I need to hurt a six year old girl.. (old 2008 thread)

You seem a little too enthusiastic about this idea...

Kitchen or bathroom. Best choices for something to lay blame on negligence, not be scarring, but still necessitate a trip to the emergency room or such. Just be careful it doesn't go to far. (Grabbing a hot pan - okay. Spilling hot pan on herself... not so okay.) Keep it simple, and it should work.

Have her slip on something in the bathroom and smack her head on the floor/tub/toilet? I have a 6 year old and she adores playing with her little dollies in the sink, but she often spills water all over the place.

The kitchen also has lots of fun items.

My sister saw that our mother and me loved cooking and tried to have her go at it. Wouldn't have been so bad, but she wanted to cut raw meat. Also, She was the right height to have her hands and wrists on the stove.

I had a 5 yr old build himself a ladder to reach the top of the fridge, only to have his ladder collapse and he cracked his chin on the edge of one of those plastic milk cartons and needed stitches.

Not hugely negligent but hubby got a major earful when I got home from the hospital with him (I had to actually leave work to take him to the hospital as we only had one vehicle at the time)

Electric shocks are good for a story, can screw up the power in the house, create burn marks on a wall or a fire and zap the kid good.
And it only takes a second.

I agree with kitchen or bathroom problems. Especially bathroom since its small and usually out of the line of sight of someone.
Could flood the toilet then trip in the swamp created?

Flush mommy's jewelery? Makeup? Every tampon ever created (my three yr old did this in our ensuite )

Does it have to involve the child getting hurt? Couldnt the child just be lost?
Or get somewhere its not supposed to be?

What if the little girl was in the the parents' bedroom and got hurt in there? That way it wouldn't have to a real serious injury and the babysitter would be accountable because she/he should have known the girl shouldn't have been in that room.

Playing with matches or lighters. There's one scenario that could give you anything from very minor injuries to dire consequences.

Getting outside and eating the roses. Eating a rose would only get you a few thorns, but she could have just as easily snacked on the oleander, a plant that may not be fatal when you use its branches to toast hot dogs, but is pretty close. (Or substitute whatever really dangerous plants grow in your area.)

My niece has a talent for hurting herself in my house. Once, after I had swept the house clean, she stepped on a staple on the stairs and punctured her foot.

Another time, she messed around with the elliptical trainer and got her finger caught in the mechanism.

Pretty minor stuff, but annoying for me.

BTW, my protagonist's daughter in Bad Ice, also six years old and named after my niece, went through the ice at a family skate, and was involved in a car accident caused by the antagonist, resulting in a minor concussion.

LIVIN said:

It's for a WIP. She has to get hurt in the house. Something not to serious, but possibly with a potential to be more serious.

The key is I want to be able to lay the blame on the negligent babysitter, as opposed to the girl herself. So, not something where the girl should know better. Or, at least not too much in that vein.

So, any ideas for how I can hurt a six year old girl?

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I know I'm a guy, but...

When I was twelve years old, I decided to make pancakes for my parents using their countertop electric skillet. Well, as time went on and I kept working at it, somewhere along the way the skillet began to slip off the counter. I automatically reached for it, but placed my thumbs on the hot cooking surface itself. The resulting blisters were huge, and they hurt like all get-out.

So I would likely recommend something having to do with the kitchen, like slcboston pointed out. It's a place of wonder to a child, and it's also a place where lots of bad things can happen to them.

Just thinking about those blisters makes me shudder, even twenty-five years later.

You could have her sliding down the stairs in a sleeping bag or laundry basket. We always got in trouble because of how we could get hurt-- we never did, but there is plenty of potential for head injuries and broken bones. And the babysitter shouldn't let them do it... if she's paying attention.

Climbing is another good way to get injured. Towers, trees. Bookshelves. My little brother climbed a metal bookshelf when he was two or three and it came down on top of him. By the grace of god, my Mom's hard sided-breifcase opened up and formed a protective tent over the Master Disaster.

When our daughter was six she didn't want to wake us to make her some toast for breakfast on Saturday morning - so she decided to do it in the microwave. She wasn't sure how long it needed to be in there so she set the timer for 15 minutes figuring that was how long it would be until the next commercial in the Saturday morning cartoons. She didn't get hurt, but, the set-up would be a good possibility (making hot chocolate in the microwave or something else where the cup, dish would be very hot. Puma

Lighting candles and leaving them burning near paper or plastic bag on the counter.

Using curling iron to fix hair and leaving it on the counter near the bathroom sink still on - kid comes along and tries to fix her own hair and ends up burning herself with it. I know of a couple people this happened to. It would have been much worse if it had been dropped in a tub or sink full of water!

Well, I have fairly responsible kids, but some of the fun things they have done include:

Climbing the 8 ft, solid oak bookcase. Yeah, we bolted it to the wall after that.

Running into the back yard because he didn't want to go out with us, my son tripped and face-planted on concrete stairs. It busted his lip, tore his mouth up, and caused one tooth in front to turn grey because the nerve ending died. Thank goodness it was a baby tooth! And the worst part was that he had to go out with us any way -- to the emergency room.

Climbed the metal T-bars that hold the clothes lines, then stood up on the top. You can't yell when that happens, because you might startle them, but your heart stops while you wait to see if they're going to fall. Mine didn't.

