What’s the STW consensus on this? Is it unnecessary and I should just manually move the child away until she understands instructions!?
I have kids. I am of the opinion, on this question, that it’s important that they learn that fire hurts. There are, essentially, two ways they can learn this. The first is to burn themselves when they are very young, the second is to avoid the burns unit for a while and be told that it’s really dangerous when they’re old enough to understand. There’s lots of stuff (immunity?) that’s harder to explain than to let them try and get it themselves, and then there’s the other stuff, like burns on the parts of the hands etc they need the most at this age to discover the world, that we should probably hedge a little on.
Or is not having a fire guard essentially neglect and I don’t deserve to be a parent!?
However, just to be clear, many, many children have survived and never had an issue without any protection. I do just feel that it’s a bit daft to place that bet. But no, it’s not neglect, and it wouldn’t mean you don’t deserve to be a parent. 🙂