The Lowest Stakes Imaginable
But that's how you train them for higher stakes.
My kids were playing hide and seek at the park with another boy. A few rounds had passed, and it was my youngest son’s turn to be “it.”
He counted and found the other boy fast. But my son had some trouble finding his older sister. After a few minutes, the boy tempted him.
“I know where she is. Want me to show you?”
My son (who was 6 years old at the time) looked at the boy in confusion. “No, that’s not how the game works.” And then he went on to find his sister on his own.
This temptation had the lowest stakes imaginable: the integrity of a casual game of hide and seek. And if my son had given in, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. He would just be accepting some help from an older boy.
But I was proud of his recognition that it would violate some sense of rightness. He knew that it would break some prior agreement. On the way back to the car, I told him he had made the right choice and that I was proud of him. Refusing to cheat might seem small, but it will pay dividends in the future.
And this is what childhood is all about. Learning to make the right decisions when the stakes are small, the risks are minimal, and the consequences minor. Before they swim on their own, they float in the shallow end of the pool with an adult nearby. Before they are forced to budget a full paycheck month to month, they learn to budget their tiny allowance. We punish them for lying with swift spanking or taking away a video game so that when they are older, they don’t suffer more severe consequences like getting fired from their job.
We train them to be faithful in the small things so they will eventually be faithful in the large things.
Because even with the smallest stakes, integrity is being built. Piece by piece.
And that’s the only way to build anything of value.