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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. An

by 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.

by kkylin 2y ago

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.