“You have a kid brain, I have an adult brain. No matter how much you learn, or how many books you read, or how many dinosaur names you know, your brain just doesn’t have the same parts until you’re an adult. I’m not telling you things because I’m your dad so you have to do what I say, but because I’m an adult and I’ve been on Earth for a long time, and because I was also a kid. When you see something, or are about to do something, I’m looking at it a thousand different ways. So if I tell you to stop doing something, trust me that you need to stop, and we’ll figure out why together, deal?’

That was around age 3, and was solid knowledge by around 5.

‘Kid brain vs adult brain thing’ is all I needed to say in just regular conversational mode, and he knew something just happened, and that he was about to learn something about himself and people. Without the thought of being punished or shamed for it. He was ready to hear what he (or maybe some other kid) just did, why they were probably thinking (or not thinking about) right before they did it, the potential consequences if they had followed through, and how any of the other people involved may have perceived it, and how that might make them feel.

‘Of course you didn’t think about it. But now you know it. Or I’ll remind you.’

Our kids were playing tag on playground equipment and all of a sudden my kid was crying because another kid pushed her off the top of the slide and she fell on the ground. This kid was a friend who had played together for a few years now at meetups.