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It looks like the parents in the article are not teaching their children that each kind of toy should be put away before the next toy gets brought out to play w

It looks like the parents in the article are not teaching their children that each kind of toy should be put away before the next toy gets brought out to play with. Teaching children that mixing all one's toys up creates an unusable chaos is a good lesson for how to (not) organize one's work environment, room's clothing, kitchen area, etc. Installing a sense of order is IMO a valuable lesson for young people. As a family with a lot of Lego (both daughter's Friends stuff and son's Technics and Ninjago), they have put in signifcant work to keep it sorted so that it remains usable. I understand that most parents are not so diligent (time constraints for working parents are brutal), but our primary advantage is that the kids have never had their own tvs or internet-connected devices (except for son's chess computer which is in our living room). Not having on-demand media has left them needing to choose their own activities, which includes asking to watch something specific within our shared media computer. What is nice about this is that we almost never have to ask either of them to clean/organize their areas, because they have learned the Marie Kondo-style kind of joy in keeping your area organized. And, yes, our daughter read and loved that book. [Side note: not having on-demand media also helps develop their joy of reading, though it was more difficult for our son than daughter.]

bunderbunder 2y ago
But can we maybe for once ease off on the blatantly moralizing at parents? In my circle of friends and family, every single parent wants to uphold this standard. The only ones who have actually succeeded in consistently maintaining it also have a very authoritarian parenting style. Everyone else has settled on compromising to various degrees.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  Morality is what keeps one race of people from enslaving other folks; keeps someone from robbing or killing another, and many other negative attitudes and behaviors. We human beings are the only moral creatures around here, being able to learn from our mistakes, evaluate the results of our actions, and change how we go about things. This world absolutely needs more moralizing, not less, but not self-righteous I'm-better-than-you kinds of pompous bullsh_t, but just results-based, impartial discussion of what the best outcomes are and what the best methods are to achieving them. Regarding parenting, one has to find the middle way, being neither abusive nor too slack. The important thing to understand is that children are intrinsically selfish, and that we have to teach them empathy and kindness, and -- most importantly -- that they have selfish impulses they must resist, in order for the society as a whole to function its best. No, most people do not have the level of understanding about human nature to properly educate their children. Not having learned how to live, parents are now doing their best, but have failed to question the inertia of our world techno culture, that is overlaid on their native age-old culture. And now we see how negatively social media via smart phones has affected our children (and parents, too, seems to me). It is the blind leading the blind, but anyone with material wealth is so very cocksure that they know best. "Might makes right" and "wealth means intelligence" are the maxims of the day, yet both are leading us to less and less desirable outcomes. As Jamiroquai's Jay Kay said in Virtual Insanity, "I think it's time to find a new religion." That new religion requires skepticism about our societal/cultural inertias, and being open to new ideas about community and the role of compassion in all our doings, our doings' effects, and the intentions behind those doings.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  > authoritarian parenting style Because they are on their devices all the time too…
kkylin 2y ago
I have known plenty of parents who, as you suggest, do not try. We ourselves have tried various tactics, but sometimes the children just absolutely refuse. And the thing about cleaning up is that the person with the highest tolerance for messiness usually "wins" (and this doesn't only apply to children). :-) And yeah, there may be room for creative incentive structures / choice architecture. The effectiveness of these things is a function of the parents, the children, and the conditions, and sometimes there are just more important things to attend to so we let this one go.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  My kids (my son espcially) understood from a young age that their toys can disappear at any time, should my wife and my very minimal suggestions be ignored. It never needed to happen, but they fully understood that I keep my promises and that their choices could have that effect. No violence, no intimidation, just a negative outcome they will feel and dislike. Once a child understands that their favorite toy can simply disappear forever, they have learned how to form their own incentive structure, with our gentle help, of course. Along the way, though, we made sure they understood that we love them and work hard to make them happy, but that we also have a far greater depth of understanding about how things need to done. That means, for example, that one always knocks on the bathroom door :-) This world is a tricky place. I suggest that the only way to best orient one's moral compass -- and entire life, thereby -- is through compassion. All relationships, including parent-child, spouse-spouse, and employer-employee always benefit from being as compassionate as possible. Even when dealing with a violent sociopath, having compassion ensures that one is not acting out of bigotry, self-superiority, pleasure of oppression, vindictiveness, or any other negative motivation; compassion helps us take the whole into consideration, and not just our own selfish benefit. There is no more important place for this perspective than in parenting, where our children's lives are literally at our mercy. Learning how to develop wisdom via compassion is where the art comes in, but all art begins and ends with hard graft, with mistakes and learning and getting better through brutally honest self-reflection.

