Why Your Kid Needs More Chores, More Boredom, and More Frustration (Yes, Really)

0:00Part of my take as a parent is everybody is going to grow up and be justified in blaming their parents for some things. Like that's just what it is. I hope so. No matter how great they are. And maybe that's a cop out and me just saying I'm not going to be a perfect parent. You're not. But that no matter what you do, there are going to be some things that your kid can justifiably blame you for when you grow up. And so it's a question of choosing what are those things going to be. is it going to be that I stood my ground on them having a regular dinner with the grandparents and so they had to miss some of these parties or is it going to be is it going to be something else and so I think it's just almost like for me a little liberating to accept ahead of time that you know there are going to be certain things when he grows up he's going to say like I didn't like this thing that my parents did and there is absolutely no way for me to get around that no matter what I do so I'm just trying to choose what those things are and make them also have some value

0:57Dr. Aliza Pressman:Constraints are one of those things that feel counterintuitive, like are they getting in the way of our kids' development or are they actually what's driving it? So I am so excited about this conversation with David Epstein, author of the new book, Inside the Box, who has a real gift for translating science that sounds backwards and turns out to be exactly what we should be doing as parents. David has a master's degree in environmental science and journalism, and he's a fantastic person to talk to about how our children are positioned to thrive. We get really concrete, starting with chores and how they grow confidence.

1:31Dr. Aliza Pressman:Then we zoom out kind of to the bigger question of why constraints even matter for development. Why the best coaches and the best parents, which you are the best parents, have constraints designed into their environment, not delivering instructions. I'm Dr. Aliza Pressman, developmental psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, associate clinical professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, and the host of Raising Good Humans podcast. I am so glad you're here. I want to talk about shared obligations and chores. I just want to like dive right into it because you have a lot of really cool stuff to say, and it's super compelling for parents and that's who's listening.

2:18So in the reporting of this book, I read a bunch of the research that came out of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which was, I think, the longest study ever, continuous longitudinal study of human adult development, basically followed people from cradle to grave. And one of the recommendations that came out of that study was to assign kids chores, which is a little bit surprising. But it turns out that having obligations like that gives kids a sense that their participation is meaningful in the family. And work following up on that, I found it a little surprising. So I looked for other work following up on it.

3:04But there were other studies, 10 ,000 kids that found if kids started chores in kindergarten, they had a higher belief later on in their own competence or their ability to deal with challenges. So I very promptly assigned my own kindergartner some simple chores after reading that. And I think it really fits in, in general, with the larger finding of the Harvard study of adult development, which is that a huge, arguably the most important factor for well-being and longevity is having a dense network of reciprocal obligation where you have obligations to other people and those people have obligations to you.

3:47And those things can sound burdensome or inconvenient, but I guess those are the inconveniences that give us a meaningful life and keep us happy and healthy.

3:56Dr. Aliza Pressman:For sure. And that is like how, if you really think about the close relationships that we have, it's not burdened. Well, some of it's burdensome, but I can't think of a relationship that's meaningful. That's sort of like you, you offer nothing, they offer nothing, but yet you're super connected. Um, I thought it was so interesting that during the pandemic, that was the first time a lot of kids felt like their chores weren't just like an obligation, but in fact, like they really, really mattered. It wasn't just, you know, a job to do. I'm curious, how did your kindergartner take it? Like, where were you in the evolution of this process and where the world was at the time?

4:47He wasn't yet one.

4:49Dr. Aliza Pressman:He was too little, too little for chores. So he was too little for chores at the time. His only chore was making me smile and laugh at the time. But when I did decide to assign him chores, since it was a little bit out of nowhere, you know, it's like, oh, daddy's reading this research and now Andre's going to get some chores. He didn't have any problem with it. He didn't blink. And he's, I mean, I guess I've known for a while that one way I can for sure get him to spend time with me is with a home project. If it involves a screwdriver or a ratchet, he is there, right? So these things that already to me were work-like were fun or engaging to him.

