Tag: parenting

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We recently made significant progress helping our kids tidy their things. We have two boys 3 and 6 years old. The improved organization has been a relief for me because for a long time I have felt overwhelmed when I see all the toys, clothes, books, and little knickknacks in their room. To learn from the experience, I’m writing about what worked and what didn’t.

It is important to me to stay connected with my kids, and avoid actions that break the connection. My close relationship with the kids is key to supporting their needs. The associated love and closeness is a need itself, but the connection helps me to see and respond to my kid’s other needs. In my experience, pushing past the kids consent to do something “good” for the kids tends not to be worth it. The kids start to rebel, and then our routine starts to become a nightmarish ordeal. So I wanted to find a way to help the kids tidy their toys that they could consent to. A seemingly impossible task for kids who love toys!

But I felt it was important to do something because our kids needed help with organizing their things, especially with the toys. The main challenge was the sheer number of toys. Between Christmas, birthdays, relatives giving small things on random occasions, the kids using a small allowance to buy toys themselves, little gift bags from friends birthday parties, and toys in happy meals…it really added up. In addition, the toys span a wide range of sizes, shapes, materials, and colors. To make it even harder, many of the toys were part of a set, and if one tiny piece is missing it can ruin the whole set.

This kid’s strategy for organizing their items was to use every horizontal surface in their room as a heap. The advantage with this strategy is that the stuff you use tends to be on top, and there is more room to see a variety of items. Also you never have to worry about putting things “back”, you just put them down (a big plus for anyone, but especially a 3 year old!). The downside is that the sets of toys get completely mixed together so it is almost impossible to find all the pieces. Also it seems like the visual clutter makes it hard for the kids to find all the toys; they tend to play with a small subset. From my perspective, the heap strategy conflicted with my need for order and clear pathways in case of a fire.

To help the kids, I knew that I wanted to use principles from Marie Kondo’s work (see her book, the life-changing magic of tidying up), because it had made a big difference in my life. In 2019, I had gone through the whole Marie Kondo process, and it had really helped. It took me over a year but I finished in April, 2020. I wrote a post about that tidying experience. One of the things I learned was the importance of clearly defining where things will be stored.

That learning didn’t fully sink in, because when we moved into a house in 2021, I didn’t create a well defined storage system, and my things started to build up again. Also we had not yet gone through our jointly held stuff, and with a house we started to get more things. To reverse the trend, I started going through my things again, and after a few off and on attempts, I finished going through my own things this year. I haven’t finished with the storage systems yet. Writing about tidying has helped me remember how important storage is. So I just added a storage project to my to do list!

More than just “walking the walk” tidying my own things is preparing me to be able to help the kids as they go through their things. I don’t have everything figured out, but I’m learning, sometimes the hard way, about what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, I think tidying is building up my ability to hear my own inner voice and experience the joy of following it. I want to share this experience with my kids. I want them each to be free to follow their own inner voice.

I started actively working with the kids on tidying in August this year. I was home to watch the kids on the last week of August because they didn’t have daycare or school. We took a family vacation for the first half of the week, but in the second half I helped the kids go through their things. I did it in the morning before the kids had started watching shows, and each day only worked about an hour on it. That way the kids stayed fresh. We only did a little each day, but we kept on coming back to it and started to make some progress.

We went through things by category as recommended by Marie Kondo, starting with clothes. Despite toys being the more obvious source of clutter, it turned out that they both discarded a good amount of their clothes. So much so that it was a bit of a problem for my wife who wanted to make sure the kids have enough nice clothes. After discussion the kids kept some of the nice clothes and we kept some of our older son’s discarded clothes in storage for our younger son. We saw an immediate benefit from discarding clothes. It was a lot easier to help them get dressed in the morning. There were fewer options, and all the options were clothes the kids liked.

As we went through the decluttering process, it became important to clearly define which things and areas are managed by which people. Marie Kondo recommends that each person have a place for their things, and for them to be free to manage it how they like. I gained more clarity about this idea from sociocracy, which is a form of group organization where things are decided by consent. In sociocracy, there is this idea of domains which are areas in which a group or individual can do things without asking for permission. Domains are super helpful because they allow people to act and be creative within the domain without negatively affecting the larger group.

So I started thinking about how to apply domains to the kid’s room. Making sure there were clear paths in the room for fire safety is under the parents domain, but determining which regular clothes to keep is under the kids domain. The exact boundaries need to be negotiated. For example, at first I was thinking the choosing of the kid’s clothes could be under the kid’s domain, but we needed to make an exception for the parents to ensure there are some nice clothes for the kids. Similarly as we went through books, there were some children’s books that were old favorites of us parents, but that the kids were ready to discard. We decided to designate the bookshelf downstairs as under the parents domain, and we put those parent favorite, kid books downstairs. The kids could decide which books to keep in the shelf in their room.

