How to deal with a risk-taking child

Pastor Jimmy Bartz shares advice for parents on the best methods for dealing with a child who takes lots of risk behavior
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How to deal with a risk-taking child

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Dealing with a child who takes too much risk is a challenge in parenting. But each virtue has a balancing virtue. So sometimes we look at risky children as formerly courageous children, but that courage has turned into something that is rash or careless. So we want to look toward the balancing virtue there which is prudence or temperance. We want to find some way to cultivate a more thoughtful, careful attitude in life, because when we're raising spiritual children, whole-hearted children, we really want them to have a sense of balance. So having conversations about risk, having conversations about the difference between courage, facing our fear in a reasonable way, and rash behavior, doing things that are careless or thoughtless. Courage is a very thoughtful action, but rash behavior is not thoughtful. So what I would do is have that conversation with a child, and engage them in a thought process. And maybe even give them some tools when they're engaging in behavior where they have been formerly risky. Like, what would you do before that happened? What were the circumstances that came up that led to your rash behavior? What was your thinking then? How could we create some ways where you could think your way into this scenario the next time so that it would be courageous behavior or prudent, temperate behavior?

Pastor Jimmy Bartz shares advice for parents on the best methods for dealing with a child who takes lots of risk behavior

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Jimmy Bartz

Priest

Jimmy serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Prior to coming to Jackson, he was the founder and priest at Thad’s, an emergent Episcopal Church in the Santa Monica, California, in the Diocese of Los Angeles. He has also served as the Campus Missioner at the University of Texas in Austin, at All Saints’ in Austin, Texas, and All Saints’ Parish in Beverly Hills, California. He is a graduate the University of Texas at Austin and Virginia Theological Seminary. Presently, he serves as the Chair of the Board of the Episcopal Evangelism Society, and in years past has worked with Red Bull High Performance teaching athletes spiritual disciplines, with Naval Special Warfare working to create systems for character development within special operations teams, and was a speaker at TEDx, Venice Beach.
Married to Cindy and dad to Jas and Jade, the Bartz family loves to spend time outside mountaineering, skiing, fly-fishing, hunting and surfing.  Jimmy is currently writing a book on the spirituality of risk.

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