If "Necessity, who is the mother of invention."

Plato, The Republic
Greek author & philosopher in Athens (427 BC - 347 BC)

Then our youth are more likely to invent ways to escape their parents than anything useful.

I was frustrated by a parent today who not only micromanaged his own children's behavior, but my son's. You don't have to be a constructivist to believe that children need a chance to make mistakes.

All too often in our abundant times (yes, even not with economic troubles) we misuse our time and money giving to our children inappropriately, driving necessity from their lives. We waist time instructing our children on the seriousness of doing things properly when it is rarely that serious. We spend far too much on toys and gadgets for them, regardless of the amount of clutter created by their existing collection.

Even as one of seven children, a carpenter's son who at times ate food from the church's food pantry, I often forgot about the large bag of toys that were confiscated for two weeks by my parents due to our lack of desire to clean up. I would only come across the overflowing bag months later as I worked on a project in my dad's basement workshop.

For want of the money too buy another copy, a good friend of mine at the age of 12 learned how to restitch the binding of a gaming book. Over the past few days I have found pleasure and purpose in building upon the spark that his necessity offered me. As I develop my book binding technique into a learn activity for students, I hope to offer the same spark to students.

These are the lessons we should wish for our children. Spend less on toys, instead give to charity's and not to forget to spend time doing charitable work also. While we are at it, we can save a little more and pass on some of the toys and convenience items that we purchase for ourselves. After all, modeling is the best method of teaching. There are some great ideas on how to work on our values as they relate to money and how to communicate those values at http://www.sharesavespend.com .

Give them the time and space to play without adult interruption, trusting them to make their own choices does wonders for self confidence and independence. Then spend time with them as they share their ideas. You will be amazed by what they come up with.

Let them be need, give them the chance to entertain themselves, to explore their world, to discover what they can build...

to find themselves