The kids don’t have much paper yet, so we skipped it and went to toys. Although, we will need to come back to papers because my oldest is in 1st grade and starting to get lots of papers from school. We started with discarding the toys that didn’t spark joy. The “does this spark joy?” question can be a bit hard to understand for kids. I found that asking “Do you love this or do you think someone else would love this?” worked out pretty well. It seemed easier for the kids to part with toys if they thought that maybe another kid would take care of the toy. We put the toys they want to keep in a separate room to clearly separate them from the toys they hadn’t gone through yet.

After a couple Saturday mornings of going through toys, the kids lost energy in the discarding process. Most of the good toys were in the separate room. To shift things up, we applied domains. I got some large plastic bins and assigned 4 bins to each of my sons and put them in the kid’s room. Then we took the toys they had decided to keep and put them in the bins. These toy bins are under their domain. All the rest of the many miscellaneous toys we moved to the other room. The room is under the parent’s domain, but we hoped that the kids would still help go through the rest of the toys so the pile was under the shared domain of the parents and the kids. So now anything left in the pile needs the consent of the parents to keep, or the kids could move the items to their bins in their room. The shift in framing helped to give the kids another burst of energy to go through their toys.

As we went through the remaining toys we realized that many of them were part of sets and that it would be better for us parents to manage storing them. The toy sets are difficult to keep organized (especially for young children) and tend to be better as shared toys. Instead of each kid having their own small Duplo collection, it’s more fun to have one large set of blocks. Also practically it is much easier to put all the blocks of a certain kind together, instead of remembering which blocks belong to which kid. Thankfully the kids were open to this, so we put aside the toy sets they wanted to keep.

At this point the kids got tired of going through toys. The last bit my wife and I agreed to go through. It took us a while to find the time to go through the toys. We didn’t feel like we had the capacity to have more toys coming in until we had finished going through the current toys, so we stopped occasionally buying small toys for the kids on grocery store trips. This change motivated the kids, especially our older son, to persistently ask us to finish going through the toys. With that push, my wife and I were able to make some time to go through the toys. We decided what we were willing to store and bagged up the rest to be given away. In mid-November, we got a baby sitter to watch the kids while we went through the final things and set up storage for the toys.

The toys all have a spot now. There are shared sets of toys like hot wheels cars and tracks, dino figures, puzzles, and Magnatiles in the other room. Then in the kids room there are the favorite, random toys in their bins. There are still toys and various items scattered across the floor most days, but it is much more manageable to quickly put them away. That’s a win!

This organization effort definitely cost time and energy, but for us it was a good investment. We were already spending a good amount of effort clearing paths through piles of toys, so it made sense to spend effort now to get to a more sustainable situation. I’m glad that the kids were involved. I feel pretty confident there won’t be any big upset in the future about missing toys that we gave away. It was helpful using domains to clarify where stuff goes and who decides what. I’m hopeful that this perspective could help in other areas. Most importantly with things more organized, there is more room to play!

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I recently read Positive Discipline, the First Three Years, by Jane Nelson and Roslyn Ann Duffy, and have found their approach to be practically useful in learning how to better parent my almost three year old son1. It does not magically solve all problems, but does help me to roll with the punches. This is very important because when parenting a small child everything can be going along fine and then all of a sudden things change abruptly. Nelson and Duffy illustrate the importance of understanding your child’s (mis)behavior, so you can understand what is age appropriate and what could be an effort to regain connection. With that understanding of your child as a foundation, Nelson and Duffy recommend being kind and firm toward your child.

My wife and I are frequently realizing that we need a new plan when my son’s behavior abruptly changes. This happened after Christmas, when my son picked up the habit of throwing all his toys on the floor and then climbing on Mom or Dad’s desk and getting into stuff2. He also started throwing marathon fits when we turned off the TV. I started getting frustrated and angry and was overly forceful in taking my son away from my desk. It wasn’t effective because my son got a defiant look in his eyes, and went right back. Things felt out of control and unworkable for me. I wished that my son would just “listen” to me more.

Nelson and Duffy point out that if we want our kids to be strong and assertive as adults then we can’t demand them to be quiet and compliant as kids (Ch. 2). So that argues against yelling or punishing to enforce my arbitrary rules. But I also can’t let him watch many hours of TV and play with scissors, because things would get chaotic and dangerous – not good for us parents or the child. So what can I do? Positive Discipline gives some parenting tools that can help.

