When my son was in the Toddlers in church, he had a contemporary, also a strong-willed child. I came up to the door of the Sunday School room to hear this conversation between the little boy and his mother.
“Why can’t I climb on the railings?”
“Because you’ll fall.”
“And then what?”
“Then you’ll get hurt.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll have to go to the hospital.”
“Then what?” he asked again.
“You’ll have to have shots and stitches and casts.”
“And then what?”
His mother sighed. “And then you die.”
She must have caught my quizzical look, for she turned to me and explained. No explanation of the possible consequences of any behavior seemed to be dire enough for her son. As long as it fell short of terminal, it could possibly be alright to try. Only the phrase “And then you die,” seemed to be final and dire enough.
Strong-willed kids are risk takers. It is not enough for them to be told something is dangerous or ill-advised. Oh, no, they really must find out for themselves. After all, you couldn’t possibly be telling them the truth. There are more ways to get hurt than you have outlined for them. That is more than half the appeal, anyway! As James Dobson so aptly put it in his book Bringing Up Boys, “Boys…are slower to learn from calamities. They tend to think their injuries were caused by “bad luck”. Maybe their luck will be better next time. Besides, scars are cool.” (p.4)
My suggestion is this; tell them they’ll die. No, not really. But a strong-willed kid really is calculating the cost into the “try it” equation, and most likely will try it. You as a parent can be a ready source of information about just how costly it will be. Give them the worst case scenario. When it happens, they can’t blame you for not warning them!
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