Which is riskier? Playing Russian Roulette once? Or a dozen times? My mother gave me a spanking to impress upon me that playing with household electricity at

Which is riskier? Playing Russian Roulette once? Or a dozen times? My mother gave me a spanking to impress upon me that playing with household electricity at my level of understanding was not a joke, period. 4 or 5 year olds, even precocious ones, do not have the cognitive machinery to be able to assess this kind of risk, and if they are unusually curious (which I was), well... Sorry, mom, about all the gray hairs I probably gave you over the years. (She seemed to have loved me well enough regardless. :D) My parents sat me down and calmly explained everything they could. Which, as I mentioned before, worked great, until the appeal of something else overwhelmed verbal warnings, which was also not uncommon. Sometimes it was electricity, sometimes it was fire. I can think of another time maybe a year or so later when I discovered a box of strike-anywhere matches, and proceeded to light them one after another to wow at the sparkles, and watch the changes in the match as it burned. My mother took a different approach this time, and as 'punishment', gave me an entire box of matches, of which I was supposed to light them one at a time, let them burn down, then drop them in a bucket of water and repeat until the box was empty. I suppose she was trying to allow me to explore my fascination with fire in a safe way so that I would get bored with it. Honestly, I can see some merit in that line of thought. ...but instead of getting bored, once I was done, I went and asked for another box. (it turns out fire is fascinating.) I did get good at learning just how long I could hold a match before I risked burning myself, and how to strike them properly. So that was a plus. I also learned that the embers of the spent match can be kicked back up in to flame again for a surprisingly long time, too. So I'd say it was a good lesson, no spanking involved. But electricity is not nearly as forgiving, and I genuinely do think a swat in that kind of situation can be a useful thing.