Peter Gray

And I was observing how the older children would keep the younger children on task.

And they would say things like, hey, stupid, pay attention.

This is not what a typical parent today would say.

But the kids, I think, actually, the little kids, I think, appreciated that because this is genuine coming from an older kid.

This kid is not trying to patronize you in some way.

One way to think about this is the difference between, let's say, Little League baseball, a pickup game of baseball, the way we used to play it when I was a kid.

You know, there'd be a bunch of kids who would show up in the vacant lot and there was never 18 players.

We had to kind of figure out how we're going to make up the sides.

We had to create ground rules.

Anything, you know, hit in the direction of those windows over there, that's an automatic out and so on.

have to pitch soft to little Timmy.

We'd make up all the rules so there'd be fun for everybody and fair for everybody.

This is just the way kids always play.

Little league, you play by the official rules of baseball.

You don't vary them.

You just do it.

And there's adults there making sure you follow those rules.

So when I was a kid, many decades ago, the regular song of parents was, get out of the house.

Get out of the house.

I don't want you around.