Somewhere right now, a perfectly happy three-year-old is being tricked.

She is given countless hours of TV time, a Wii, a toy robot that talks to her, and light up shoes; and life is fine. The addiction doesn’t come until those things are taken away from her, they go out of style, or are no longer fun to play with.

Once this happens, a void is created in her soul. She was tricked into believing that those things were her source of happiness, and now she needs them back again in order to feel better.

She sees a commercial for a new toy on TV and thinks that it will fill the void in her chest. Once she gets that toy, she is once again at equilibrium. A few weeks later the toy gets old, and she is back to the incomplete feeling she felt before. It’s an empty feeling of worthlessness—the same way a smoker would feel without his cigarette.

How to counteract this situation? Do the exact opposite of consume: create and experience.

What I believe is that toys get boring. After the initial high from getting it, it’s just a piece of plastic that you play with a for a bit until you want to become stimulated again. Instead, provide opportunities for potential passions and experiences.

What’s cooler? Getting rock guitar lessons with a professional guitarist, or playing Rock Band on the Wii?

Companies trick us into thinking that “more is better.” They tell us, “The more gifts you give, the better a person you are.” Say for instance your budget for your two children this holiday season is $800. You can sure buy a lot of dinky toys! You can also buy a bunch of video games, and an iPod Touch! But what if you took each $400 and spent it on one amazing experience for each child? Or maybe a few experiences?

Focus on the experiences being less about being a spectator, and more hands-on. For ideas, consult daily deal sites. I compiled some deals currently going on right now in New York City. Check this out:

12 Weeks of Fashion Art Classes for Kids
http://www.livingsocial.com/cities/3-nyc-midtown/deals/135513-12-weeks-of-kids-fashion-art-classes

Four Music Classes for Kids at The Early Ear Music Program
http://www.livingsocial.com/cities/865/deals/180970-four-music-classes

Eight-Week Children’s Italian Language Course
http://www.livingsocial.com/cities/865-nyc-upper-west-side/deals/159499-eight-week-children-s-italian-language-course

Feel free to get more creative, this is just a launchpad for the possibilities. (Leave some ideas in the comments for other parents to get inspiration from.)

Instead of concentrating on what toy to get your kid this Christmas, concentrate on what activity you think would excite him the most. Toys are a quick and dirty way to a fleeting happiness. Life is most rewarding when you are making something new by means of an activity instead of just being the spectator to one. The “toy” should be something that enables him to pursue a passion. If the activity is learning to rock climb, get him a harness with some climbing shoes. If you want him to become a songwriter, get him a guitar and two months worth of lessons. How about an actor or director? Get different costumes for him to wear along with a video camera.

Now, tell me that a DSi trumps acting lessons.

But without a goal, there is no purpose. The excitement of a new activity fizzles out from a lack of ambition to progress; there always must be something to work towards. Write down a clearly defined goal for each activity your kid partakes in. Put them up on a poster board in the common area of the house, and check them off as they are completed.

If it’s to become a musician, then he must write an entire song; words, chords, and melody. If an actor, then the goal should be to record a movie for the whole family to watch. Include a deadline for each goal to prevent laziness and procrastination. Sometimes it is better to set an incredibly short deadline than to spend too long trying to make something perfect; it keeps things moving and forces your kid to stay on his toes. The great thing about setting deadlines and goals is that your child won’t jump from hobby to hobby, sucking the life out of each activity as if it were a toy to be “played with” rather than something to breathe life into.

But be aware, the passion for mastering something lies in the process, not the completion. Treat each success as a secondary prize to the main purpose, which is enjoying the “doing” rather than “getting.”

Have I changed your mind on what it means to give presents this Christmas/Hanukkah? Let me know in the comments!

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But the serious thing is, the more you seclude yourself, the more you avoid strangers, the easier it is for cruddy people to hide within a community. My theory is that cruddy people purposely stick themselves into towns where nobody knows each other, because they fit right in. They are attracted to the ‘antisocial’ towns, because that reminds them most of their sociopathic selves. But what’s just as bad as this, secluding yourself and avoiding strangers just inevitably revitalizes the cycle and injects fear into the heart of your little one. It’s more likely he or she will turn into a little agoraphobic himself.

Remember in the olden days? Everyone knew each other in their neighborhood, kids played on the front lawn together, waved “howdy doo!” to the people passing by. “Hi, Mr. Garfield! Thanks for taking out our garbage while we were away!”

Mr. Garfield was part of the community, everyone knew him. You knew him, you knew he lost his wife from cancer, and that his son is in college. And you know that he picks up his mail every Sunday at the crack of dawn. You know his favorite restaurant is The Savoy Tannery because he tells you about it every morning before he goes to work. And he knows about your family too.

There’s a bond built in your neighborhood, and if anything wrong happened to your kids back then, Mr. Garfield would be there in a flash, because your family and him are connected.

