Why More Parents Need to Say ‘No’ to Their Children

Annie Holmquist | May 18, 2017

When I was around 5 years old, a neighbor friend of mine had a huge, Victorian dollhouse. She never seemed all that interested in it, but I thought it was beautiful. So much so, that in the years following, I would often look longingly at similar dollhouse kits at the local craft store.

Alas, the family budget was slim, so my parents never had the opportunity to provide the Victorian dollhouse of my dreams, although they would have loved to do so.

In retrospect, however, this deprivation was a positive thing, for my sister and I created our own. We pulled books from shelves to make rooms, created doll beds with cassette tapes, made miniature bedspreads from ragbag scraps, and formed appetizing, doll-sized meals from modeling clay. True fun, I discovered, came not in having my wants fulfilled, but in putting my imagination and creative skills to fill any deficit I had in “stuff.”

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-more-parents-need-say-no-their-children