When the possibility of seeing your enemy triumph is the best motivator of all
Bookworm on Sep 23 2009 at 11:29 am | Filed under: Children
I’m struggling to figure out if there’s a larger message to the true story I’m about to tell, or if it just reflects the virulent sibling rivalry that my children feel towards each other. As my daughter herself said when she realized how successful the new regime is, “We’re not very nice people, are we?”
I believe in chores, but my children don’t. Carrot or stick, nothing motivated. With all their material needs satisfied, working for money had charm for a week or two; and with limits to the punishments I can impose (thanks CPS), I didn’t scare them much with threats, either. That is, nothing motivated them until this past weekend, when I came up with the most fiendishly clever plan evah! Here’s the deal:
Each child is responsible for a specific area, with the child’s daily allowance of fifty cents contingent on that responsibility. My son got the kids’ bathroom; my daughter got the kitchen table and environs. Both spots have been the source of running battles about messy behavior. Significantly, these battles have been between the kids themselves, with each child going ballistic about the other’s toothpaste stains or dirty dishes.
Rather than getting better after this division of labor, the battles intensified: “She’s left her mess all over the bathroom counter so I can’t clean.” “His dirty plates are on the table so I can’t clean.” A work strike seemed imminent. And then — a flash of evil genius struck. Here’s how it goes:
If my son cleans the bathroom, he gets fifty cents. If he is unable to clean the bathroom because of my daughter’s mess, he still gets fifty cents. In other words, her behavior means he gets something for nothing. On the other hand, if my son fails to clean the bathroom, my daughter gets fifty cents. In other words, his behavior means she gets something for nothing. The exact same principles apply to the kitchen, with my daughter receiving payment for doing nothing should my son leave a huge mess behind, while my son gets payment for doing nothing should my daughter fail in her duties.
I have never seen the kids so galvanized. It’s one thing to walk away from their own money, which they’ve been willing to do time and time again. It’s another thing entirely to see money go into an undeserving sibling’s pocket — and to know that it’s entirely your fault that your good-for-nothing brother or sister got unjustly enriched. Considering what a powerful motivator this plan is, you can see why my daughter concluded that she and her brother aren’t very nice people.
As for me, as I said at the start of this post, I’m wondering if there’s a larger lesson to be learned here about human nature, the relationship between citizens and their government, national security, whatever…. As always, I value your input.
And here’s something amazing: I was able to find, on the internet, a video of my children at war.
Related posts:
- The enemy of my enemy is my friend *UPDATED*
- An enemy or not an enemy *UPDATED*
- What I expect to accomplish today
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Ahhh, chores. Work in general. Being a tad on the poorer side, we didn’t pay out allowances, but forced our kids to get jobs when they could, which meant delivering newspapers…which ended up being more work for mom than the kids….but they did learn a few things about money. Especially when, at 16, they got jobs in the Mall, and the first paycheck Julia got, 52 dollars was expropriated by the local tax board…(a local tax they take out of a paycheck once a year, thank you ed rendell.) leaving her a crummy . 87! That was in addition to all the other taxes the gubmint took out. She was weeping in the car at having all her money go in one fell swoop to the taxman, but from that moment, she would never fall sway to the liberal mantra of government as savior. From that moment, she became, in her darkest heart of hearts a rebel.
Cause and Effect Plan. How wonderful that they have a mediator to balance the ‘little’ books.
However in the real world, it’s not always ‘your’ fault nor are there immediate consequences (if ever).
to know that it’s entirely your fault that your good-for-nothing brother or sister got unjustly enriched.
Significantly, these battles have been between the kids themselves, with each child going ballistic about the other’s toothpaste stains or dirty dishes.
As they get older, they’ll start feeling more rebellious when it comes to taking responsibility for other people’s problems or mistakes. That’s the immaturity phase that says it isn’t my problem, so I won’t fix it. Often it translates to not taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes, either, but only if the habit has already been there and been reinforced before.
When a person declares a desire for independence, they’ll want to only take care of their territory and the things that happen on that territory that they did. It bothers them to deal with other people’s encroachment, whether parents or anybody else. It would be anyways, of course, but as they get into their teens, the hormone equation accelerates all conflicts and strifes.
Human beings are territorial and hierarchical. The need for possession and security for the former becomes combined with fighting off competitors on the social ladder in the latter.
It’s another thing entirely to see money go into an undeserving sibling’s pocket
An even more evil and cruel lesson would be to take 25 cents from them every time their sibling earned 50 cents. They’ll understand what ‘spreading the wealth’ means soon afterwards. And they’ll never be able to fully integrate the propaganda and indoctrination that US taxation that benefits all is the same as socialism that benefits only a few.