Hiding in a cabinet/closet/foot locker and discovering they can't get out. Shortly after that, there were no hasps on the foot lockers in my house.

My younger son wins the accident award, and while he did it in gym, it could be adapted to happen outside or in the house. He was rollerblading, tried to stop too fast, and did that lovely windmill thing as he fell, twisting his leg and then landing on it. So he ended up with a spiral fracture caused by his butt. That story is going in the arsenal for when he starts dating.

Never underestimate the power of sporting equipment as means for a child to hurt herself and/or others. Hockey sticks, bats, golf clubs, lacross sticks, etc. are good candidates as you can thwack yourself, trip over them, swing them wide enough to send things hurtling towards your head, etc.

Throwing balls inside is a good way to make sure something breaks and subsequently cuts you.

And the trampoline is just an emergency room visit waiting to happen. But we still have one....

I knew a kid, about 3, who crawled behind the toilet and got stuck.

In order to get to upper cabinets in the kitchen, my cousin made stairs from the drawers. You know, pulled the bottom one out almost all the way, the next about 1/2 way and the last about 1/4 way out.

I accidently shocked myself with a broken (wires exposed) extention cord.

My oldest boy (5) has permanent bruising to his lower legs for some reason. No matter what, he trips over and bangs a leg. He just got skates as well which added to the injuries. You can be fairly creative in writing about one so young because they always have bruises.

JJ

You can also have the girl accidentally spray herself in the eyes with a spray can. Hair spray is less dangerous than wasp spray, and both are easily found in kitchens/bathrooms.

Kryianna said:

You can also have the girl accidentally spray herself in the eyes with a spray can. Hair spray is less dangerous than wasp spray, and both are easily found in kitchens/bathrooms.

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My daughter did that when she was eighteen.

She also pushed her little brother into a solid cedar chest and almost knocked his tooth out. I had to do the same trip to the emergency room. Good thing I pushed it back in with a cold wet washcloth (dark coloured so it doesn't freak out the kid). The dentist said it was the best thing I could have done since the grey tooth managed to survive until it was time for it to fall out for the tooth fairy.

I remember pulling the drawers out to reach an upper cupboard. I was twelve and very short. Since then, I bought the house from my parents, the drawers are still the same and I still do it to reach the top shelf!

Climbing and falling work, per personal experience.
You can also play with modern hazzards of a home. Dropping a printer over her leg/feet, playing with a curling iron.
The traditional eletric fan (especially the old, metalic ones) + fingers also something very beliveable

I burned my fingers on the stove when I was little. My gramma always made popcorn in a big pan and she lifted the lid too early and popcorn shot everywhere. I thought it was hilarious until I started picking up the pieces, including the ones underneath the pan with the burner on. Ouch.

Forgetting to close the door at the top of the stairs, and having the baby fall down them is a common thing, but six is probably too old for that. but there are lots of reasons to fall down the stiars.

Well it's a tough one since you want most of the fault to fall on the babysitter. Why not have the babysitter smoking a cigarette when perhaps she is not supposed to and the child throws it away and nearly burns the living room down (the fire engine is called) the 6 year old gets smoke inhalation, the babysitter fears for her life.

LIVIN said:

It's for a WIP. She has to get hurt in the house. Something not to serious, but possibly with a potential to be more serious.

The key is I want to be able to lay the blame on the negligent babysitter, as opposed to the girl herself. So, not something where the girl should know better. Or, at least not too much in that vein.

So, any ideas for how I can hurt a six year old girl?

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She climbs up on the counter to reach the pack of "insert snack of choice" the babysitter left out, falls off. Something like that?

Six year olds take almost everything literally and are typically not experienced enough to see the consequences of simple actions. Crikey, I have seen so many things happen to kids at that age. I was four when I played with matches and got severely burned. They were my dad's matches and I saw him light them and then flick them out so I tried doing that and the match caught on my jumper and my dress went up like a ball of gasoline (1966).

My son loved taking stuff apart at about six yrs. old and he could handle a screwdriver and some hand tools so he took the microwave apart, an alarm clock, and several other things while they were still plugged in.

Six year olds experiment. They're physically capable of many more complex manual tasks but not mentally prepared for the complexities. They trust other adults and kids and are easily manipulated or coerced to do really dumb dangerous stuff.

My daughter was convinced that our big dryer was a time machine (thanks big brother and his nine yr.old friends) and she climbed in and they turned it on, tumbling her pretty hard.

They can climb up but are too scared to climb down.

They are curious and even though they instinctively know something might be naughty, they don't know why so curiosity compells them to try stuff they see big people do.

Thees a million scenarios that apply and are plausable with six year olds. stuff can happen very quickly and be very dangerous. six year old kids are a ton of fun. I miss my kids at that age. They thought I was a cool mom then, before they found out the truth.

Wow, that's a lot of people willing to give advice on hurting a young child . . .

I haven't read most of them but here's something from my past.

I knew a boy (I think he was about 5 when this happened) who was home alone with his grandmother. She made him a bath and stuck him in, but the water was scolding hot and the kid got burned. Since grandma let go of him when her hands touched the water, the boy was entirely submerged and to this day his body is really badly scarred all over.