Points for Honesty?

A couple months ago, several members of my family went hiking. There were points where we had to cross a stream, finding the dry and stable rocks to step on. My brother managed to do this not only with ease, but while holding my two-and-a-half-year-old nephew. At the first crossing, The Neph was nervous, but Bro was reassuring: "Don't worry, I won't drop you. Or, at least, there's an eighty-five percent chance I won't drop you."

Hmmm.

I wonder if that was the scientist in him, wanting to be accurate (though how one quantifies the chances of dropping a nephew is beyond my ken). Is it better than promising that nothing bad will happen, only to have Junior bewildered when it inevitably does? Does it not really matter, since it's unlikely that the kid has mastered percentages? Or is Bro just saving up the lies for when he can come up with something awesome?

Example of an Awesome Lie
What do you mean, you don't want to eat the stewed beets on your plate? I don't see any stewed beets. I just see what I got at the park yesterday. Did you know there was a dinosaur walking through the park two nights ago? I know because he pooped on his way, and I shoveled up some of the poop and brought it home and heated it up. That's dinosaur poop on your plate. We can't be sure, but there's a chance that, if you eat it, you'll gain a hundred pounds overnight, and grow green skin and a tail. There's no way to find out whether it will happen unless you eat it and go to sleep right away.

There's an eighty-five percent chance that that would get me to eat stewed beets.