As they earn more, take out more of their income. This, of course, would motivate people to not care about who gets what, because if they worked, produced, their income would be more and more given over to the non-producer. While this may be simply inconvenient and frustrating for parents, here’s how you can apply it to the children.
Restrict their food intake based upon this progressive taxation scheme. They will see and feel the consequences of socialism within a day. Of course, it’ll be a productive disaster, but a good lesson on capitalism vs socialism, why they aren’t simply the same things here in the US.
Then of course you can add loopholes and catches to the rules so that they have to spend a primary portion of their daily production schedule to ask for what loopholes exist on this day and how to best take advantage of them. Teach them about the IRS there.
It would make sense that they wouldn’t want to clean up somebody else’s mess. They don’t want them to benefit. And it’s a good instinct to have. If you get into the habit of bailing out your sisters or brothers or roommates, they’ll just do more of the same thing (big corporations owned by Democrats).
That is the discentive. The incentive is a bit small, considering the risk analysis that says rewards are proportionate to the risk taken. Meaning when a person takes 50 ounces of risk to go for 500 ounces of reward, that 500 ounces of reward would outweigh 500 ounces of reward had the risk been 0 or even negative.
Because the children have a choice about when they can work and how much money they can earn via this, they can tolerate a mess in the meanwhile or a lack of income. When that income becomes something they need, like food or that which maintains their current daily schedule, then the risks become so great for not working that the rewards of working will increase exponentially as it is not just something they get, money, from the work, but also what they can avoid suffering.
In a socialized environment, people don’t have any risks and their rewards are pretty substandard. Thus they don’t clean up other people’s messes nor do they clean up their own. They would be paid either way, and they do not have the risk of losing that income.
As you continue with your command market, Book, you may also wish to introduce some free market mechanics. Instead of setting a fixed price on things, how about setting up a territory for the kids such that they can collect taxes for services rendered every week or day or so.
Thus if the girl leaves a bunch of trash on the boy’s territory, the boy can charge a price to clean it up, from the girl. Now you are getting into the environment of oral contracts, enforced by the All Powerful, which would be you, Book.
This also means that not only can the kidz earn money or rather prevent unfair people from earning money, but they can get a savings pot that will then allow them to hire other people to clean for them, to do their chores for them. Such favors being traded were always refined and made more efficient once a stable monetary currency came on the market place scene.
As an aside, this kind of feud, in a command economy, is almost always a drain upon net output. For example, if the boy knows that if he leaves a big enough mess in the girl’s territory, that this would increase the incentive for the girl not to clean and thus get the boy some money, then the boy will work actively to make a mess of things: either actively or through simple negligence. The same would apply vice a versa.
This is due to a Top Down economy in which the people at the bottom can always game the system by manipulating human nature and things that the RUles never covered. For example, to stop such things, you would have to ‘regulate’ their actions by putting in a rule that says that the owner of a territory gets paid more the dirtier that territory is. Then people will just find another loophole, another way of benefiting more than the competition.
Instead of people looking out for the best ways to do the job, clean stuff, they are looking for ways to game the system and get more loot than the competition.
Now in the free market dynamic, because you are dealing with individuals to individuals, you don’t have a Command Economy. You have a user driven economy. Thus it becomes self-correcting, in that if one user doesn’t like how the other user does business, they can just save their money and spend it on something else.
And if both parties are worried about what the fairest wage would be, they would naturally either set up the costs before hand or go to arbitration from the judge, which would be you, Book.
Human nature is very fun to play with, as the combinations are infinite.
“We’re not very nice people, are we?”
It’s not about being nice or mean. It’s about acting in your perceived self-interest and not doing things that you don’t want to do. Or rather, it is about how to make people do what they don’t want to do, by making them want to do it.
Parental ju-jitsu. I love it.
You found a plan that worked, which is great!
A friend of mine was having this issue with her son and interestingly, the teacher got involved when reviewing his classroom performance in a meeting with my friend present.
The teacher asked questions about study habits and home habits. She asked him what things did he do for his family?
He said that he was responsible to clean his room (which was not often).
His teacher responded, “Cleaning your room is for you. What do you do for your family?”
Success.
Ymarskar….that was an excellent read. I might just steal it from you. And saveliberty, we had a situation where the irksome middle child went off on a tantrum so fierce and unreasonable that neither spanking nor time out in the crying room did anything to end it….until…I threatened to video tape her tantrum and give it to her teacher. Then she became as meek as a mouse.
