![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gravityeyelidsvia http://ift.tt/2Bguc2a:
theultravioletcatastrophe:
ao3sburbanite:
Tips for dealing with clumsiness
My husband would describe himself as clumsy, not careful enough, etc. He gets very upset when he knocks things over or breaks them because he thinks it reflects poorly on him. It doesn’t, of course, he just doesn’t have very good fine motor control and there’s not a lot we can do to change that. Recently, though, I noticed we’d been stacking the deck against him.
Buying certain types of household goods will make someone feel ten times clumsier, so here are my tips for making it easier:
- Get your glassware from IKEA. A lot of ikea glasses are made of tempered glass and drop-tested from heights of 1 meter. The POKAL glasses are particularly chunky and hard to knock over. They also have cute short-stem wine glasses which are more stable than the usual kind.
- Replace your plates with stoneware. Cheap plates are often prone to chipping or breakage just from normal handling, and dropping one is game over. Stoneware is much stronger and doesn’t chip or break nearly as easily.
- Check the height of your surfaces. Often, a bedside table can be at the right height to catch a glass of water with your hand/elbow very easily. Try and make sure your bedside table is slightly apart from your bed and the top is higher than your mattress.
- Choose floors wisely. Knocking over a glass of wine on carpet is a nightmare. Get laminate or wood floors if you can, or some cheap rugs you can replace if you’re renting. In the kitchen, avoid natural materials like stone since they also stain, and dropping stuff on them is an insta-breakage. Linoleum or Vinyl is cushioned so if you’re lucky a plate or glass may just bounce right off it.
You can’t train kids or adults not to be clumsy just through yelling at them when they drop or break things. For the sake of their mental health, it’s better to buy things that are OK if dropped.
Please, please, don’t yell at people (adults or children) for being clumsy and knocking things over or spilling things or whatever. 99.9% of the time it’s just an accident, and quite possibly due to a disability or a condition that they have no control over.
I understand, it’s upsetting when something expensive or treasured gets broken, or if things get indelible stains. But getting upset at the person who did it is not going to make it less likely that they’ll do it in the future; it’s going to make them scared and anxious that *when* it happens again, you’re going to get upset at them again.
Accidents happen. Even if something irreplaceable is ruined, life goes on. Just clean up the mess and get on with things. And do what you can to ACTUALLY help make it less likely to happen again.
(Your picture was not posted)
theultravioletcatastrophe:
ao3sburbanite:
Tips for dealing with clumsiness
My husband would describe himself as clumsy, not careful enough, etc. He gets very upset when he knocks things over or breaks them because he thinks it reflects poorly on him. It doesn’t, of course, he just doesn’t have very good fine motor control and there’s not a lot we can do to change that. Recently, though, I noticed we’d been stacking the deck against him.
Buying certain types of household goods will make someone feel ten times clumsier, so here are my tips for making it easier:
- Get your glassware from IKEA. A lot of ikea glasses are made of tempered glass and drop-tested from heights of 1 meter. The POKAL glasses are particularly chunky and hard to knock over. They also have cute short-stem wine glasses which are more stable than the usual kind.
- Replace your plates with stoneware. Cheap plates are often prone to chipping or breakage just from normal handling, and dropping one is game over. Stoneware is much stronger and doesn’t chip or break nearly as easily.
- Check the height of your surfaces. Often, a bedside table can be at the right height to catch a glass of water with your hand/elbow very easily. Try and make sure your bedside table is slightly apart from your bed and the top is higher than your mattress.
- Choose floors wisely. Knocking over a glass of wine on carpet is a nightmare. Get laminate or wood floors if you can, or some cheap rugs you can replace if you’re renting. In the kitchen, avoid natural materials like stone since they also stain, and dropping stuff on them is an insta-breakage. Linoleum or Vinyl is cushioned so if you’re lucky a plate or glass may just bounce right off it.
You can’t train kids or adults not to be clumsy just through yelling at them when they drop or break things. For the sake of their mental health, it’s better to buy things that are OK if dropped.
Please, please, don’t yell at people (adults or children) for being clumsy and knocking things over or spilling things or whatever. 99.9% of the time it’s just an accident, and quite possibly due to a disability or a condition that they have no control over.
I understand, it’s upsetting when something expensive or treasured gets broken, or if things get indelible stains. But getting upset at the person who did it is not going to make it less likely that they’ll do it in the future; it’s going to make them scared and anxious that *when* it happens again, you’re going to get upset at them again.
Accidents happen. Even if something irreplaceable is ruined, life goes on. Just clean up the mess and get on with things. And do what you can to ACTUALLY help make it less likely to happen again.
(Your picture was not posted)