First I need to understand my son’s behavior, to figure out what is age appropriate (Ch 9.). At his age play is super important so it makes sense that he would want to get into his toys right away. With more toys than normal because of Christmas, maybe he just wants to see all of them before he decides on a toy. From that perspective throwing them all on the floor makes some sense. And then getting into Mommy and Daddy’s desks makes sense too because he has a need to explore and because he wants to imitate us. Finally with the TV, my son wants to have the autonomy to decide how long to watch. So these behaviors are totally age appropriate, but very difficult for us parents. This knowledge helps diffuse my anger. My son is not a little demon, he’s just a little person trying to explore and have autonomy.

Next I need to take action in a kind and firm way, that is respectful of my son’s needs and desires and of mine and my wife’s. Nelson and Duffy talk about the importance of deciding what you will do instead of what you want your child to do. It makes sense to focus on what you control. So in this case, I decided to pack away some of my son’s toys to make it more manageable when he throws them on the floor. It turns out that with fewer options, he ended up playing with the toys more and got into our desks less (a nice surprise!). With the TV fits, I didn’t know what to do so I looked it up and brainstormed with my wife. We came upon the idea of using a timer to set up an agreed upon time for TV (use of timers described in Ch.5). I was shocked when my son quietly shut off the TV after the timer went off! Since then there have still been fits, but the timer has helped a lot.

In writing about this episode, I realize how I could have done things differently that might have been better. The most important thing is to first connect with the child before taking corrective action. I could have validated my son’s feelings and apologized for being overly forceful. Sometimes just asking for a hug makes all the difference. Second, I need to remember that these Positive Discipline tools are not about controlling the child to make my life easier. Instead the idea is to collaboratively come up with a solution that works for all. As the parent with more experience and power, I definitely take the lead, but it’s critical to involve the child as much as possible. Sometimes that means offering limited choices and letting the child decide, or sometimes it means asking the child to help.

It’s about finding what works for you and your specific child. The specific actions will change with each kid and over time, but the overall approach can be helpful. Instead of yelling and punishing the child, we can seek to understand and connect. Letting kids do whatever they want is not the only alternative. Nelson and Duffy show there is a way to be firm while still being kind. We can involve kids in decisions and activities, allow them to face the challenges of life, and be there for them to encourage them. Ideally this approach respects the needs and desires of the child and the adult. I find it hopeful. I don’t think it will make things easier for me (or the child!), but I hope that it will make the experience more meaningful and joyful.

It’s difficult to share my experience with applying Positive Discipline to my parenting because I don’t want to come off as having figured everything out. Since starting to write this post, we have come up against new parenting challenges. Things are definitely a work in progress! But, writing about it helps me to learn, and maybe someone else will find this book useful too. To anyone who interacts with kids, I’m curious to hear what you find helpful. And if you are a kid, let me know what parenting approaches you prefer!

  1. Jane Nelson and Roslyn Ann Duffy. Positive Discipline, the First Three Years. Harmony 2015. https://www.positivediscipline.com/products/positive-discipline-first-three-years-revised-and-updated
  2. As remembered by me and with permission from my wife and son. March, 2021.

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I looked up the growth charts from the WHO which show how kids (boys in the figure below) grow from birth to 19 years of age. The curves are nice and smooth so it seems like you might be able to predict adult height based on the height as a 1 year old. But the charts only show the averages. How often do children change height percentiles? How common is it for kids to grow early and end up short? Or vice versa how common is it for kids to grow late but to end up on the tall end?

cht_lhfa_boys_z_0_5

Source: https://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/cht_lhfa_boys_z_0_5.pdf?ua=1

cht_hfa_boys_z_5_19years

Source: https://www.who.int/growthref/cht_hfa_boys_z_5_19years.pdf?ua=1

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I am generalizing the scope of this blog from science and tech to things that I am interested in. I plan on tagging posts so that it will be reasonably easy to filter for what you are interested in. 

Today’s post is the start of a series on questions. Questions are powerful. I have been feeling dulled by my reflex to look up things on Google immediately on thinking up a question. I get quick answers, but fail really learn. I hope that by taking the time to write out the questions that I will learn and perhaps you will find it interesting too.

Q: What are the most common causes of death of 1 year olds?

As a parent of a 1 year old, I’m interested in learning both what makes my son healthy and what risks to avoid. The risks are especially hard, because something can be scary but very unlikely. So what are the top 10 causes of death for 1 year olds in the US?

I have some follow-up questions as well: What is the rate of deaths per year per capita? How likely is a child in this cohort of children to die from each of these causes? How has this child mortality changed over time?

Just trying to avoid survivorship bias.