5:26And so when we added things like take out the trash, set the table, uh, he, he did not blink. So that was kind of neat to see. I think if you started early, it probably, it, and it was never framed as punishment or, or even as something that he had to do for reward. It was very much, we're all a team. Mommy and daddy have their chores. You have your chores too. We're all going to do them. So yeah, try to be careful not to frame it as something that he would do in return for reward or that if he didn't do, he'd get punished. It's just something that's expected of you because we all have things that we're doing to make the whole household work.

6:00Dr. Aliza Pressman:Okay. So let's just expand on that because I think a lot of people think chores are associated with like getting an allowance and things like that. So can you talk a little bit about that? because I think we're both aligned that that's probably not the best way to get anybody to feel like it's part of, you know, we're part of a community. And the first community we're part of is our household. Yeah. And I mean, I do, I do things, I do some things that I love for my, I love writing and I mean, it's torture, but I also love it. And I do that obviously for pay, but I was concerned that if I offered him money, I mean, he's still quite little.

6:41So when he's taking out the garbage, it's like the small garbage cans from bathrooms, that it would seem like, oh, this is something that you only do for money. This is like a thing you don't really want to do. So I'm paying you for it. And I think he feels like it's a meaningful thing to do. I do thank him for doing it when he does it well and all those things. But also it's just kind of something that's expected of you. Yeah.

7:07Dr. Aliza Pressman:I mean, he's so young. So like you get to set that tone, but also you do get paid for work. It's just this is really about contributing in a meaningful way. And the idea that it's not that work doesn't contribute in a meaningful way, but it's just a totally different game. I mean, I have paid for like the extras, you know, beyond what's expected in the household, if it's just like a favor to me. Yeah. No, I'm not, I'm not opposed to that at all. But the, but the, I mean, I think what I took away from some of this research was that if, if you can make it feel meaningful, like it's a meaningful contribution that can improve the kid's self-confidence, it improves their feeling of attachment to the family, as opposed to thinking like, oh gosh, this is this thing I have to do.

7:59And I think that was the case because once that went really well with my son, then I started having to do other stuff. So then I started having him, you know, make eggs with me in the morning and say, okay, it's our time to make breakfast. And, you know, little by little, he could do more of the task and you could almost see him this growing competence. And now it's a thing that he feels like he can do. So if, If grandma and grampy come over now, it's like, no, Andre can do 80%, 85 % of the making some eggs for people. And then he is excited to do that. So I think it's about building this feeling of competence and of contribution.

8:38You're part of the team, an important part of the team.

8:41Dr. Aliza Pressman:Right. Like it's not for show. And then competence builds confidence and this relationship grows and here you go. But so you have one simple thing, like these tasks that have been like one simple thing. Can you give some examples just so in addition to the eggs, in addition to like the little basket of trash in the bathroom, but what are some other kind of one little things? And then we can get into constraints, which I'm so excited to talk about. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I have him set the table and then he has to clean it also, wash it off. So he'll be climb up on the table fully with a wet paper towel and clean that stuff there.

9:25There are other little changing. We have these water filter cartridges and air conditioning filters that need to be changed. And he has to help me do that. So that's not a daily thing, but it's a regular thing. So a few things that are daily, which will be like the cleaning of the table or the setting of the table and usually making a breakfast. And then there are these less frequent things like changing filters around the house that he now knows is just part of his cadence of life.

9:52Dr. Aliza Pressman:I love that so much. Watering plants also. Watering plants is a really good one.

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11:10Dr. Aliza Pressman:We have two teenagers left still at home at this point. So I guess I want to get into constraints, but the way I'm thinking about it is that for whatever reason, we've gone a little bit off the rails and felt like constraints are somehow prohibitive for development. So I really love how you talk about it. So when you quote Picasso, who said, forcing yourself to use restricted means is the sort of restraint that liberates invention. I just want you to go because that is so countercultural right now and so truly important for developing humans. Yeah. I mean, the last part of that quote from Picasso, if I'm remembering correctly, is it obliges you to make a kind of progress that you can't even imagine in advance.

