Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne, Lisa M. Ross Page B
Authors: Kim John Payne, Lisa M. Ross
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These messages, over time, create both a sense of entitlement, and a false reliance on purchases rather than people to satisfy and sustain us emotionally. 6
I once offered a lecture called “Entitlement Monsters and the Parents Who Enable Them.” I thought parents might be reluctant to attend, given the title’s provocation, but the room was packed. We’ve all met a child, or many, who believe that the world spins to please them. They have everything imaginable, yet they feel beleaguered, cheated. Life’s many gifts and pleasures have made them somewhat passive,world-weary at a young age. Yet that passivity has an aggressive “chaser”: If they feel they’re being denied, they can exhibit outrage, and razor-sharp negotiation skills.
How does this happen? Too many choices.
What’s so bad about choice? As adults, as Americans, as consumers, and as a society that values individuality, we love the notion of choice. And we love to give our children choices—like gifts—about everything they see, want, or do; about every aspect of their lives. We think that these choices help them on the road to becoming who they are. We think choices clarify a child’s personality, their emerging sense of themselves.
I strongly believe the opposite is true. All of these choices are distractions from the natural—and exponential—growth of early childhood. Let me frame it as an understatement: Young children are very busy . Their evolution in the first ten years of life—neural, social, and physical—makes what we do as adults look like standing still.
Children need time to become themselves—through play and social interaction. If you overwhelm a child with stuff—with choices and pseudochoices—before they are ready, they will only know one emotional gesture: “More!”
Carl Jung said that children do not distinguish between ritual and reality. In the world of childhood, toys are ritual objects with powerful meaning and resonance. To a child, a mountain of toys is more than something to trip over. It’s a topographical map of their emerging worldview. The mountain, casting a large symbolic shadow, means “I can choose this toy, or that, or this one way down here, or that: They are all mine! But there are so many that none of them have value. I must want something else!” This worldview shapes their emotional landscape as well; children given so very many choices learn to undervalue them all, and hold out—always—for whatever elusive thing isn’t offered. “More!” Their feelings of power, from having so much authority and so many choices, mask a larger sense of vulnerability.
We are the adults in our children’s lives. We are the grown-ups. And as the parents who love them, we can help our children by limiting theirchoices. We can expand and protect their childhoods by not overloading them with the pseudochoices and the false power of so much stuff . And as companies spend billions trying to influence our children, we can say no. We can say no to entitlement and overwhelm, by saying yes to simplifying.
Those parents at my lectures who convene in the environment workshop are invited to create a mental image of their children’s rooms. Stand with them, in those hypothetical doorways, or go right to the source, and identify the most obvious form of clutter. The answer, usually, is toys.
Toys
Imagine all of your children’s toys in a mountain at the center of their room. You’ve rounded up all of the outpost piles wherever they gather and grow throughout the house. The large bin of bathtub toys, the pile near your phone (which sometimes allows you to talk a moment longer), the ones stuffed into bins and drawers, the revolving bunch that always end up on the kitchen table … add all of these to the heap.
The pile needs to be halved, and halved again, and perhaps again. The first removed half will probably be discarded, the second removed half will probably be both
buying products is important
These messages, over time, create both a sense of entitlement, and a false reliance on purchases rather than people to satisfy and sustain us emotionally. 6
I once offered a lecture called “Entitlement Monsters and the Parents Who Enable Them.” I thought parents might be reluctant to attend, given the title’s provocation, but the room was packed. We’ve all met a child, or many, who believe that the world spins to please them. They have everything imaginable, yet they feel beleaguered, cheated. Life’s many gifts and pleasures have made them somewhat passive,world-weary at a young age. Yet that passivity has an aggressive “chaser”: If they feel they’re being denied, they can exhibit outrage, and razor-sharp negotiation skills.
How does this happen? Too many choices.
What’s so bad about choice? As adults, as Americans, as consumers, and as a society that values individuality, we love the notion of choice. And we love to give our children choices—like gifts—about everything they see, want, or do; about every aspect of their lives. We think that these choices help them on the road to becoming who they are. We think choices clarify a child’s personality, their emerging sense of themselves.
I strongly believe the opposite is true. All of these choices are distractions from the natural—and exponential—growth of early childhood. Let me frame it as an understatement: Young children are very busy . Their evolution in the first ten years of life—neural, social, and physical—makes what we do as adults look like standing still.
Children need time to become themselves—through play and social interaction. If you overwhelm a child with stuff—with choices and pseudochoices—before they are ready, they will only know one emotional gesture: “More!”
Carl Jung said that children do not distinguish between ritual and reality. In the world of childhood, toys are ritual objects with powerful meaning and resonance. To a child, a mountain of toys is more than something to trip over. It’s a topographical map of their emerging worldview. The mountain, casting a large symbolic shadow, means “I can choose this toy, or that, or this one way down here, or that: They are all mine! But there are so many that none of them have value. I must want something else!” This worldview shapes their emotional landscape as well; children given so very many choices learn to undervalue them all, and hold out—always—for whatever elusive thing isn’t offered. “More!” Their feelings of power, from having so much authority and so many choices, mask a larger sense of vulnerability.
We are the adults in our children’s lives. We are the grown-ups. And as the parents who love them, we can help our children by limiting theirchoices. We can expand and protect their childhoods by not overloading them with the pseudochoices and the false power of so much stuff . And as companies spend billions trying to influence our children, we can say no. We can say no to entitlement and overwhelm, by saying yes to simplifying.
Those parents at my lectures who convene in the environment workshop are invited to create a mental image of their children’s rooms. Stand with them, in those hypothetical doorways, or go right to the source, and identify the most obvious form of clutter. The answer, usually, is toys.
Toys
Imagine all of your children’s toys in a mountain at the center of their room. You’ve rounded up all of the outpost piles wherever they gather and grow throughout the house. The large bin of bathtub toys, the pile near your phone (which sometimes allows you to talk a moment longer), the ones stuffed into bins and drawers, the revolving bunch that always end up on the kitchen table … add all of these to the heap.
The pile needs to be halved, and halved again, and perhaps again. The first removed half will probably be discarded, the second removed half will probably be both
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