MAP Strategic Wealth Advisors

Five takeaways:

1. Points, games, adventure: the writer of this article turned to the “gamification” of parenting to incentivize good behavior from his children. Borrowing from fantasy books and video games, he would create quests and have his children compete for “experience points”—or XP— that could be redeemed for rewards.
2. Initially, it worked. The children’s behavior changed for the better. But quickly, the author and his wife began worrying that they were perpetuating– and bringing into the home– the near inescapable onslaught of quantification and competition that shape behaviors (grades, social media likes, performance reviews).
3. The worry is the replacement of sources of motivation. External motivators like XP are like the short-term, high-carb-candy-bar version of motivation. Eventually, there’s a crash– and motivation can wane.
4. Here we encounter self-determination theory that argues that motivation arises when individuals fulfill three basic needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. If these three needs are met, there is no need for an external reward.
5. Additionally, an overreliance on external rewards not only impedes kids from motivating themselves but also could make them feel like their parent’s love is conditional. The kids will begin conflating the reward with their parents’ love. It is better to create an environment where creativity and curiosity drive positive engagement in children.

From Josh Wilbur at The Atlantic:
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

Six takeaways:

1. The tradition of Halloween originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, a Gaelic festival when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
2. Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.
3. The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.
4. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country. When America experienced a wave of European immigration in the second half of the 19th century, new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the Irish Potato Famine, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween across the country.
5. Borrowing from European traditions, Americans dressed up in costumes and went house to house asking for food or money: the advent of “trick-or-treating.” There was a widespread belief among young women that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.
6. Now, one quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween.

From History.com
Read the whole story.

Six takeaways:

1. The public appetite for new clothing has expanded over the past two decades, as clothes have become cheaper, more abundant, and easier than ever to buy. This is largely thanks to the spread of fast fashion and online shopping. So what is the best way to dispose of the old clothes lingering in your closet?
2. Mull notes quickly that there is no perfect, universally accepted solution to this problem, but there are a lot of options: re-sale, charitable donation, consignment stores, donation boxes, and more.
3. Earlier on in American history, the problem of clothing waste was virtually nonexistent. For much of American history, most clothing was made at home and the accumulation of excess material goods was considered tacky.
4. The rise of thrift stores has led to a creation of a secondary clothing market, which made donation/selling of clothing a more accepted and virtuous thing. However, thrift stores are now so popular that they cannot sell all of the clothes they receive, and approximately 80% of thrift store donations wind up in landfill.
5. While donation to charitable organizations also runs the risk of ending up in landfill, it does have the direct benefit of helping the needy.
6. Overall, it makes sense to consider disposal options when considering new clothing purchase. We must remember that “the garment industry has a vested interest in ensuring that the rest of us think of clothing as disposable,” and making sure fashion trends change.

From Amanda Mull at The Atlantic:
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.

Five takeaways:

1. This fascinating article explores evolution in the cultural prominence of restaurants, and status-based restaurant culture– a shift that begins in the 1980s and has been on the rise in the social media age.
2. Mull argues that the restaurant world has been completely shaken by social media, which fuels human competitiveness and materialism. Restaurants become landmarks through social media hype and in many cases begin designing their menus and interiors to cater to the Instagram set. The hype leads to reservations becoming harder and harder to get, which in turn leads to more hype.
3. Restaurants did not always have this place in our culture. Before, restaurants had been viewed as a “side dish” to a night out at the theater or the movies. The 80s made them the “main dish,” as celebrity chefs like Wolfang Puck rode to fame and turned their restaurants into destinations.
4. In the 2000s, writer and television host Anthony Bourdain asserted to the public that restaurants were themselves important cultural hubs, where worlds and cultures could be richly experienced. Restaurants became a part of being a cultured citizen of the world.
5. Mull notes that the result has been a “reservation frenzy” in which people are desperate to get reservations at hot new restaurants. She also notes that this frenzy is less about the food than it is about status: “What matters is putting your butt in the seat that everyone else wanted.’

From Amanda Mull at The Atlantic:
Read the whole story.

Note: At the time of this posting The Atlantic offers five free article views per month.