12:06Thank you. And I think he's describing something that neuroscientists later basically proved, which is that in order to be creative, you actually have to restrict yourself and to block the familiar and convenient things. When you mentioned modern life, so many things we do now are so convenient. Everything can be delivered to you. Entertainment can be beamed into your face in a very passive way every second of the day. You never have to spend any time with your own thoughts, all these things. And for creativity, that's kind of disastrous. So as the cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham has said, you may think that your brain is made for thinking, but it's actually made for preventing you from having to think whenever possible because thinking is energetically costly.

12:53So if you can, you'll just default to the most convenient thing or to what some cognitive psychologists called the path of least resistance. It's what's easy or familiar to do. And so if you want to be creative, the best thing you can do is actually block whatever the easiest, most creative thing is. Literally, as the psychologist Patricia Stokes calls it, a preclude constraint. You preclude the easy solution and it makes things harder on you, but it forces you to explore in ways that you would not have otherwise, right? We're all familiar with this at some level, like the necessity is the mother of invention, where when you're in a tight spot, you start thinking in all these creative ways.

13:36But I think the convenience of so much of what we're doing all the time now kind of can have us in autopilot, basically. Like it's never been easier to make everything easier in a certain sense.

13:49Dr. Aliza Pressman:This just was like a moment that I had last week. I was in a room with a bunch of brilliant people doing a journaling exercise, which sounds really strange, but it just, it's where I found myself. And in this journaling exercise, the direction was a little bit more vague than everybody was used to. And so many people had so many questions. And the direction was, draw a picture of your childhood home. And people wanted to know, is it three-dimensional? Is it supposed to be the front? From what angle? What room? all of these different things. And I was thinking, gosh, when we get to a certain point in life, because everybody there was middle-aged and older, it's even harder to figure out the balance between constraints and how we even deal with openness.

14:46Dr. Aliza Pressman:And so that's just one thing that I wanted to address because it was kind of the opposite as you would experience with kids, right? I would imagine. But I want to go back to the real constraints providing the opportunity for growth and how you've architected that. You'll tell us the phrase that you use in your own household. Yeah. So with respect to my son, for example, One thing I've noticed where it's so easy to get stuff to our house now, whether it's, you know, grandparents sending items or toys or whatever it is. Like you can have stuff delivered so easily. So everything's a commodity. And often around a holiday or birthday, stuff pours in.

15:37And what I've noticed is that he'll almost be, if a lot of things arrive at once, he'll almost bounce between them. It's like taking inventory or something, just checking on all the things. Whereas if we're outside and I have a stick and a ball and I'm like, we got to do something with this. He becomes instantly very creative. A game will be made up. Right. It will not occur that he'll say, ah, I'm bored. You know, there are other case times where he'll say, I'm bored. Not a ton, but, um, and so something will be made up. So I think I've become very conscious about putting him in or being in those situations with him where you can't just default to lots of shiny objects.

16:17And we actually have to create our own games and think and create our own entertainment because it's, again, it's just so easy to just get so much stuff. I mean, one thing that is not convenient, but that is important in our household is I don't want to make anybody feel bad about screen time or anything like that, but...

16:38Dr. Aliza Pressman:But you're like, but we won't. No, it's quite limited in our household. You know, maybe that'll change later. But I think screens usually are a very passive form of consumption where the consumer is not really having to do much work or think. It's incredibly convenient. One of my friends described it to me as hitting the easy button on parenting. Like you just pass the iPad and you don't have to do anything anymore. But it is so passive. In the short term. Yeah, in the short term. In the short term. But it's so passive. And so I think I'm always looking for these sort of almost more difficult situations or what they require him to be more active thinking.

17:18And I'm constantly actually, because I'd read about something in psychology called the degeneration effect, which is people learn better when they're forced to try to generate their own answers to things or even to guess. So it's like, even if you have no idea what the answer is, if you force yourself to guess, it primes your brain for the subsequent learning then, that I'm always, whereas screens are very passive information consumption, I'll be reading. The one magazine I read basically cover to cover every week is New Scientist. And I'll just read it with my son. And when I get to something that maybe it's something about animals or the universe, I'll make him guess.

