How does one go about "reasoning" with a kid who doesn't speak English?

There is no reasoning with a 13 month old child. Just move them out of reach of the thing, distract them, or whatever to keep them safe until they are mature enough they can understand such concepts on their own.

Well, of course you don’t reason and of course, you don’t punish. You can use a firm voice and say , “Don’t touch! Hot!” and you can also distract. That’s why constant vigilance is crucial at this age.

I do remember having a hot woodstove, and no way to keep a crawling baby from it. I’d stand with the baby in my arms, hold the baby’s hand out to it (not touching it of course) and say, “OOOH HOT!” Then I’d pull back quickly. We did this over and over. Soon my little one started doing the same thing on his own (it was sooo cute)! None of my kids messed with woodstoves. So I guess it worked.

Wait…I’m not talking about hot. Hot would be very easy to teach (there is a threat of pain there, even if it isn’t meted out by you.)
I’m talking about if the baby turns the knob and starts releasing unlit gas.

I think the emotion in your voice as you do the “reach out thing” would work as well. You could also heat up the oven so you can feel the heat radiating off of it, and do it. It would teach the concept, and once you’ve done that, you are more than half way there.

@Dutchess_III You can use any word you like – as with dogs, it’s the tone of voice. How about “Danger”?

We have knob covers on our gas stove. My daughter is 3 and she’s finally old enough to understand she’s not supposed to touch the stove at all. But 13 months? You CAN’T reason with them. Just put knob covers on. Or keep them out of the kitchen.

This would be a bit inconvenient, but perhaps you could pull the knobs off and leave them in a container on the counter. It’s a little more time consuming, but not difficult to replace a knob when you want to turn on/adjust the stove.

You use the word “no” and “stop” with a toddler a million times a day. It ends up meaningless to them.

You need a word that you only use when you REALLY MEAN IT.

I used “hot”. No, Stop… those were negotiable. “HOT!” put the fear of god in to him.

Two good answers @snowberry. But I’m angling more toward the child learning to do what their parent says, even if they don’t understand why at the time. At 2 you can explain till you’re blue in the face that getting hit by a car would HURT, so don’t run out in the road, but they have no frame of reference to associate that with.

@Seek_Kolinahr But what if you said “HOT!” and it wasn’t hot?

Can’t edit…

I see above that you’re not worried about actual heat. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a trigger word.

The electric outlets are HOT! the knives are HOT! ... the puppy’s food bowl is “no, stop”.

I actually agree with @snowberry. Because that gas is easy to miss, and could be on for hours before anyone notices, removing the knobs is an excellent idea. Better a little inconvenience than a blown-up house.

That said, I stand by the trigger word idea. If you’re concerned with actual meaning, you could use “OUCHIE!” or anything else you can remember when you’re in a panic yourself because you just walked in on a toddler about to crawl into broken glass. (or whatever).

I did learn, before I had kids, to consider “no” as negotiable, but “stop” is not. “Stop” means “don’t move, not one bit”. And it is taught by saying stop and holding the child in place. And if they squirm, you hold them and keep saying stop until they are still. Once they are still, they can be let go, but you tell the child that when Mom (or Dad) says Stop, the child is not to move.

It takes time, they are toddlers, but soon they will get it and understand.

The same thing with “hot” as mentioned above. “Hot” means “do not touch”, and can be taught with something hot but not painful.

The most effective way for non-verbal children, is to take the child away, show fear for and be openly angry with the oven. Protect the child from the oven and it will understand.

Try to ignore the child when it is merely looking for attention by going new the oven. Keep an eye out and if any emotion shown, direct it at the oven.

Sounds silly? Still it works very well.

I agree with @snowberry too @Seek_Kolinahr. The reason “HOT!” IS so effective is because at one time or another every kid is going to touch something really hot and they immediately associate that pain with the word. But you’re going to run into a problem with telling the kid that something is HOT and they learn that sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

For that reason “STOP” needs to be taught to be just as effective. I like the method @zenvelo suggests. But it would have to be deliberately trained into them before you needed to use the trigger “STOP!” It would definitely be better than swatting.

Like, another minor problem we have here is that I recently got a set of barrister book shelves. They open from the bottom of each shelf. She likes to open the ones she can reach and let it fall. That could mean broken glass falling on her, of course. She needs to STOP! I’d like to pair that with time out (because she’s been told several times) but Dad isn’t into that yet so I respect his wishes. (Although the last time she did it I came up behind her, put my arms around her and held her hands so she couldn’t move them and whispered gently, “Soon, my Love, you are going to learn the joys of time out.” She looked up at me very suspiciously and I just smiled at her. :) And she toddled away. I love that kid!)

Good answers all.

