Using Hypotheticals with Our Children

My dear friend Lori Johnson has a new blog, Helplessly Hopeful … Meandering in the Shadow of the King, and she asked me to write a little “guest post” on the topic of using hypotheticals with our children.

I was happy to do so, of course, because I love Lori! 🙂 And also because hypotheticals have been a great help to us in our parenting of Sophia.

So what does Sophie mean when she says, “Hey Mom! Let’s do a hypothetical!”

The ten-second-Web-search definitions said that a hypothetical is a possible situation or circumstance that deals with the concept of “what if …” In our family, we make up scenarios and say something along the lines of, “Hypothetically, if you were walking down the street and a car pulled up next to you …”

Basically, we paint a picture of a situation and then ask Sophie to think through and discuss how she would respond.

We “run hypotheticals” for all sorts of situations, not just safety situations. And we have found that they really help us to talk about important topics in a safe, open, and interesting format. Plus, they give us time to discuss the “WHY” behind the situation IN ADVANCE of the challenge/crisis/danger. I think this is particularly important because those hyper-adrenaline-filled situations are not usually the best times to try to have a rational teaching moment.

Let me give you a few examples:

– “Wow. Great job coming so cheerfully and promptly when I called you, Sophie. I really appreciate it!” (As we snap on our seat belts and pull out of the garage …) “I’m really excited that you obeyed because now I get to bless you with a surprise! After our errands, I’d like us to stop for an ice cream cone.” (“Hooray!”) “Soph, I’m just curious. Hypothetically, if you had whined, complained, or said, “But MOM! I’m not done with my mosaic yet!”, do you think that I could bless you with a treat now?” “No.” “That’s right. Why is that?” “Because then you would be blessing and rewarding my sin and then YOU would be sinning too.”

– “Hypothetically, Sophie, if your VERY EXPENSIVE new bike rolled into the street, would you go and get it so that you could keep it safe?” “No.” “Why not?” “Because PEOPLE are more important than THINGS. You can replace a bike, but you can’t replace a person.” “That’s right. So what would you do?” “I would get a grownup to help.”

– “Sophie, let’s picture your violin group class.” “OK.” “Hypothetically, how do you think it would affect the class if one of the children was arguing constantly with the teacher and refused to participate in the activities?” “It would be bad for that student, really disrespectful of the teacher, and ruin things for ALL of us.” “Why do you think it would ruin things for everyone?” “Because rather than having fun and learning together, the teacher would have to keep stopping to correct the disobedient child. So we wouldn’t get to do the group activities AND it’s no fun to be disciplined.”

– “Hypothetically, if your gymnastics teacher gave you the command to sit on the side of the balance beam, what would you do?” “I would sit on the side of the balance beam.” “Great. Why?” “Because she is the teacher and I am under her authority, so I cheerfully obey her command.” “OK. But now, hypothetically, what if you saw your gymnastics teacher at the grocery store and she commanded you to GET INTO HER CAR? What would you do?” “I would NOT obey her. Instead, I would run to my Safe Side Grown Up.” “Great! Why would you not obey her and get into her car?” “Because she doesn’t have authority to give me THAT command; that would be foolish and dangerous. Just like no one has the authority to command me to not love God or to sin (or to keep a secret from Mommy and Daddy or to inappropriately touch me in my private area, etc. etc.), I don’t have to obey her in THAT situation.”

I could go on and on. Some hypotheticals are silly, some are serious. But in either case, we’re just thinking through a situation, talking about it, and learning together.

Obviously, you need to be WISE as to what is age-appropriate information. (I remember being told WAY too many details about terrifyingly scary, and statistically VERY improbable, possibilities as a child. And I caution you against scaring your children in this way. That’s one of the reasons why I really appreciate “The Safe Side Super Chick” way of talking about this stuff with kids. The categories of “Safe Side, Kinda-Know, and Don’t-Know” are a great way to help children to think through safety issues. And I particularly like being able to emphasize how MOST Don-Knows would probably NEVER hurt a child, but we just don’t know. And so we use wisdom.)

Also, I want to encourage you to always look for ways to show MERCY, even in hypotheticals. (Just because the child may DESERVE a painful consequence, that doesn’t meant that there might not be mercy given.)

So that’s pretty much hypotheticals in a nutshell. If you think of other aspects that I may have missed, Lori, please just let me know. I’d love to learn AND edit this post and make it even more helpful to your readers.

Blessings to you all!

Your sister in Christ,
Tara Barthel