17:56And of course, now he does it to me too.

17:58Dr. Aliza Pressman:And then we'll read the answer. We'll both guess and then we'll read the answer. And so it's just forcing this much more active kind of processing. And that's what I view as a type of constraint where it's, we're not just going to hit the easy button and passively consume things. We're going to force ourselves to guess before we see the answer and do this much more active processing. I just remember that when I was a kid, if I asked my stepfather, like what the meaning of a word was, he not only would have me go look it up myself in the dictionary, because I'm a hundred, but also. You're nearly as old as you claim to be.

18:37Dr. Aliza Pressman:But he also would first ask, what's my best guess? And it was so annoying. I mean, it infuriated me, but I am so grateful that he took the time to do that, even as I got old enough to just be such a brat about it. And it's really harder nowadays to do because of all the technology, because it's actually right in front of you. So I think the example that you're giving is, you know, like we can keep doing that. And you mentioned two phrases that come out of kids' mouths so often. I'm bored. And like, what does this mean? And both of those feel like opportunities to sort of send it right back to them to figure out how to solve this problem.

19:23Dr. Aliza Pressman:So how do you orient between the frustration and the liberating feeling of getting more capable of thinking through these constraints? I don't see some measure of frustration as a bad thing. I don't think we should aim for frustration-free existence for ourselves or for our children. And so, you know, in many ways, I would say that I am more concerned about, I mean, there's plenty of stuff to be concerned about, but I'm more concerned about my son having an adversity deficit than of having too much adversity. Both of those things I think can be concerning, but right now I'm more concerned that he won't have enough frustration and challenge and things like that.

20:11You know, he's growing up in a household that has built-in bookshelves. Like he's, you know, he's going to have an enriched experience. so I don't rush to fix that frustration necessarily. So if he says I'm bored, instead of saying, here's what we're going to do, maybe we'll point to an object and say, what do you think we could do with this? Or what do you think we could do with that? Or here's an idea, what else could we add to it? And with the guessing stuff where I'm making him guess answers, now that he does it to me, I can see that it can be a little bit annoying. But when he does it also, I'll participate in it and whatever he guesses, I'll be like, that's a great guess.

20:46you know, whether it's right or wrong. And then we'll, we'll talk about it. So he's gotten used to it now.

20:50Dr. Aliza Pressman:And you can walk through it like, okay, so if that's your guess, what would happen? Like, let's walk through the steps and then they can kind of problem solve. Totally. It's really interesting because when we do that, often this will, you know, be like, well, why that? Why that? This, the sequence of whys will, I never try to say that's just the way it is. So we very often end up getting all the way back to the big bang because that's sort of the adult way of saying that's the way it is. And I should say my academic background is in environmental science and astronomy. So this is like the coolest I will ever be to him.

21:21So, you know, I use my background for what it's worth. But yeah, I don't rush to alleviate some of that frustration. It's not like I want him banging his head against the wall constantly, but I think that's where growth happens.

21:45Dr. Aliza Pressman:The reason why I thought this was such a thoughtful, and you've been thinking about this for longer than I think it's been on our minds as a society, but frustration tolerance is not growing in an era where things are put in front of you right away. And even like in the last few months as I've tried to dive into what AI can do for you, I'm like, oh my God, this is incredibly time-saving and really scary because when I think about my brain and how long I've gone being frustrated and having to push through things, I can't get super comfortable with the idea that all that work could get eliminated.

22:29And I'd say it doesn't look good, right? So to the learning aspect in general, if something feels difficult, that's not a sign you're not learning. But if something feels really easy, it is a sign you're not learning, if it feels really easy. To your point about AI, we're just on the first sort of generation of this research that's coming out about how AI affects cognition, but some of it looks not very good. I mean, there was this MIT study that gave students, they had to write essays on topics and some of them could use chat GPT and some of them had to use only their brains. And then a month later, they were brought back to write essays on the same topics, but now the conditions were reversed where the brain only group could use chat GPT and the chat GPT group had to use their brain.