I had a runner. It was terrifying. You can’t spend your life inside a fence. I never hit my runner, but I absolutely sympathize with the parent with a kid who knows better, but still waits for the moment you are most vulnerable, like when you’re changing a diaper, to bolt into traffic. I’ve only used corporal punishment once, on my 5yo. She is a certified obsessive toucher. She has to touch everything and she is FAST! Before you can even say “Don’t…” she’s stuck her hands into the hot ash under the fire pit. She does this so impetuously, she doesn’t have time to think about the fact that it might be unsafe, or she might have been told not to, it the thing she wants to touch isn’t hers. A few weeks back she homed in on a strange object on the path in the park. I screamed “no” three times as she ran to it, but she was obsessed beyond reason and I was stuck behind the stroller. Fortunately, it was only dog poop. I thought for sure she would have learned her lesson, but no. The next day, at the farmer’s market, she stuck her hand out for the wet stone at the knife grinding stand and she got her hand smacked for the first time in her life. She hasn’t done it since.
