Consider this scenario: a three-year-old boy is running in the park, giggling as his indulgent father pretends to chase him. Ka-boom! Tripping over his own feet, the youngster falls to the ground. Does he immediately burst into tears? No: his first response is to look at his father. Children take their cues on how to behave from their parents, and this is particularly true with very young children.

My Three Sons

When it comes to knowing how to respond to childhood injuries, it takes two elements: experience – and love. To tap those sources, we sought out an expert: a single father who is raising three young boys on his own.

Bruce Carson became a parent at age 22, when his first son, Taylor, was born. That young man recently celebrated his thirteenth birthday, sharing his cake with his two younger brothers: Baylee, who is seven, and Dylan, who just achieved the “almost a big boy” age of four.

“Over the years, I have witnessed a lot of horrible accidents, crashes, and bashes with these boys,” says Bruce. “My philosophy on reacting to and treating injuries has drastically changed in my 13 years of parenting.”

Band-Aids and Kisses

Initially, he thought that the key in responding, regardless of the severity of the injury, was to “rush to my injured child to offer condolences, band-aids, hugs and tears. My kids would always come through, and they healed quite quickly.” However, when they discovered that they received rewards in the form of attention and treats for their bumps and bruises, they “always cried and really took advantage of the situation,” Bruce admits.

For example, suppose that Baylee bumped into a wall and hit his elbow. As a young father, Bruce reacted by “spending all kinds of time and money fixing the bump. First came the ice bag that I had to prepare and hold on the child’s head for a good 10 minutes. while holding the child and enduring dripping tears and ice water dripping all over me.”

The next step: after the child had stopped crying, Bruce would take him to the store “because it was imperative that the child had a Popsicle to make him feel better. Once the Popsicle was gone, the tears would start again and the child would explain that perhaps a candy bar or even money would help the pain. Basically, a bump on the head could become an all-day event that would make my head hurt worse than the original injury because of my stress headache!”