If someone moves in on your block, don’t just knock on the door and say hello. Bring over Sally from next door, and Mr. Garfield, and the Kracken boys, and bring a basket of strawberries from the farmer’s market as a welcome gift. Ask the new neighbor questions: where he comes from, what he does, anything that a friend would know about a friend.

When you build this sense of community in your neighborhood, in your town, everyone backs up everyone. The bad people either show their faces or flee to the next town that will let them hide in the crowd. In a town where nobody knows nobody, the bully thrives, able to single out and pick on the weak when there’s no one watching.

But a town where everyone is friends (or at least acquaintances) with everyone, bullies can’t survive. They need to pick on the weak, and know that strength is in numbers. So they either convert to be a part of the group, or they get out.

How are you going to treat the people in your community? Like strangers, or like family? The choice you make will inevitably effect the way your child interacts with the world as she grows into an adult.

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Bob: It’s all about exposure. We takes the kids to flea markets and art galleries all the time. We do a lot of creative things, and they’re always with us. Some kids get it, some kids don’t. But as a parent, you expose your kid to everything and then they gotta figure it out, for them, what they want for themselves.

Living in NYC is such a creative place, but if you didn’t live in New York, everyone has museums, everyone has Flea Markets, everyone has tons of things that they can take their kids to that they enjoy.

Anthony: Good. Another thing that I notice that you and Cortney do that I teach, I teach parents to treat their children less like babies and more like human beings, or even to say adults. What are some ways that you demonstrate this towards your own children?

Bob: You have to treat them with respect, you have to give them responsibility, and you have to let them fail.  I’m a middle class kid. Most successful Manhattanites that I’ve met in private schools, all of them were middle class kids.  Very few people were born upper class. They were scrappy, their drive was through education and hard work. So what I see is, when they have all this success, they take that away from the kid, and they forgot that’s how they got there.

We have a saying, “Keep them humble, and keep them hungry.” And we don’t spoil the kids, and we also want them to have desire. And that’s a real key, because you got to have a want in the world to get a result.

Anthony: And that brings me to another question. In the house on the show, I don’t see many normal toys in the house. I’m wondering, what’s your stance on that?

Bob: We’re about books and sports. And certainly they have one or two toys, but it’s kind of like the Channukah or Christmas celebration, a kid gets 500 presents and he plays with one right? So get the cool quality building kind of games or legos, or something where they’re creatively using their mind. One reason is the design standpoint, we hate clutter; but the second point is they don’t need all that stuff. And they appreciate it that much more what they do have.

Anthony: How have you done it differently with your kids compared to what you see everyone else doing?

Bob: To give you an example, Wolfie, he’s 12 was ranked one of the top ten basketball players in the country for his age group. And since he was six, I had him playing in Harlem in the Bronx. And he plays with tough inner city kids, I took him away from the white rich kids in downtown Manhattan. For a basketball reason I knew if he had a big future, he had to go where the talent was. But it’s also the mental toughness of it. Interesting article by Pete Carril, who’s the coach at Princeton, and he said, “It’s not a black/white thing, it’s the way you raise a kid.” And he says, “You look at a rich black kid that grows up in the suburbs, he doesn’t play like they play in Camden or the Bronx,” it’s just that simple.

You have to give that kid the toughness, let them fail. I think as adults, we’re scared to fail. On the creative side, a guy works on a screen play for ten years, and he never puts it out. Just do it!  With the houses, we’ve done thirteen houses. Some are better than others.  Finish it, some people are gonna hate them, some people are gonna love them. Go to the next one.

So I think parents are so scared of their kids failing. And they try to micromanage everything: where they go to kindergarten, where they do this, where are they gonna go here. Because they’re scared, but have the confidence that the kid’s bright and that they’re going to work hard. Because the hard work and the desire is going to take you further than the Harvard degree.

Anthony: I like how you mention, “Allow your kids to fail,” because that’s a good point. I notice a lot of parents that are scared of letting their kids fail. They’re scared of letting them lose once in a while. And I feel it’s an important thing to do. It makes them more real, it makes them want to work harder, and it makes them realize that when they get older, they are inevitably going to fail at things.

Bob: That’s what life’s all about. Exactly, and mommy and daddy aren’t gonna be there. And the private school’s aren’t gonna be there. And it really depends on how tough you are, and how much you want something.

But it’s interesting, even with the inner city kids, they all have handheld devices and $500 phones. Wolfie doesn’t have a phone or a handheld device. They’re more spoiled than he is haha. So you don’t need all the hardware.