Let me clarify, Y, I’d steal the ideas and implement them, you get all the glory, though.
Your outcome sounds like an experiment I read about. The findings were that the subjects would take actions to prevent the other from profiting even when detrimental to themselves. It sounds like you have discovered a real life, functioning family implementation of this human trait. It would be interesting for a follow-up find out if they mature out of this impulse. They always have you to band together against.
Jewel, somebody on the internet did videotape their toddler’s tantrum. Interestingly, the toddler would only scream when he saw the camera/parent.
That’s exactly what liberals do when the TV cameras show up at one of their spontaneous demonstrations.
One of the potencies of the Left, when it comes to convincing the ignorant and the young that they are right and we are wrong, is based upon competition. People like competition and don’t like it at the same time.
We are not solitary hunters, like the great feline hunters, but nor are we hive minds like bees. We have a social structure for cooperation, but we also have societal constructs designed to promote moderate to extreme competition.
Competition taken to the extreme takes the form of total war, in which I eliminate you and your tribe, thus preventing you from competing with me. However, the human hierarchy of power and command needs competition. It doesn’t need victory so much as it needs adversity and struggle. In any human system that is stable enough to be stagnant with respect to competition (monopoly or all powerful dictators) eventually decay. They don’t get better because they don’t have anybody around to make them get better.
Now the Left has convinced the youths that this is the only competition that the Republicans are advocating for. So these youths decry war and competition and talk about cooperation. As if cooperation could get anywhere without the threat of external enemies, i.e. competition.
All of these evolutionary and social constructs were created to make us perform better. It wasn’t made to make us kill, or make us live peacefully, or make us compromise, or make us work as a team. It was made to make us better, through the motivation that competition brings and the teamwork which cooperation brings. There would be no point to cooperation without intense competition, and there would be no competition if you did not cooperate, but just terminated the competitors.
The point of a Constitutional Republic, which is what the US was created to be, a greater union, was to consolidate all forms of competition so that excesses would not develop to the point that people felt the need to take up arms and exterminate their competitors, if only to protect themselves.
The Constitutional Republic shared power, in a peaceful transfer of power, and ensured that people had to compete mightily hard for that power. While we competed with each other for our share of the spoils, we could at the same time band together in cooperation to defend the nation, which included all Americans not just some Americans.
When the Democrat party started introducing socialism into this equation, they started destroying that Constitutional Republic. They created excesses of competition, where people started forcing banks to provide predatory lending to the poor and disenfranchised, at the point of the ACORN extortionist sword, which was funded by the federal government itself.
Now many young people, the educated type rather than the Berkley type, would talk endlessly about Republican hypocrisy and how the US already has socialist elements so it is hypocritical for us to decry socialism when we benefit from socialism. Well, that’s what happens when tools think they are masters and not tools. I’ll get more on this later.
The Democrat party also ramped up cooperation, but not the way most people think. Cooperation amongst humans is based upon perceived mutual interests. A Constitutional Republic would cooperate because all competitors for power would combine together to defeat external enemies. This was their motivation to defend their competitors, because they got a better deal through competition internally than to try to make a deal with unknown foreigners. So what happens when the Demos ramps up cooperation through class warfare, division between the poor and the rich, and internal strife raised by such orgs as ACORN in order to derive monetary benefit? What you get is cooperation through creating ‘internal enemies’. You gathered the gays, the metrosexuals, the academics, the unions, and the x, y, z, and etc together through uniting them against a common enemy. But this ain’t a foreign enemy. This is the REAL ENEMY. The Republican Party. The real enemy. In socialism, the real enemy is almost always internal, not external. That’s one notable difference between socialism and America’s Constitutional Republic.
You see, even though the Democrat party forcibly sterilized a huge percentage of women in Puerto Rico and other areas without their consent (in order to reduce crime and those that were uneducated), the Demos could not change basic human nature. They could not refine human cooperation down to a point where there didn’t have to be a common enemy or devil. So they had to create one, if they wished to form their ‘socialized’ redistribution of wealth amongst their core identity/victim groups and multicultural ideology.
This is the true nature of the enemy of liberty. Don’t let them run circles around you by talking about we benefited from socialism. Don’t let them talk a song about how we’re hypocrites. Don’t let them get started. Don’t let them have a leg to stand on. Break that leg.
I’m wondering when the kids will figure out that, theoretically, if both children boycott their chores on the same night, I have to pay fifty cents to each child.
