Reluctant to Rule

Ezra, seven years old, was a happy, active kid. However, he was a bit “spacey.” His lack of focus led to clumsiness that routinely resulted in small injuries, broken objects, and other minor mishaps. So Mom was worried when Ezra first “got his driver’s license” — that is, when he learned to ride a two-wheel bike.

The older kids were equally concerned. “Ma! Are you really going to let him ride that thing outside? He’ll be a menace to himself and all the pedestrians!” they warned. And they were right. Ezra rode his bike onto people’s lawns (unintentionally), ignored potholes that threw both him and his vehicle dangerously close to the road, and so on.

Alarmed, Mom made some rules. “Ezra you really need to focus all your attention on what’s around you when you ride your bike. From now on, if I see that you aren’t watching where you’re going, you’ll lose your riding privileges for three days.”

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before Ezra had an incident. There was a dog-walker on the sidewalk that day, and Ezra — zooming along — rode way too close to the dog, causing a loud outburst of hysteria on the part of the owner as well as the pup. Watching all this, Mom knew she had to apply the rule. After apologizing profusely to the dog owner, she took Ezra into the house and told him he was grounded from bike riding.