Incase you ever have an event like this. Grain of salt though, I’m a youth worker but dont have a degree in child psychology. You ask the child to imagine how the animal feels. Even if the child does not have empathy, the imagine part forces their brain to try to understand. If it persists also seeking professional help never hurts.
This exact thing happened with my cousin. We were staying at a cottage with his family and he had a day where started really enjoying catching frogs and yeeting them against rocks to kill them for some reason. He must have killed like 30 when his mom found out. Then she explained to him that frogs are living animals with mommys and daddys of their own and my cousin suddenly became so traumatized he cried for hours.
That was extremely good parenting.
I think having pets really helps establish that empathy link. Growing up with dogs really helped develop an understanding that creatures are complex with individual personalities just like people. Obviously this only goes so far, but I dont think I would have the same level of empathy and respect for animals having grown up without them.
I think having pets (and being good at it, because not everyone gets this next part) can be really useful for understanding and internalising the fact that animals can have personalities and preferences and all these things we attribute to agency, but also, they’re not humans. They don’t think like we do, and to value them properly, we need to not anthropomorphise them.
An example of a pet owner who doesn’t do this is someone I knew who was getting frustrated with her pet for peeing in her bed. She talked about it as if her cat was maliciously doing it, in retribution for not being allowed out of the house due to illness related stuff. She was so angry and because she felt frustrated at not being able to communicate this to her cat (fortunately, at least having the decency to not physically abuse her pets), gave her cat “the silent treatment” for a day whenever it happened. I tried to explain that if a pet is sick in your bed, it’s probably because they felt sick and went somewhere they felt safe, and also that her cat wouldn’t understand this “punishment”, but she didn’t get it. She insisted on seeing an intentionality that wasn’t there
I used to love doing these types of things as a child and I was terrified of dismemberment in movies. One day, my dad told me that what I see in movies is what the frogs, fish, and bugs that I’d torment (essentially anything that didn’t make terrifying noises) would endure. That was a massive turning point in my life.
When I was four I stomped on ants for fun. Then one day my big sister rushed over and buried one of them and put a marker on its grave.
I still stomped on them, but kept thinking about what she did and I eventually stopped.
That’s a good sister.
Nah fuck ants. But mostly just the queen. Support ant workers rights
Yup, you don’t need poison. Just sprinkle some miniaturized union pamphlets on the infestation and the colony will collapse in few weeks. Of course you risk a new infestation of ants with free time, safety regulations, and disposable income.
I think you just knocked out 80% of sales people who read ants with disposable income when the blood ran to their junk so fast they blacked out
FREE THE ANTS
DOWN WITH THE MONARCHY
SUPPORT ANT COMMUNISM!
I shot a bird once, with a pellet gun.
I felt fucking awful. Never will I kill something again with intent like that.
I drowned some ants when I was a little kid in our backyard because I was scared of them and also curious. My neighbor told me to think about what I did. I was mortified. I’m a vegan now.
Kids need to learn that kind of empathy. Although I don’t think I would have ever thought about about ripping limbs from frogs.
When I was six, I was fishing with my father and uncle in a boat. We got a fish, and my uncle swiftly killed the fish immediately. I asked why he did it, it would’ve died anyway.
He said something along the lines of “All life should be respected enough not to let it suffer” and nothing else. A useful lesson that changed my view on suffering of animals. The man was later listed as one of the 10 most sought after criminals in my country, but I take the good and leave the bad.
This has the same energy as the jumper cables guy
I was horrible to animals as a kid. I teased the neighbourhood cats so much. I once put salt on a snail just for fun, without knowing it would die a gruesome death with just one grain of coarse salt. I’m vegan today…
I wasn’t very nice to plants as a kid. I would often pluck wood sorrel off the ground and eat it right there. I once burned a hole in a leaf using my glasses. I’m a meat eater today.
Dunno why you’re being downvoted, that’s hella funny
Ants are bastards though, frogs don’t hurt you :(
Little bastards gave me warts. And gonorrhea.
Shouldn’t have fucked the frog then.
What is the point of life, then?
You only need to kiss the frog to figure out if it’s a prince though.
I just uhhh wanted to make sure…
I’ll add mine to the pile. When I was a lad, probably 10 or so, my family’s back porch would frequently get overrun by slugs. I eventually got sick of accidentally stepping on them, so I got the salt shaker and a bunch of paper towels. To my memory I poured salt on a good 30 of them, though it was probably only 10 or so. Salted them, put the paper over them, then the next day came out to collect the bodies and throw them away.
28 year old me would beat 10 year old me’s ass for that. Gotta hand it to him, though—those slugs never did come back to the porch.
I get the poor animals part, but this just seems like avarage shit you have to do in the countryside. Any good country folk know that (some) animals are your enemy, if there are wasps near your house? You kill them, their nest, wait for the extended family to search for their homes and kill them too. Now it’s a much safer enviroment. Same with all rodents, same with all insects, same with slugs… I guess, I never heard of a slug problem.
I used to have a can full of salty water and a little piece of wood with a big nail extending out one end (looked like a prison shiv). I’d impale the slugs and put them in the can. Leave the can overnight, dump em by the field in the morning, rinse and repeat whenever needed.
I’d just spray the field with slug poison at this point. But I guess it’s more natural.
Ah yes, slug poison the thing that won’t hurt your crops… Salt.
I haven’t tought that far.
No offense, but you’re definitely the type that would’ve in the middle ages salted his own crops and then cursed the “witch” next door
idk how good or bad salting soil is. Probably bad.
