Follow up

If a child develops enough from an infant that it begins to expand its "wants", then it should be taught higher reasoning processes. If it reaches for a hot pot on the stove, most parents will say, "No." If the reach continues, then often the parents will slap the child's hand to prevent a serious mistake.

This "slapping" is malum in se but not malum prohibitum in today's society.

Often suggested is a firm insistence of interfering with the child's right to explore by simply pushing the reaching hand away. This, too, is malum in se because said interfering. But, as reasonable "knowledgeable" individuals, we know that the hot pot can do serious damage that the young explorer might not understand until it's too late. Thus we reach a dichotomy: do two wrongs make a right? Is the lesser of two evils (the interfering) better than a scalded child?

Best is to understand the explorer and change his/her mind. Move the pot out of exploration range. Or, if the explorer is intrepid, offer a distraction.

Further discussion might take this example into an exploration of its application in other faucets of child development.