Heh, that’s when you up the ante and turn it into a classic Prisoners’ Dilemma.
Ymarskar’s covered pretty much all the things you can do to teach economic theory in the guise of household chores. But there are oh so many more tricks you can pull.
What you really are aiming for here is to get your children used to the idea of chores. I used to hate straightening my towel after a shower, but now it’s ingrained habit. I’d go one step further, though. Sit them down and give them a Powerpoint presentation on entropy, and why without regular maintenance things start to fall apart. Pictures of this are a dime a dozen. Then tell them that only their doing chores is keeping this from happening to their living space.
I know that as a guy, my standards are lax, but when the month-old pizza starts to move, almost anyone would get the idea that perhaps preventative cleaning would have been a better idea.
I’ve done the entropy bit, which worked briefly. I’ve done the work for family vs. work for yourself. That also worked briefly. Indeed, all of my innovative, psychologically sound, forward thinking, positive ideas worked briefly. I think it’s tapping into the negative that’s going to work!
And there’s your larger analogy, right? Capitalism works because it harnesses and controls man’s baser instincts. Communism fails because it attributes to man altruistic impulses that are lacking outside of certain constrained units (family, tribe, etc.).
It is not a baser instinct to want to better yourself. Because in pursuing your ends it quickly becomes obvious that you need help. You do not recruit help by promising to make your helpers totally subordinate to you. You do it by persuading them that they, too, will be able to satisfy their “selfish” needs (food, shelter, comfort, affection, some wistful aspiration) if they cast their lots with you.
In communism and socialism, one does not need helpers, only servants. You preach to such servants that they are doing a grand thing, this giving of themselves (under compulsion), and that it will someday amount to heaven on earth for everybody who is not them—their progeny, or their remote descendents, or some far-flung humanity, but just not quite ever themselves.
gkong3 said,
>> I know that as a guy, my standards are lax, but when the month-old pizza starts to move, almost anyone would get the idea that perhaps preventative cleaning would have been a better idea.
I haven’t used the oven in a few weeks. So yesterday I decided to use it to heat some food up.
On opening the oven door, I found two pieces of pizza on a sheet of aluminum foil in there. They weren’t crawling around… but they might simply have been sleeping.
Mike, close the oven door very quietly not to wake them up, then turn on the automatic cleaning sequence . . .
Because I’m easily rattled and annoyed by kid-generated stress, I need to keep it as simple as possible when I try to motivate or discipline my two kids. And ideally, it is best to construct systems that keep me out of being the referee between them. For example, when they can’t settle their own disputes and it escalates to the point where I have to be called in, for something that is utterly immature and unreasonable, I “punish” both of them, refusing to referee. (“Okay, I can’t sort out this nonsense, but you will both now take turns in the computer room, 30 minutes a turn, you first, no arguments. I’m setting the timer.”). When they keep squabbling, I separate them until they almost beg to be let back together and away from me! They grow to hate my officious meddling so much, they learn to work things out between themselves on a lower level, most times. It doesn’t always avoid arguments, but it gets the idea across that they are not to be tattling competitors for Mommy’s favor–that’s not good preparation for admirable adult traits.
Also simple: each of my kids gets a weekly allowance of a few bucks, based on their age ($1 increase each birthday), starting with 50 cents age 5, up to $10 a week age 15, so they learn what money’s about. I do not as a rule interfere with their purchases, and I do not extend credit longer than the time it takes to drive home from a store if they don’t have their money with them. They must pay me back to the penny (they learn to calculate sales tax and percentages). Avid savers can really make big purchases (like used Ipods or video games) and learn how to budget and manage their dough and buy smart. Ambitious kids can earn more money for doing useful things to really help me out (my son was a saver, but not willing to work for more money–so be it). For their allowance I just expect them to keep their rooms picked up, and do a few specific weekly chores (trash takeout) that increase with age. For example, they do ALL the dishes and kitchen cleanup in the summer times (they chose their own scheme of alternate days) when there is no school (this gives them one reason to look forward to going back to school). You have to tailor these things to their ages, of course.
I have never hesitated to dock their allowance as punishment (for gross insubordination, leaving wet towels or scattered clothes on the floor after many warnings, chronically missing the bus and having to be driven to school, etc.). As the kids and I got older I have had to use this less and less. Now I pretty much have to tell them something once or twice and they get it. I should have learned much earlier to say what I mean and mean what I say, just once, and expect them to obey, by following up with firm, smart consequences. That was my mistake, being too wishy-washy-touchy-feely. It really didn’t help them and it certainly didn’t help me.
