Hidden Danger at Bolton Strid
Near Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire, England, lies one of nature's great curiosities. It’s called Bolton Strid, a beautiful mountain stream that runs between two groups of attractive and moss-covered rocks about six feet apart. Many people have found it irresistible to leap across the shallow gorge or to attempt wading across the clear waters.
But great dangers are hidden in this choice. Only a hundred yards upstream the water is a substantial river thirty feet across, but at the Strid the flow narrows and deepens dramatically, which greatly increases the speed of the water, and also undercuts the rock, creating deep underwater caverns, and currents that suck down anyone bold and ill-informed enough to make the attempt.
It is believed that not a single person who has fallen into the Strid has ever come out of it alive. Not even their bodies.
In short, the Strid is far deeper and infinitely more dangerous than it looks. And so are many of the individual experiences of life.
Teach Children to Stay Away from Potential Danger
Dismissing the potential dangers, we stand by and watch our children as they are disrespectful, disobedient, and unkind to others.
We say little or remind them half-heartedly as they fail to complete their responsibilities or spend more than their allotted time on electronic screens.
But every moment of a child’s life plants and nourishes seeds that often grow far larger than we could imagine at the time.
Not one single alcoholic thought as he drank alcohol for the first time, “I think I’ll become an alcoholic and ruin my life.”
Not a single debilitated porn addict thought upon seeing his first exciting image, “Hey, this is just what I’ve been looking for to imprison me alone with my own thoughts forever.”
No, almost without exception, people make tragic mistakes based on that fatal optimism that is expressed in some variation on, “This is interesting/fun/exciting, but I can handle it. It’s not as deep as it looks.”
And we parents say the same thing as our children wade into water that turns out—in the moment and over time—to be far deeper and faster than anyone could have known.
As parents, we can fervently commit to learn how to teach our children not to even get close to the choices in life that resemble the Strid.
It’s so much easier to stay away from the edge than to scream frantically beside the tiny stretch of water that could suck our children down to oblivion.
