set of instructions about what to do. I have seen time and time and time again, that great comfort comes from doing SOMETHING, and the ones who seem to suffer the most in the aftermath tend to be those who did not do anything (and there was no one else doing anything either).
The big selfish reason why people should? Because if your mate collapses in front of you, if your work colleague starts choking, if your toddler gets scalds all down their front… We can tell you you did the best you can, there was nothing more you could do. That starting that CPR, that giving them those whacks, that cooling those burns, gave them the best shot.
Learn first aid. You might actually save a life. The ambulance is going to take x minutes to get there, and someone might need some help in less time than that.
If a curriculum spot is the issue, it seems to me first-aid training would fit in legitimately as part of physical education. It would certainly be a better use of time than poring over the government’s latest version of the food pyramid (or whatever they’re calling it these days).
What happens when someone chokes on a piece of pizza? Are they going to stop serving pizza too?
>>”I don’t remember math ever saving anyone’s life.”
I hope that was facetious, because many, many lives have been saved by a doctor or nurse being able to rapidly calculate the correct amount of a drug for the person’s body weight, and administering it quickly.
Also correctly calculating the load bearing ratios of a building, as opposed to building it until it looks right, has saved countless lives. And then there’s not starving to death because you can actually count how much money you have to spend on food. <<
Okay, fair enough; I should have used another example, like required reading of Shakespeare or something (nothing against his work, but it's meant to be SEEN, not read). My overall point is, though, a lot of the things kids learn in school, won't be used later in life. I've never been stopped on the street and asked for, say, the formula for the volume of a sphere (I don't remember it, although I remember learning that in grade ten math), but I have used my swimming/lifesaving and First Aid training on a few occasions (the two major ones I remember were the time I saved my brother from drowning when he was having chest pains in the middle of the lake at the cottage, and another time, when I rolled him into recovery position and kept him from choking on his own vomit when he deliberately got himself drunk on my parents' vodka). Given how useful First Aid and CPR are, even though you don't really need those skills until you NEED them, I think it should be mandatory for kids to learn them in school, starting at the age of maybe eight or so, which is the age I was when I started learning. It should happen long enough before kids get old enough to take babysitting courses, that it's fairly well ingrained by the time they do. Even if they never have to use these skills, the act of learning First Aid and CPR gives kids the message that they're capable, and that adults believe in them. There isn't enough of that these days.
Emily,
“My overall point is, though, a lot of the things kids learn in school, won’t be used later in life. I’ve never been stopped on the street and asked for, say, the formula for the volume of a sphere (I don’t remember it, although I remember learning that in grade ten math), ”
Don’t you actually mean won’t be used later on in YOUR life? Elementary and high school are meant to expose students to the foundations of choice. Their choice of what path to follow. As my grade 13 Calculus teacher explained, it is not so much about the answer or the material. It is about the process. Learning how to learn.
You bring up William Shakespeare. Now do I use his works in my line of work? No. But English, Drama, and Literature teachers, instructors and professors do.
Geometry? You may not use it, but I know many professionals that do use it on a regular basis, such as tradesmen, and myself when do home repairs and renovations.
If we wait until people pick their careers to start teaching them the basics, it will be too late. Without the basics students will never be able to make an informed choice for their path. Or are you suggesting that we do away with high school all together, and have students make their career choice after grade 8, and enter schools with courses geared for that path specifically?
I am all for mandatory training too. You might be squeamish, but you definitely will have times when you will have to get over that, and having a ‘voice ‘ in your mind explaining the basics helps alleviate panic. (I mean the instructor’s, lol ….that’s how I remember lectures etc).
I am not a fan of vomit or blood, or large open wounds. I have spent what feels like a full year of my life dealing with vomit and blood since the kids, and especially El Sicko, were born. In spite of being ditsy, I’ve also dealt with gaping wounds, crushed fingers, minor head wounds etc. Not because these are my Forte in life, but because they occurred directly in front of me. So training is a must….
Hoping I never have to do CPR, but could if necessary. At least as much as someone like baby paramedic could reassure me I’d tried ☺
“having a ‘voice ‘ in your mind explaining the basics helps alleviate panic.”
Yes, that. It helps to have that one crucial piece of information ready for use in your brain somewhere for those panicky situations when you don’t have time to think.
There’s a public service announcement (or whatever you call it; infomercial?) in which a mom tells an anecdote about her toddler getting hot tea all over her: “So I immediately yanked off her clothes and put her in the shower… Turns out, yanking off the clothes was the worst thing I could have done…” And then it asks the viewer, ‘Would YOU have known what to do?’
When I was in 9th grade, we had this home economics/housework things kind of class. I thought it was stupid, but my friend really had no idea how to sew a button to a shirt. Anyway, this class also included some basic what-(NOT-)to-dos in case of several types of injuries. No CPR (not even the theory about how to position your hands and Stayin’ Alive…), but we did have to put each other in recovery position and what not. I’ve never had to use it, but at least I have SOME idea on what to do if something happens.
When our child was 10 months I gave her whole grapes and she tried to swallow them whole. When that did not work she spat them out on the table and I joking said “Yes, you are a child not a boa constrictor” and cut them up. A couple months later she could chew them properly and after that I have never done it again. The idea of doing it until she turns 7 is laughable.
Let’s just install feeding tube until the age of majority. Children could choke on ANY food and so could you.