Constructive: (adj.) - constructing or tending to construct; helping to improve; promoting further development or advancement.
Destructive: (adj.) - tending to destroy; causing destruction or much damage.
Today we had a vocabulary lesson in the Hacker house starting with the two adjectives listed above. One of my biggest frustrations in raising boys is the amount of destruction they can cause is such a short amount of time. While I am learning and beginning to understand that most everything they are 'destroying' is in an effort to 'construct' something new and wonderful - it is still very frustrating! Not everything they destroy can be glued, taped, stapled, sewed, or nailed back together to properly work again. I have even said on certain occasions that I am not buying anymore toys. It's just not worth it. While we have tried not to spend a small fortune on toys, and typically buy only from consignment stores/sales, we still have spent a pretty penny on their toys.
From an early age when one of the boys have broken something we have told them that if they break something it goes in the trash, and mommy won't buy it again. Word. for. Word. We repeat the same phrase, and now each boy can repeat it themselves.
We have also tried to teach them the 'value' of their toys. If one toy breaks, we take away enough toys that 'resemble' the accurate cost of the broken toy. Ie. A monster truck is worth roughly $4. If they break a $20 toy, they know it's 5 monster trucks gone until they can show respect for their toys once again. This also has worked for Mommies' pretties or fragile things. This method has surprisingly worked well, and they are aware that if they purposefully break things there is a consequence.
On this day, it hit me during my rampage speech on why we don't destroy things, that Nathan may understand the difference between being constructive and destructive. After all, he loves contruction equipment which builds things?! While he understand my verbal definition of it, being a boy, I knew he'd understand the visual and tactile definition much better.
For several weeks I had been stashing my empty food boxes in the closet under the stairs. I am preparing for our first winter indoors, and am already listing out my 'snow day' ideas for fun. One of them is to build and construct with everyday objects. (I also saw a neat idea on teaching what a pendulum is using them). Not letting my idea go to waste, I pulled out the boxes and let them 'construct.' This inevitably led to 'destruction' as well. Lesson. Taught. Now, we'll wait and see if they internalized it.
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