What is bad behavior?
During my run I had a discussion in my head about bad behavior. What makes a behavior bad? Why is it bad?
The discussion in my head started when I ran by an elephant path made by people, mostly kids, biking across the grass to get to the main bicycle path. I was annoyed by this because my community has asked people to stop doing it and I talk to my kids about it every time I see them do it. Even though I know they will probably do it anyway if I'm not watching.
I imagined myself being in the meeting with Staatsbosbeheer (the Dutch forestry service who owns this area) where the discussion was about potential solutions. The first argument I made in my head was to put up some sort of barrier to prevent the behavior but then I remembered an example from a university. After they renovated the lawn, they purposely didn't add any paths. Instead they waited a year to see where paths would naturally emerge and added them there.
That example in mind I began arguing for doing the same. In my head someone else would argue "but that's rewarding the wrong behavior". At this point I began questioning what is bad behavior? Why is it bad? I remembered what happened with my oldest after I discovered he had been playing Roblox even though we told him not to. We'd banned it because we worried he wouldn't come to us if things in the game troubled him.
He explained that he'd been doing it in secret for some time with his friends. All of his friends are allowed to play Roblox. He was playing games together with them and he was the only one not allowed to play it himself. Is this bad behavior? Was this a child's form of civil disobedience? Was he challenging a rule that didn't make sense to him? We eventually decided to let him keep playing Roblox after we explained our fears to him.
That university asked "what are people trying to tell us?" instead of "how do we stop them?" Maybe that's the better question.
Is that condoning his disobedience? Or is it recognizing that the traits that frustrate us now — standing up for himself and questioning authority — are exactly what we want him to have as an adult? What about the university example? Was it bad behavior for people to walk on the grass or was it okay there because there was no other option?
And finally, what about my initial example? Is putting a path where people obviously want one the same: rewarding rule-breaking? Or is it listening to what people are trying to tell us?
I don't know. But I think I'd rather err on the side of flexibility and meet people where they are. Even when it feels like giving in.