Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids

by Kim John Payne

You’ve heard about how a frog dropped into a pot of boiling water will struggle to get out? Nothing surprising there, but it turns out that if you put a frog in a pot of cold water, and slowly heat it to the boiling point, the frog will remain still, without any signs of struggle. Based on the families I’ve been privileged to work with, the hundreds of parents who’ve shared with me their concerns, and my own experience as a parent, I believe that the pot we’re in today as families is increasingly inhospitable for us all … but especially for our children.

To have moments of calm—creative or restful—is a form of deep sustenance for human beings of all ages. Relationships are often built in these pauses, in the incidental moments, when nothing much is going on.

What finally dawned on me was that the treatment plans I was developing for this group of children were identical to those that I had helped develop in Asia. When I looked at my work objectively, I could see no difference between my methods and goals with these children and those I had while treating the children in Jakarta. What I was at last able to grasp was pretty remarkable. I doubted it for as long as I could, until I was certain: These children, these very typical children from an affluent country of the Western world, were showing the signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

I see parents caught in a stress bath, a sort of “fight or flight” state that is not momentary; it has become the norm. Making do, flying by the seat of our pants, barely seeing one another, always improvising, revolving doors, crazy schedules, unchecked emotions, strangers in the same house.

Whether they are in bins, baskets, trunks, closets, piles, or heaps, the child’s toys are usually our first focus. To the mountain of toys in their bedroom we add the outlying piles from around the house. The accumulated whole is usually a remarkable sight, and not one the parents have fully taken in before.

Similar tactic to The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

We then turn our attention to books, whittling the pile down to one or two of the current favorites. This can truly shock some parents who take pride in their child’s love of reading.

My first reaction to this was "nooo". My second was that it makes good sense to have a small bookshelf of favorites of the moment that is separate from a larger bookshelf.

Too much stuff deprives kids of leisure, and the ability to explore their worlds deeply.

Over the years, as I’ve come to see how a child’s quirks or tendencies can be exacerbated by cumulative stress, I’ve seen how children can slide along on the spectrum from quirk to disorder when they experience high levels of stress. If I had a big chalkboard, I would write it as this formula: q + s = d; or: quirk plus stress equals disorder.

Love this. excess of stress can do bad things to all of us.

“The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.”

No other country prescribes psychoactive medications to children the way we do; Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s Ritalin.

Scary!

Begley describes how neurologists have been astounded by the measurable, replicable effects of meditation practice on the mind and brain. Their brain scan evidence showed that the neural activity of highly trained monks was “off the charts” (in relation to standard measures, and in relation to the neural activity of more novice monks), even when they were not meditating. The areas of the brain where such emotional complexities as maternal love and empathy are believed to be centered (caudate and right insula), and feelings of joy and happiness (left prefrontal cortex), were actually anatomically enlarged, structurally altered by virtue of the monks’ lives and their meditation practices.

Just meditate

Kids are not monks who can meditate for hours a day, but they do the equivalent when they are involved in play, in deep, uninterrupted play.

Deep play

Yet simplification is not just about taking things away. It is about making room, creating space in your life, your intentions, and your heart. With less physical and mental clutter, your attention expands, and your awareness deepens.

I’ve found that the simplest path to real and lasting change is through the imagination. “Nothing happens unless first a dream…” When you create a mental image of your hopes, you chart a course. You create a picture that you can then step into. Like a lasso thrown around a star, your imagination navigates the surest path to your goal.

when a child’s emotional distress is routinely ignored, they will usually, consciously or unconsciously, find other ways to solicit attention. Parental attention is the safest and most convenient, especially when one is displaying all of one’s “nasty bits” (as one four-year-old described a tantrum). But if a child can’t garner attention from their parents, then attention from someone else will do; and if they can’t attract compassionate attention, any form of attention can seem like a worthwhile substitute.

Most children, no matter what their age, can reset their emotional clock given two or three quiet days. One restful, simplified weekend is usually enough to make the difference, to break a soul fever. It affords enough space and grace to loosen an emotional knot.

