Parenting and family stuff

Parents think they can hand children permanent confidence—like a gift—by praising their brains and talent. It doesn’t work, and in fact has the opposite effect. It makes children doubt themselves as soon as anything is hard or anything goes wrong. If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children t... See more

Prove you can do hard things When a teenager asks why they need to learn calculus, what should you say? You know they will never use it in adulthood, outside of certain career choices. You could say, “It’ll help you get into college,” but then they’re left wondering why… Show more

“The fact is, most of the freedom I had before kids, I never used. I paid for it in loneliness, but I never used it.I had plenty of happy times before I had kids. But if I count up happy moments, not just potential happiness but actual happy moments, there are more after kids than before. Now I practically have it on tap, almost any bedtime.”