Our philosophy is a bit different. One of our goals is to optimize our children's success in the 'real' world (perhaps this is yours too) and we prefer natural consequences when possible -- in cases where the natural consequences are tolerable.
The real world is not terribly consistent and in their socialization, children need to learn a lot about navigating complex social rules that do vary from context to context, and which are not always explained explicitly. We are fairly attentive parents (though perhaps inconsistently so!) and we notice if a child seems to need more structure or something explained explicitly, but if they are doing fine we let them be and are more natural ourselves.
My older daughter has considered it important to follow all the rules, and has begun asking me recently about why her sister gets away with breaking them so often. So I have talked with her about concepts such as plausible deniability, etc, and explain to her the best I can what our different motivations are for the different rules. My younger daughter seems to understand all this more naturally, and has a much better handle at a younger age of which rules can be broken, in which contexts. (To give some concrete examples, if the TV can be turned on some time later without asking if we said no more TV a while ago, and if its OK to do that annoying thing when I am in a good mood.)
I feel my older daughter is currently learning the lesson that there are not that many 'stickers' for following all the rules, and usually the consequences for breaking a non-sacred rule are pretty light, and can be weighed in the balance of things.
I'm concerned that your parenting style might lead to children that are less flexible, and they will need to learn later how to navigate breaking rules?
Again you infer too much from my isolated remark that it be risky.
Please please don't draw conclusions too quickly. I know we extrapolate from any single bit of information to the whole picture. There must be a link here on LW about it. On my side I promise I will not post such isolated statements again.
To get back to your point. We prefer natural consequences too. My wife is better at it then I am. She immediatly has a consequence at hand that mostly does work. But then she has the plan for the day. A long time ago I agreed that we establish the same ru...
Followup to: Strategic ignorance and plausible deniability
My in-law always says: "For children it is easier be forgiven then to get permission."
EDIT: This post is superseeded by my Book Review: Kazdin's The Everyday Parenting Toolkit I recommend reading only that. The remaining insight of this post is: Children expend more brain power on their parents than the parents on them.
I can say from experience: That is risky.
Children (esp. small ones) expend significantly more brain power on their parents than the parents on their children (your mileage may vary). I can assure you that they will notice these cases - at least some - and take that into account one way or the other.
If the children notice this they may assume that you either condone, accept, bear or ignore it. None of these has positive effects.
Possible alternative strategies:
I am influenced by The Adlerian School. Of relevance here is Striving for significance.
The testing of limits and the resulting interaction with the parent give the child a feeling of significance if the parent acknoledges the act of the child even if he doesn't agree with it. On the other hand ignoring the act of the child is negative feedback about significance.
EDIT: The asymmetry between parents and children with respect to the effectiveness of deniability can be generalized to any situation where one actor has significantly less overall information about the situation than another actor and thus might not be able to reliably estimate whether deniability is possible.
ADDED: tadamsmar pointed out that ignoring is scientifically known to be effective and the advice or rather personal expierence I have related in this post may be contraproductive (at least if applied in isolation).