I have found the key is to find what they value and take it away if their behavior is not acceptable. Computer time, video game time, playdates, ice-cream, favorite TV shows, whatever. Be reasonable, but be creative, firm and consistent. If you waffle in dealing with bad behavior from one time to the next, you undo all the good you’ve achieved. I have cheerfully told my kids I am proud to be the meanest Mom in the county, and now they smile, because they know that means I’m involved, I’m smart, I care, and I love them enough to make sure they grow up right, no matter what the other kids get to do or don’t have to do. They understand nobody wants to do chores, not even adults, but they are a part of life, and the earlier you learn to do them (by much practice) without making a federal case out of it, the easier life gets (and the better people they are for it). In the end they are proud to be contributing their fair share in the family, even when they grumble and drag their feet.
Watching “Supernanny” on TV is always enlightening too, for kids and parents alike!
Good luck, Bookworm. It’s important to get them shipshape before they’re towering over you, lumpish, insupordinate, and rude–or worse. Hang in there!
Get em while they’re young, Book. Follow the Rules For Radical Conservatives For Reform NOW!
And there’s your larger analogy, right? Capitalism works because it harnesses and controls man’s baser instincts. Communism fails because it attributes to man altruistic impulses that are lacking outside of certain constrained units (family, tribe, etc.).
How it controls it, in the details, deserves some degree of consideration.
Capitalism, by allowing people to benefit, as per their survival instinct, won’t ever ask a person to sacrifice his interests for somebody else’s. It won’t ask, even though it can happen through might makes right. But there’s a difference between capitalism, who won’t ask, and communism, who will put a gun to everybody’s head until they agree to do what they are ‘asked’ to do.
Thus the interests, the goal, of the system won’t conflict with the interests and goals of the individual. They synch together, and thus they work together. In communism, it is often the state vs the people, because the interests of both are completely at odds.
Let’s take LGF as one case example. Charles purports to be against fascism or racism or whatever he claims to be against. But look at the way he goes about it. He forces people to go against their interests, in being ‘with’ Charles. So they choose NOT TO BE allied with Charles. Do you see how this works? You stamp on people’s dignity, their self-interests, and their honor for too long and they will rebel. They won’t listen to you anymore. They won’t look for help from you, or look to help you anymore. That’s because the price they have to pay, the sacrifice of their values, their honor, their interests and goals, is too high a price to pay simply to further another man’s scheme of things.
, based on their age ($1 increase each birthday), starting with 50 cents age 5, up to $10 a week age 15, so they learn what money’s about.
Ageism! The Elitist conservative bigotry of higher expectations strikes again upon this once great nation of proletariats.
I never paid my children for chores. They were occupying the same space under the same roof that I was all ready paying for and had no intention of taxing myself. I know that kids detest chores (too busy being kids).
Remember the film, War of the Roses with Michael Douglas and (?). They were in the process of an ugly divorce and the division of property, who gets what and until it spiraled out of control. I certainly didn’t want chores to become a kids version of bickering out of control and allowed them to keep their private spaces (only their bedrooms as disgusting as they wanted – no food allowed in bedrooms). All other spaces were public/shared spaces and if they wanted to use these rooms they had to abide by my rules of cleanliness and order. Failure resulted in most favored privileges being removed, even if a favorite TV show was more than a week away. Removal of ‘cherished’ possessions works as well and can be returned once the ‘removal’ of mess is addressed.
Nothing harder to do than being a consistent parent.
zabrina’s comment before they’re towering over you I made sure once they were taller than I, that they were sitting while I stood over them when I had something to say.
Unbelievable stuff. Wonder if it will cause people to move on…
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/uk-company-fines-employs-for-emissions
Ymarskar, I came here to run away from LGF, which is everywhere in the Blogosphere. Please consider my feelings and don’t bring up his name here?
You know, I’m a Christian. I came to my faith honestly and rationally, in an intellectual manner. Helps that my parents were Christians, of course. But I decided to take Pascal’s wager, you see.
Communists try to point to the early Christians and how they shared whatever they had in common. But if you read on, you’ll notice that immediately there were two things about this; (a) it was a voluntary gesture and the amount you paid into the system was up to you. Most people paid up everything, but some did not. (b) Already there were those who were trying to game it. The part where they got fried by Divine Wrath, of course, is a given.
Capitalism simply posts the rules upfront. Go ahead and try to game the system, but be aware; everyone else is trying to do the same thing, and everyone is capable equally to punish or to reward. Economics really is game theory writ large.