The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

A few weeks ago, my 6 year old son and I were at the community pool for swimming lessons (for him, not me). It was the last session of the week, and they typically just play in the pool for the hour. I asked my son to go down the big slide, which has been a requirement in our family as a prerequisite to going to water parks during the summer. He looked at the slides and told me that he would do the little one, but not the big one because he was too scared to do the big one. Reaching into my parental toolbox, I went for the big hammer: bribery. “If you go down the big slide, we can go for...