"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
"Kev Pearce" writes:
| Thanks both Ron and Kay for your replies.
| Good advice, and the teaching process starts here !

A chilli plant could be a useful teaching aid for the one year old.
Leave it at ground level, say "NO" firmly, and do nothing to stop
the child from eating a fruit ....

I follow the child rearing school of the late Professor Pavlov :-)

Also, it is essential not to say "no" to everything, or they will
stop asking. There is no need to forbid anything that isn't
dangerous, and saying "don't eat that - but this is OK" is a
lot more effective.


A slightly irrelevant story. My daughter copied me in telling a
drunken (teenage) friend of hers that japonica fruit is edible.
Which is, of course, true. Apparently, the shock of biting into
one got through even his inebriation!

At my old school there was a dual-purpose row of quinces. Real quinces, not
japonicas. The teachers used them as a source of sticks for caning purposes
and we used them for the fruit, which we surreptitiously fermented into a
potable, if sour, alcoholic drink.

Franz