“When your child seems to deserve affection least, that’s when they need it most.”

The more adamantly a parent tries to convince me that a break would be impossible, the more certain I become that both parent and child need to take a step out of their everyday lives, toward each other.

“If either parent spends more than ten hours a day at work, including travel, then their child will suffer. Fifteen hours a day almost guarantees damage. Emotional problems, addictions, suicidality, depression, poor school performance all are increased by parental absence through the workplace demands made on us. Children are especially vulnerable to the absence of the same-sex parent as themselves.

10 hours means 8am to 6pm is the max.

This profusion of products and playthings is not just a symptom of excess, it can also be a cause of fragmentation and overload. They hadn’t considered how too much stuff leads to a sense of entitlement. Or how too much stuff relates to too many choices, which can relate to a childhood raced through at far “too fast” a pace.

In researching her book Born to Buy, sociologist Juliet Schor found that the average American child receives seventy toys a year.

Not us. Dammit. Ok maybe.

researchers have found that children directly impact more than $286 billion of family purchases annually.4 Marketers have more than taken note, increasing their spending on advertising to children from $100 million in 1983 to more than $16 billion a year now. And it’s working. The average ten-year-old has memorized three hundred to four hundred brands, and research has shown that by the age of two, kids can recognize a specific brand on the store shelves and let you know—with words or the ever-effective point-and-scream—that they want it.5

If you overwhelm a child with stuff—with choices and pseudochoices—before they are ready, they will only know one emotional gesture: “More!”

The value is in the quality not the quantity.

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 discards and some toys to be stored, and the third halving will give you your keepers.

this glut of goods may deprive a child of a genuine creativity builder: the gift of their own boredom.

We explained that some of their toys were in storage and might come out again. But really, we hardly finished saying that when they started playing. They each found something they hadn’t seen for a long time and started playing.”

Boiled frog

the toys you remember are probably from the simpler side of the spectrum.

Kids don’t need many toys to play, or any particular one. What they need most of all is unstructured time.

Imagine the tactile pleasure of a tree stump, and an old-fashioned turning hand drill. For some kids, the pulling and pounding may lead to genuine skills. More likely it will just be time spent happily doing and fixing. Blocks of wood with nails hammered in, basic wooden boats—building things, building a sense of themselves.

the more elaborate the “prop” for pretend play, the less a child flexes their own “imaginary muscles.” A fully detailed princess bed, complete with turrets, drapes, and a drawbridge, can provide a huge initial liftoff for castle fantasies. But with so little left in court to imagine, and so few fantastical choices to make, a child may just hang up her princess robes. She may wander out of the bedroom kingdom in search of a little more space and new people to become.

Children have a deep need for their own special places, humble or grand. The almighty cardboard box speaks to this need, as does a fort made from a table and blankets, or a more free-form version made from rope, cloths, and clothespins.

Social interaction. On a recent visit to a child-care facility I saw a group of children sitting on the floor in a semicircle around a television. The man on the screen was leaping about, singing a song that was designed to get the kids up, kicking and clapping along with him. The poor guy was giving it his all—you had to give him an A for animation and effort. But the children were just sitting, motionless, watching. There is no vitality to a screen.

In a world that increasingly relies on various forms of technology, none of which involve human touch, we find ourselves even further removed from one another.

If your children are older, approaching or in adolescence, family meetings can do what previewing does for younger kids. Sometimes tied to Sunday supper, the meetings take place with everyone hanging out for fifteen or twenty minutes beyond the cleanup of the meal. The previous week is reviewed: What worked? What didn’t work? What were those things we meant to tell one another, before we forgot? The following week is then discussed, with everyone’s plans, and the necessary logistics, rolled out on the table. It may all be quite complicated, but as the pieces come together, what lingers, with the smell of dish soap and the last bite of dessert, is this: We’re in this together.

We make “scarecrows” of our daughters’ outfits for the day by completely “dressing” a hanger, topped with a hat in the winter. This saves time, but also helps propel kids into their day by limiting the opportunities for choice and conflict.