bunderbunder 2y ago

But can we maybe for once ease off on the blatantly moralizing at parents? In my circle of friends and family, every single parent wants to uphold this standard. The only ones who have actually succeeded in consistently maintaining it also have a very authoritarian parenting style. Everyone else has settled on compromising to various degrees.

MrMcCall 2y ago
Morality is what keeps one race of people from enslaving other folks; keeps someone from robbing or killing another, and many other negative attitudes and behaviors. We human beings are the only moral creatures around here, being able to learn from our mistakes, evaluate the results of our actions, and change how we go about things. This world absolutely needs more moralizing, not less, but not self-righteous I'm-better-than-you kinds of pompous bullsh_t, but just results-based, impartial discussion of what the best outcomes are and what the best methods are to achieving them. Regarding parenting, one has to find the middle way, being neither abusive nor too slack. The important thing to understand is that children are intrinsically selfish, and that we have to teach them empathy and kindness, and -- most importantly -- that they have selfish impulses they must resist, in order for the society as a whole to function its best. No, most people do not have the level of understanding about human nature to properly educate their children. Not having learned how to live, parents are now doing their best, but have failed to question the inertia of our world techno culture, that is overlaid on their native age-old culture. And now we see how negatively social media via smart phones has affected our children (and parents, too, seems to me). It is the blind leading the blind, but anyone with material wealth is so very cocksure that they know best. "Might makes right" and "wealth means intelligence" are the maxims of the day, yet both are leading us to less and less desirable outcomes. As Jamiroquai's Jay Kay said in Virtual Insanity, "I think it's time to find a new religion." That new religion requires skepticism about our societal/cultural inertias, and being open to new ideas about community and the role of compassion in all our doings, our doings' effects, and the intentions behind those doings.
dzhiurgis 2y ago
> authoritarian parenting style Because they are on their devices all the time too…

kkylin 2y ago

I have known plenty of parents who, as you suggest, do not try. We ourselves have tried various tactics, but sometimes the children just absolutely refuse. And the thing about cleaning up is that the person with the highest tolerance for messiness usually "wins" (and this doesn't only apply to children). :-) And yeah, there may be room for creative incentive structures / choice architecture. The effectiveness of these things is a function of the parents, the children, and the conditions, and sometimes there are just more important things to attend to so we let this one go.

MrMcCall 2y ago
My kids (my son espcially) understood from a young age that their toys can disappear at any time, should my wife and my very minimal suggestions be ignored. It never needed to happen, but they fully understood that I keep my promises and that their choices could have that effect. No violence, no intimidation, just a negative outcome they will feel and dislike. Once a child understands that their favorite toy can simply disappear forever, they have learned how to form their own incentive structure, with our gentle help, of course. Along the way, though, we made sure they understood that we love them and work hard to make them happy, but that we also have a far greater depth of understanding about how things need to done. That means, for example, that one always knocks on the bathroom door :-) This world is a tricky place. I suggest that the only way to best orient one's moral compass -- and entire life, thereby -- is through compassion. All relationships, including parent-child, spouse-spouse, and employer-employee always benefit from being as compassionate as possible. Even when dealing with a violent sociopath, having compassion ensures that one is not acting out of bigotry, self-superiority, pleasure of oppression, vindictiveness, or any other negative motivation; compassion helps us take the whole into consideration, and not just our own selfish benefit. There is no more important place for this perspective than in parenting, where our children's lives are literally at our mercy. Learning how to develop wisdom via compassion is where the art comes in, but all art begins and ends with hard graft, with mistakes and learning and getting better through brutally honest self-reflection.