our kid finally likes doing puzzles i take no credit for this transformation i may have been an active saboteur

i got the 4 year old a puzzle for ages 7+, it's a 3x4 grid of trains he picked the yellow train as the cell to start with, and hunted for half an hour on his own

once dinner was ready, he asked to put his progress back in the box he was frustrated, which is largely the point

puzzles have low-stakes friction of trying and failing, which makes them a decent surface area for practicing willpower frustrated persistence is what leads to knowing you can do hard things

i never liked puzzles really, at least not the kind that comes as cardboard pieces in a box my instinct was to leave the puzzle with assembled blobs intact isn't the whole thing that you leave it out and build it bit by bit?

husband cheerfully disassembled, and threw it all back in the box because the child knows how to do this section now, it'll be confidence building to find and do again

husband was right the next morning, the child excitedly recreated his previous work, expanding significantly past where he left off

the point isn't to be good at fucking puzzles

as the child builds the puzzle, he builds himself