It's amazing that you've been able to put in words exactly what I have observed ever since I had kids of my own. Lego used to be such a big part of my childhoo

It's amazing that you've been able to put in words exactly what I have observed ever since I had kids of my own. Lego used to be such a big part of my childhood, a creative outline bar none. The amazing realization that with a few basic blocks, you can build so many different things - letting your creativity go wild and build your own worlds. But like you said, today, you buy a box set and it comes with a whole bunch of super specific pieces. Sure, the result will perhaps look much more real if your race car model now has an appropriately bend fender piece instead of a step approximation. But you'll never be able to reuse that piece for anything else. But what's worse is that I do not see any desire in my kids to even try and come up with their own creations. It's exactly like you said, they enjoy following the instruction and build the exact thing this box was meant to be, and that's it. Play with it and then it gets dissambled again after a while. They might build it again, yeah, sure, but always exactly like it was predesigned by the company. Instead of fostering creative kids, we're breeding robots. I thought it was just my children so I'm very interested to read someone else having had the same experience. No wonder that Minecraft then has taken over that niche. My kids are too young and don't know the game yet, I've been trying to reduce screen time. But if the real world and tangible toys aren't inspiring them as much as they did when I was young, it makes you wonder if you shouldn't allow them to express themselves at digitally at an earlier age.