> I think that if your manner of speech makes you sound like a B-movie villain
I imagined the poster above you having his five-year-old child come home from school with a fresh painting of Mommy and Daddy and the poster snatching it out of their hands, "PATHETIC!" rips up painting
No, you save that for the essays they write throughout high school.
Joking aside, children are not tiny adults, and how you deal with them changes over time.
A five-year-old gets rewarded for just doing work, because that's the baseline. A fifteen-year-old must demonstrate some degree of competence. They are not developmentally identical.
A grown adult obsessed with safety over all other concerns is childish, pathetic, and ironically, dangerous as all hell to others.
Those that prioritize safety above other concerns are the first to use violence against any and all perceived threats to that "safety".
I imagined the poster above you having his five-year-old child come home from school with a fresh painting of Mommy and Daddy and the poster snatching it out of their hands, "PATHETIC!" rips up painting