Heat injury

How do you teach your children about “dangers” they shouldn’t get close to?
By dangers I mean: electricity, injury potentials, hot water, etc.

Our 14 months old is a SUPER-ACTIVE, curious, fearless, heart-melting little boy who seems to never need to rest. He’s quite a challenge to our patience day after day, and worse, we ought to fight his try-to-be-cute-ways to get himself out of trouble, a skill which gets better everyday, as he grows increasingly adorable.

My hubby and I have this hot&fresh water dispenser at home. We use it all the time, something which obviously didn’t escape his attention.
He’s been VERY curious about it, eager to play with it, but until recently, wasn’t tall enough to reach it. Now he is able to touch the base, and gradually, the tip of the lever. So far he hasn’t been able to press the lever to make water coming out of the hose. But isn’t it only a matter of time until he can do it well and potentially get heat injury?

I once got a tip from a friend, who is a fabulous mom. She told us that it’s almost impossible to convince a toddler not to do something, especially things he’s curious about.
So, after some time fruitlessly telling him over and over again that the dispenser lets out hot water, which is dangerous, every time he gets near it, only to get him look back at us, shake his head, point out his tiny index finger, and said “no.. no..”, today we decided to practice that tip.

We held Darren so that he was close enough to press the lever he’s been so eager to play with. And then we let him press it, so hot water was coming out of the hose. The water was pretty hot, but not hot enough to get him serious injury, and we made sure that only a small amount dropped on his tiny hands (poor Daddy got more hot water on HIS hand, haha… Well, I really appreciate it, honey! ;P ).

At first he looked startled, uncomfortable, and confused, as in considering whether he should cry. By the time we got him to the sink to flush his hand with cold tap water, he had a huge grin on his face, already thinking that it was fun!! :O :O I wonder where we went wrong?!

Right afterwards, we got him by the dispenser, level to his eyes, and started, “This thing lets out hot water, it was hot, isn’t it? It hurts, so it’s a big NO NO to play with, OK? Do you understand Mommy?”
He looked back at me, shook his head, and mimicked, “No.. no..”
And immediately tried to reach the lever again!!
My hubby and I exchanged an I-can’t-believe-it look..

And as we looked at Darren, he was touching the lever (as I said before, he’s not tall enough to press it yet), then he held his hands on his chest, frowned, and moaned, “Aaaoooooooo…!!” And then went to us to have his “pain” kissed away.
My hubby giggled so hard he could hardly hide it from Darren. It soon became his new showy act.

We turned the heater off ever since, so now the dispenser can only dispense fresh water. But we did decide to report this result to my friend who gave us this tip.