Parent – I feel like I’m in a bind.
Dr. B – How so?
Parent – Well, my kid leaves a mess everywhere.
Dr. B – So? Where’s the bind?
Parent – I feel like if I make them clean up the mess, I’m stifling their creativity.
Dr. B – And the other side of your bind?
Parent – If I don’t insist on the clean up, I’m raising an entitled, undisciplined, devil-may care, Little Goldilocks …
Dr. B – Wow! Wow! I can tell this bothers you.
Parent – How did you ever guess?
Dr. B – Raised three mess-makers of my own.
Parent – What am I supposed to do?
Dr. B – Well, give me an example of a creative mess you are reluctant to clean up?
Parent – They are always building Lego robots and spaceships and castles.
Dr. B – And?
Parent – And they are never completely done. There’s always some reason they need to remain standing.
Dr. B – With all the spare parts all around?
Parent – I don’t dare go in some rooms barefoot.
Dr. B – So how is disassembling a blow to creativity?
Parent – I thought you said once that the opportunities to revise writing or add to a robot were part of the creative process.
Dr. B – Yeah. I think that’s right.
Parent – So, how does that fit with keeping an orderly house?
Dr. B – Doesn’t sound like the current system is working. At least for you.
Parent – I’m ready to pitch the Lego’s and let them get hooked on video games like every other kid.
Dr. B – Sounds like your kid treats the whole house as a workshop?
Parent – And ‘you know who’ just laughs it off, while making some reference to absent minded professor in the making.
Dr. B – So, ‘you know who’ doesn’t walk barefoot?
Parent – ‘You know who’ deserves a Minute of their own.
Hmmm.
So give me a plan. Isn’t that what I pay you the big bucks to do?
Dr. B – You pay me?
Parent – Well?
Dr. B – Your child can be creative. They can keep their projects alive to tinker with. They just need to work within the limits of the space-time-continuum.
Parent – Huh?
Dr. B – They need to pick up after themselves. Store their projects in a designated space. And know that materials left out of place carry the message, “I don’t want this anymore”.
Parent – Oooh. That’s harsh.
Dr. B – Maybe. It’s kind of a one-time-learning thing.
Parent – Sounds like an ongoing fight sort of thing.
Dr. B – If the rules are clear and consistent …
Parent – And fair … Do I really throw away their Legos?
Dr. B – Most people I know have some system for buying them back.
Parent – That sounds like a mess of its own.