Having said that…I’M GOING TO BEAT THAT DOG WITHIN AN INCH OF HER LIFE IF SHE DOESN’T FREAKING QUIT BARKING AT EVERYTHING THAT GOES BY THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know that I agree with that idea @whitenoise. Showing fear, perhaps. But how long till the child experiments again and realizes that, apparently, there is nothing to fear? Just like saying everything that is dangerous is HOT! The Boy Who Cried Wolf comes to mind.

And showing anger at the oven? What would you hope to accomplish by that? When my kids were little a friend of mine told me that a friend of hers would blame and spank whatever object her son hurt himself on. If his foot go run over by a rocking chair the mom would scowl at the chair and say “BAD chair!” and slap the rocker piece. I didn’t get that either.

As for the oven specifically, I agree with @snowberry about turning it on hot for a while. That would get through to her even if she only got close.

You might totally confuse the kid for being angry at the oven one minute, and then working on it the next. Then again, maybe not. Kids don’t always make sense either.

You show anger at the oven, when the child is near.

Using very basic emotional language that the oven is dangerous and to be avoided by the child.

This is only for very young children.

When kids are a little older you use words and still show emotional warnings like exprssing fear, anger or disgust. Just focus on showing that the object is dangerous rather than becoming dangerous yourself.

I’m kinda with you on that @snowberry. Kids, even little ones, have an instinctive desire to protect their parents. He’s been taught that the stove is out to get him….and Mommy is right by the stove and she’s in DANGER!

Yeah… my kids drags me out of the road when we’re walking to his bus stop. Terrified Mama is danger from bad drivers.

What??

Sorry… this mobile hates me.

We have to walk about 50 feet down a road with no sidewalks to his bus stop. If Ian sees a car no matter how far away (the road is straight for at least a quarter mile in either direction) he literally drags me off the street, saying he has to keep me safe from the cars. Sometimes it takes us ages to get to the corner.

The only time we used physical action with our kids was about touching the stove. A quick slap on the hands, saying, “NO! HOT” and whisking the baby away from the stove every time the hands went towards it, did the trick. You can see the baby learn the lesson. They look at the stove and say to themselves, “No.”

With the proper training they can be taught the international sign for the backhanded slap. Once learned, you need only throw your hand back to get the desired result.

what? @ragingloli is the only one allowed to do this?

It doesn’t need to be taught from a young age @Blondesjon. I threw the international sign for a back hand on my daughter, when she was 14, which I had never done before, and she recognized it instantly!! We were in the car, she made a nasty, vulgar comment because she was really angry with me. I slammed on the brakes, brought the car to a screaming halt. I threw the International Sign, paused just a half second so she could get her hands and arms up to cover herself, then whaled away. I’m sure the back of her hands and her forearms were stinging pretty good. She never said THAT again!

You can reason with a 13 month old, they will understand when you look them in the eye. Just put your finger under their chin and turn their face to you. Just because they can’t verbalize yet doesn’t mean they haven’t learned sounds, shapes of the lips, hand gestures, etc.

The only caveat is that repetition is a must. You must repeat the information every time it happens without changing your presentation of firmness, no smiling, no giggling, no letting them take control. pain in the butt, but it works

@Dutchess_III you wrote: “I [...] paused just a half second so she could get her hands and arms up to cover herself, then whaled away. I’m sure the back of her hands and her forearms were stinging pretty good.”

Funny, admitting that in public, could get you into serious trouble with the law, in Holland and most other countries.

Or am I misunderstanding what you wrote.

What the heck does ‘whaled away’ mean anyway.

“Whaling away ”= Whacka whacka whacka! Open handed slaps on her arms and the back of her hands, a couple on her thick skull. And she NEVER said, “What me and Scott do is none of your fucking business!!” to me, ever again. She had never done it before, and she’s never spoken to me like that since.

If they can arrest me for a 15 year old “crime,” in which no one got hurt, they can go for it.

^ I don’t get how people can be proud of hurting children.

If someone slapped your forearm would you start crying and sobbing from the pain @longgone?

@Dutches_III

Re And she NEVER said, “What me and Scott do is none of your fucking business!!” to me, ever again. She had never done it before, and she’s never spoken to me like that since.

If I were her, I would have seriously considered to never speak to you anymore, period.

LOL! :) She was 15 so that wouldn’t have worked out very well for her!

Yeah, and she’d REALLY be in trouble now because she couldn’t call me and ask me to watch the babies again while she went to her Dr.‘s appt. She couldn’t call and ask to borrow money once in a while. Yep. She’d be in deep poo if she resolved to never talk to me again and stuck with it!

I find it amazing that you felt the need to hit a teenager and seem to be boasting about it. That’s the kind of thing they say and there are other ways to indicate that it is not acceptable.

@Dutchess_III Fine. I don’t get how people can be proud of hurting mildly inconveniencing children by “whaling away” a little.