if your kid doesn't want to do something, don't force it on them. I'm not talking about the things everyone needs to do like brushing ones teeth or getting an education. I mean, don't sign them up for a baseball team if they show no interest in baseball. Don't force them to hang out with the neighbor kids if they don't like the neighbor kids. Don't force them to wear their hair they way you think they should, etc.
let them make their own choices (within reason, ofc) and teach them that they have their own agency. if you do or don't want them to do a thing, explain why, have a dialogue ("no back talk" is bullshit, sometimes your kids have a good point an you're being an asshole) and listen to them.
I appreciate the advice, but that's what I've got already. It works well, but I was hoping to make a significant upgrade and move away from spinning disks and such.
This is interesting and I will be saving it to read in depth later but I just wanted to ask: Is "Selective Confinement" a synonym for "Split Tunneling"? I ask because it is a new term for me.
I hear the phrase "locker room talk" and I think of middle school and high school locker rooms, where a bunch of pubescent boys with raging hormones and undeveloped prefrontal cortices try to impress one another or otherwise fit in socially.
Most grow out of this, I think. But then, like you, I don't hang out in locker rooms anymore, as I am not forced to.
Lol the last time I bought cat toys it was just a giant bag of plastic springs that they absolutely love. That was two years ago and they still play with them. Beyond that, they get boxes, paper bags, a length of paracord, and the occasional stick from the yard and they seem so happy with those things.
I agree that you don't need to spend much of anything to enrich these little fuzzballs.
Ginja