Grinity - my son has been playing in our front yard for a while now without a fence/gate/full supervision & he has never gone off.
This rings home for me - "But that isn't the place to start, because we have kids for whom breaking the rules is interesting, in and of itself"
I wonder if your son is actually ready for more responsibility and freedom. As he gets older, things that weren't tempting before will start to look more appealing. If a kid breaks the rules once, and then doesn't do it again I'm sort of impressed - that's way different from a kid who keeps doing the same rule break over and over.
Of course I do remember that my DS was creative enough to be a general pain in the .... by finding new rules to break. Looking for the exception was very reinforcing for him.
More examples, please. ( I hope I haven't scared you off,sorry if so)
Smiles,
Grinity