In their consistency, rhythms establish trust. They offer children a sense of order … the joy of anticipation and the security of things to be counted on, every day. Busyness, change, and improvisation will still have keys to your house, but they won’t entirely rule the day. Not when rhythms are honored. Consistency will gain a foothold. And as you consider adding new rhythms to your family life, remember: In addition to consistency, the best daily life rhythms offer connection.

In simplifying schedules, I suggest to parents that they create a visual image of their child in deep, creative play. Very often this image will have something to do with art or nature. When is your child completely focused? When do you and their larger surroundings disappear, as their attention is completely drawn to what they’re doing? This time is not more or less important than leisure and activity; they are all interdependent. I emphasize it, though, because sometimes as parents, by not recognizing it, we haul our children right out of it.

Let your kids be bored. Let them be. Sometimes in my lectures I write up a “prescription” for parents: “Boredom. To be allowed three times a day, preferably before meals.”

What Sarah realized was that these big family holidays were too crazy, too arousing for Emily if they weren’t balanced with some more calming activities. As an only child, living a fairly predictable daily life, it took some getting used to having the house full of people and activity. Rather than adjusting, Emily acted out. With more balance, though, Emily did fine. She felt more in control, and she felt cared for rather than lost amid the hubbub.

Some families can go further, setting aside a half day for a hike every week, or establishing a “no-drive Sunday” of staying home, a symbolic gesture for the family and the environment.

I like this

One mom mentioned that she was so busy, she realized that not only did she need to learn to relax, she needed to model “relaxation” to her kids. “I was modeling competency, and efficiency, but they hardly ever saw me sitting still!” She decided to read for twenty to thirty minutes in the evening, when and where her kids could see. Invariably one of her daughters would grab something to read and sit by her. They now have reading time together three nights a week. No interruptions, no television, completely unplugged reading time together. “I didn’t have this in mind when I started, and I never would have thought I could do it. But now I love this time we have. I really look forward to it.”

Reading time

When a child has time to look forward to something—a camping trip, for example—they bring their imagination to it. They begin to make mental pictures of the trip: what they know camping to be, what they imagine it to be, what they hope might happen, what they plan to make happen.

A third of the value is anticipation

in simplifying your family’s schedule it may be helpful to write a list of things that take time. Things that can’t be rushed, things that deepen over time. (Such a list is ideally written while lying in a hammock, or sitting at the park, while your kids play.) But keep the list open, and keep it close at hand; you’ll be adding to it over time. Your child’s interests, their abilities, their sense of freedom, their sense of humor, and their sense of themselves will be on the list; these take time. The strength of your family’s connectedness also takes time and balance. So start with balanced schedules.

But what strikes me so often now is how our fears and concerns for our children have eclipsed our hopes for them, and our trust. Anxieties are often traded like currency. In the landscape of parenting today, fear has cast a long shadow over trust: trust in our children’s evolving sense of self, in their world, their developmental path … and in our own instincts as parents.

I believe that simplifying a child’s daily life is one of the best ways to restore a sense of balance in parenting. By simplifying their toys and environment, their schedules, and the sense of rhythm and regularity in the home, you allow them the grace to be a child.

“We think that with continued exposure to high intensity, unrealistic action, you’re conditioning the mind to expect that level of input,” Christakis explains. In comparison to the high stimulation that television offers, real life can seem slow, and children can respond to it with boredom and inattentiveness.14

Have you ever wanted to read a book before you saw the film version of it? You chose to imagine what the characters would look like, to conjure a world mentally, as you read, before one was presented to you on the big screen. This internal imaging leads to creative imagination and higher forms of learning.

Always!

In Failure to Connect, psychologist Jane Healy notes that kids who don’t start using computers until adolescence gain competency within months equal to that of children who’ve used them since they were toddlers.20

Facinating

Banishing the television (“Uncle Andy”) while the kids are very young is the most controversial of my recommendations for simplifying screens. I have seen firsthand how remarkably effective it can be in honoring the tremendous growth and creativity of early childhood, as well as its simpler, slower pace. My experience has left me no doubt that for most families, the benefits of this step far outweigh its difficulty.