And each kid’s different, Wolfie’s a phenomenal athlete, some of the other kids don’t even like sports. So we don’t push sports on them, but you have to be physically fit. Kids in Manhattan, or in big cities, to parents, education is so important. And they say, “We don’t care about sports,” maybe because your kid’s not so good. But kids should be physically fit. You look at obesity in children in America, it’s an unbelievable disease. And a lot has to do with the diet, the starches, and the McDonald’s; but it’s also about lack of exercise, kids are averaging six or seven hours of video games, they’re not getting outside. We were kids, remember we had that Presidential physical fitness. Listen, not everyone has to be an athlete, but at ten or eleven, you should be in relatively decent shape. Be able to walk a mile, or do twenty sit-ups, or whatever the minimal standard is. And there’s sports other than basketball and football. There’s cross country, fencing, squash, swimming. And all these Gen-X sports are amazing, because they take the competitive edge away, so kids can enjoy it more. But you got to have the kid physically fit.

Anthony: Yeah, I definitely agree. That’s a big thing. I notice more of that in suburbs, because kids are being driven around all day. Whereas in the city like New York, they’re walking a lot more, they’re taking subways, they’re moving around a lot.

Bob: It’s totally different, you leave Manhattan and it’s crazy. We were somewhere recently and I was shocked by the obesity and the diet of the kids.

Anthony: We talked about Wolfgang. Now, I also noticed Breaker. He’s in another realm. I notice he has the creative side. How did you bring that about in him?

Bob: He’s always been the one kid that loves hanging out with me when I design stuff, and he’s also a great athlete, but he’s not a competitive kid. He’s a sweet kid, and doesn’t like the competitive spirit. For instance, he’s taking break dancing now, and drums, and he loves that kind of stuff.  And he’s just had rhythm as a young kid, so you know you could see a kid move, rave to a beat when a song came on. And he loves to dance, and that was more his thing. I can’t take credit for it, Cortney’s the dancer, I’m a tall skinny guy that doesn’t move so good. So he just seems to like it and we do a lot of art with the kids, but I think with Breaker, he just likes hanging out with us.  I’ll say, “Hey, who wants to go to the Flea Market,” and he’ll say, “I wanna go!” So it was always that kind of thing. You can’t make him do it, but I think with him he just got it.  He sees things, even from having exposure on the show. Seeing how a TV show was made, he loved it. He’s funny too, because we shot a commercial for Shrek yesterday.  When he’s not on camera, he’s funny and cool, but more a little shy, but when the lights hit, he just lights up. You don’t have to prod him or coach him. He’s just into it.

Anthony: I think I noticed that in the last episode, during the Baptism, which was an amazing episode by the way. And I want to congratulate you on your seventh baby.

Bob: Thank you so much. That was probably one of our favorite scenes of the whole year. We’ve gotten very lucky with the production, being able to do the black and white, the 16mm stuff; you’re not going to see that on Bravo too much. It’s pretty cool.
Anyway, so the whole world’s changed. We’re still rewarding kids for Algebra and Calculus, and not rewarding kids for technology, art, and design. But those are the real fields that are important now, but the education system hasn’t changed. We’re sending our kids to private school in downtown. The kids are taking the recorder, I did the recorder when I was in public school thirty years ago. I mean c’mon, you need something cooler than the recorder. But it’s like the education system really hasn’t changed. Most people really don’t need algebra, but they’re teaching all the wrong curriculums, I think. And each kid’s different, thank goodness we have doctors and biologists and biotechnicians, but certain kids that aren’t into that should be rewarded for what they’re good at. And that’s what we try to do with our kids, we try to help them figure it out. We help them get there, and then nudge them where they need to be nudged.

Anthony: That’s a great point. I have ADHD, I have it pretty bad. And it was hard in school, because a lot of the things I was good at were not in my public school.

Bob: I was similar, I think I might add. I was similar to you.
(laughing)

Anthony: I see you have one of those good cameras, you look like a good photographer, you have the art side, I have a very big music side. I’m obsessed with music, I love writing music.  Creating things.  Where’s the classes on harnessing children’s creativity in schools?  I don’t see that.

Bob: No. And I was a great salesman. How many people do you know are salesman, why aren’t there sales classes? There are history classes, but what the hell are you going to do with history?

(laughing)

Here’s another tip I do. We try to take our kids and put them in uncomfortable situations. Wolfie’s team’s all inner city kids, there’s this basketball benefit which you’ll see [on an upcoming episode] it’s an unbelievable scene. And I made them all wear coat and tie, and get up and speak in front of two hundred people.  And they did it, parents cried, they were so proud.  And it was a huge deal to them. Take them out of their comfort zone. No kid unless you’re a breaker wants to get in front of two hundred people and do a speech. They’re nervous, everyone’s nervous, adults get nervous. But it’s like anything, you do it once or twice, and the fear goes away.

Bob Novogratz “Home by Novogratz” Interview

Check Bob and the rest of his family out (Home by Novogratz) on HGTV every Saturday night at 10/9c.

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