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Comment by sliverstorm | Hacker News Reader

Age-appropriate hammers, nails, and hot glue guns I hope? Maybe I'm going to become a helicopter parent, but there are hot glue guns I'd want my kindergartener handling, and hot glue guns I wouldn't. Like the difference between a 15w hobby soldering iron, and a 260w heavy duty soldering iron! :)

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> Age-appropriate hammers, nails, and hot glue guns I hope?

What's age-appropriate? The nails were too big to swallow and the hot glue guns the kind they sell at CVS. The kids cut and poked themselves and learned to be careful.

At summer camp when he was 8 he learned to weld, braise and solder. 12 kids aged 8-10, one instructor. I saw a photo one parent took: instructor helping kid hammer something on an anvil; behind his back a couple of kids kneeling and welding.

Another story I love: when he was 12, my son and his friends found bottle of vodka in the schoolyard. Being 12 year old boys they did the obvious: filled on of the kids' sneakers with the vodka and set fire to it in the schoolyard. Apparently the math teacher walked by and called out "Boys! Class is in 5 minutes!"

What's age-appropriate? The nails were too big to swallow and the hot glue guns the kind they sell at CVS. The kids cut and poked themselves and learned to be careful.

Yup, mostly that. Nobody lost a hand or was rushed to the burn ward.

> Another story I love: when he was 12, my son and his friends found bottle of vodka in the schoolyard. Being 12 year old boys they did the obvious: filled on of the kids' sneakers with the vodka and set fire to it in the schoolyard. Apparently the math teacher walked by and called out "Boys! Class is in 5 minutes!"

I thought the obvious would be that they drank it :D

for twelve year olds it just tastes foul.

Which is just another way to show your group how tough you are. By consumption, unfortunately.

Is that different for 20 year olds?

Im no safety nut, but welding? What type? I wouldnt let a full grown adult use one unsupervised without training. Depending on the form of welding one can do real damage very quickly. Not bumps and bruises. Im talking missing fingers and eyeballs. Or was this propane-powered soldering rather than melting steel?

Can't speak for any GP/OP but I learned simple welding with 12 when my father built a new grid for the berries in our garden to grow, spot welded a few steel grids together (about 8mm thick). Of course my father watched the first 10 tries or so but after he was sure I would be able to handle it he would go do other things and only occasionally check back to make sure I didn't spontaneously die.

What's the worst that's going to happen with a hot glue gun? I'm chuckling thinking I may have had negligent parents, but it wasn't too far out of kindergarten that I was allowed to use a soldering iron unsupervised.

Edit: I see that as I was writing my comment, you added an edit about soldering irons. Mine was definitely a big Weller "soldering gun"

Oh, nobody will kill themselves, but my parents had a big 'ol fashioned gun that would give small hands a second degree burn quick if you grabbed it anywhere even near the business end. We used smaller guns that had lower heat output & flow rate.

Nothing wrong with hot tools, but it's nice to limit the severity of the burns while they're learning. A small soldering iron, for example, will hurt but you probably won't do any serious damage. Similar with hammers, a ball peen or mallet will hurt but won't break skin like a claw could.

When I was a kid first learning about electronics by taking them apart and other general tinkering, my dad usually took a hands-off approach but did look over what I was working on. He stepped in a few times; ie when working on power supplies and making sure the capacitors had discharged or when I was helping change oil that it had cooled down. Using practical examples of learning like these had worked really well for me but was disappointed there was almost no direct interaction with tools until 7th grade in my district. Was also rather surprised that a number of my peers never received even semi-formal training on how to drill or hot glue things together.

When I was a child, probably between the ages of 6 to 8, I liked to make model gliders from balsa wood. My father taught me how to cut the balsa wings and fuselage from a plywood template. Once he's seen me do it a couple of times, away I went with the Stanley knife (not sure what else they're called in other parts of the world. Retractable utility knife perhaps) and was making my own gliders. Not sure why, but this day I happened to be kneeling, rather than working at the bench. Sure enough, the knife slipped and embedded itself in my thigh. Three stitches later, I had learned to be really careful with sharp knives and how to cut things more safely.

I've driven a chisel into my finger while trying to finish a mortise and tenon joint. Use a vice, not your hand, to hold the wood. Came close to ripping out an artery while climbing an aluminium fence, just ended up with a nasty scar on the side of my wrist. I took much more care climbing fences after that. Barbed wire fence scars across my legs though. Can't even remember how that happened.

Anyway, kids do stuff and hopefully they learn without killing themselves. A few cuts, scratches, a bit of blood and some stitches seems like par for the course.

I'm just learning to ride a mountain bike, in my mid-30s. I got 3 stitches in my knee last week. It's apparent my confidence has gone too far beyond my skill level, so time to dial it back a little. :)

At my secondary school, someone put hot glue on the back of someone else's hand, leaving a permanent scar. There's always one idiot.

At my secondary school a girl stabbed my hand with the tip of a pencil (which is still there under the skin).

You don’t need hot glue guns to do damage to each-other.

Why did you hold on to the keepsake?

It's funny this came up today. This is my five year old: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SkK1T0FZwpx5DeWO2

She was helping me solder together this robot kit. I asked her to wait a minute while I ran downstairs to get my camera. When I came back up, she'd decided to just do it by herself.

Right after I took this photo she yelled "Mommy, Daddy is letting me do something really dangerous all by myself!" :P

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