From Eric Barker's https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2019/05/kids-successful/

This Is How To Make Your Kids Successful: 4 Secrets From Research

You want your kids to grow up and be more than just… older. You want them to be successful and fulfilled.

What’s the latest we’ve been hearing? 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, grit, early specialization, tiger moms…

Are you skeptical about any of these? Good, you’ve come to the right place. (Here, take a seat next to me.) Luckily, someone has done the research and has clear answers for us…

The estimable David Epstein, author of the excellent NYT bestseller The Sports Gene, has a new book out that turns a number of these ideas on their head. (And he’s not just a fantastic author – he’s also a new father.)

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World is already one of my “Best Books of 2019.” (It’s so good that I’ll be interviewing David about it, at a live event, on 6/18. If you’re in LA, swing on by.)

Okay, so you want your kids to be successful, happy, and as cool as the other side of the pillow?

Let’s get to it…

1And there’s no doubt — the elites do spend more time on deliberate practice than non-elites. You know it must be true because I have a chart:

Because there’s another athlete’s story you don’t hear as much. This kid didn’t relentlessly focus on one sport. He was skiing, wrestling, swimming, skateboarding, playing basketball, handball, badminton and soccer.

He tried everything and was serious about nothing. It wasn’t until his teens that he started to focus on tennis…But that kid became Roger Federer.

And it turns out that the Roger path is actually much more common than the Tiger path. At young ages, Tiger is the exception, not the rule, among elites:

From Range:

Eventual elites typically devote less time early on to deliberate practice in the activity in which they will eventually become experts. Instead, they undergo what researchers call a “sampling period.” They play a variety of sports, usually in an unstructured or lightly structured environment; they gain a range of physical proficiencies from which they can later draw; they learn about their abilities and proclivities; and only later do they focus in and ramp up technical practice in one area.

Yeah, but that might only be true of sports, right? Nope. Same pattern is evident in music.

From Range:

…the students classified as exceptional by the school came from less musically active families compared to less accomplished students, did not start playing at a younger age, were less likely to have had an instrument in the home at a very young age, had taken fewer lessons prior to entering the school, and had simply practiced less overall before arriving – a lot less.

And what were the best music students like? They “turn out to be those children who distributed their effort more evenly across three instruments.” Again, more Roger, less Tiger.

10,000 hours is good. But they don’t have to happen between ages 0-10. In fact, they shouldn’t. 

2) Real Learning Is Slow And Frustrating

I’ll repeat that: “the problem might be that kids are doing too well in school.”

Good grades are wonderful. But if they’re coming fast and easy, chances are your kid isn’t really learning all that much that they’re really going to retain. The research is clear: to really learn, studying must be hard. They even have a clever name for this: “desirable difficulties.”

From Range:

“Some people argue that part of the reason U.S. students don’t do as well on international measures of high school knowledge is that they’re doing too well in class,” Nate Kornell, a cognitive psychologist at Williams College told me. “What you want is to make it easy to make it hard.” Kornell was explaining the concept of “desirable difficulties,” obstacles that make learning more challenging, slower, and more frustrating in the short term, but better in the long term.

So good performance early can be bad. Sound crazy? Oh, it gets crazier… As a corollary, “great” teachers are often terrible.

How many times did you cram for a test, do fine, but then 24 hours later you couldn’t remember a single thing you studied? Exactly.

That wasn’t early onset dementia. Studies show learning too fast or too easy doesn’t stick. Struggling is essential. In fact, trying hard and being wrong can be better than initially being right.

From Range:

In one of Kornell’s experiments, participants were made to learn pairs of words and later tested on recall. At test time, they did the best with pairs that they learned via practice questions, even if they had gotten the answers on those quizzes wrong. Struggling to retrieve information primes the brain for subsequent learning, even when the retrieval itself is unsuccessful.

Yes, it’s very impressive to have a kid easily getting all A’s. But if you really want your child to grow up to be a top performer, you don’t want your kid to be a prodigy.

3) Too Much Specialization Makes You Narrow

From Range:

…And that is what a rapidly changing, wicked world demands – conceptual reasoning skills that can connect new ideas and work across contexts. Faced with any problem they had not directly experienced before, the remote villagers were completely lost. That is not an option for us. The more constrained and repetitive a challenge, the more likely it will be automated, while great rewards will accrue to those who can take conceptual knowledge from one problem and apply it in an utterly new one.

Kids need to learn a variety of things and how to make connections between them.

From Range:

Modern work demands knowledge transfer: the ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains… Research on thousands of adults in six industrializing nations found that exposure to modern work with self-directed problem solving and nonrepetitive challenges was correlated with being “cognitively flexible.”

4) When You’re Young, Quit May Be Better Than Grit.

Being a bit flaky can be good, especially when you’re young, because it gives you the chance to learn about yourself in different environments. As London Business School professor Herminia Ibarra says, “Be a flirt with your possible selves.” 

Sum Up

Here’s how to make your kids successful:

• Children need a sampling period: Raise your kids like a Roger, not a Tiger.
• Real learning is slow and frustrating: I have deprived you of lasting knowledge by making this easy to read and the guilt is overwhelming.
• Too much specialization can make you narrow: A one-trick pony often becomes a very dumb, boring, unsuccessful horse.
• When you’re young, quit may be better than grit: Skip the youthful mistakes and they become middle-aged mistakes — where they’re a lot more costly.

This post is focused on kids because that’s where this knowledge is most useful. But let me tell you a little secret…

It all applies to you too. Keep sampling. Keep learning. Don’t get narrow. Don’t be afraid to quit something that isn’t working and try something new.

Resist distraction

This! :
https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2016/10/how-to-resist-distraction/

When the prefrontal cortex is taken offline by stress we end up doing things that are immediately pleasurable. Instead of getting overwhelmed, ask yourself, “What’s one little thing that I could do now that would move me toward this goal I’m trying to accomplish?” Taking one small step toward it can make it start to feel more manageable. 

Here’s how to resist distraction and be less reactive:

• Control your context: You can’t react to what’s not there. (phone out of reach)
• Stay calm: Stress makes you dumb. Stress and reacting leads to dumb behavior. (stay calm)
• Think about your goals: Get Stoicism, mindfulness and dopamine on your side.
• Make a deliberate decision: When you do, your brain is better able to resist no-no’s.(SCHEDULE EVERYTHING!)

You don’t have to react and answer that text immediately. You don’t have to react to that delicious smell and eat all the cookies. You can pause, stay calm, think about your goals and decide to do the right thing.
We’re all so afraid of being bored that we run to any distraction that presents itself. But when we truly engage with the world and focus on our goals, we’re never bored.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/carolyn-hax-husbands-abusive-mom-isnt-the-only-one-who-owes-him-an-apology/2019/04/25/9265e2b2-62d9-11e9-9ff2-abc984dc9eec_story.html?utm_term=.3ac1e2079fa1

As a full and fully comprehending partner, you can join him in learning about boundaries: namely, that when properly set and held, they aren’t subject to anyone’s disrespect. You decide what behavior you’ll accept from people, and become unavailable to those who behave otherwise. She gets blamey on the phone? He says, “Sorry to interrupt, but I have to go,” and hangs up. She screams? He screens.

She keeps hurting him? He cuts ties.

95-year-old billionaire Charlie Munger: The secret to a long and happy life is 'so simple' - Munger

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/95-year-old-billionaire-charlie-munger-says-the-secret-to-a-long-and-happy-life-is-so-simple.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain

"You don't have a lot of envy.

"You don't have a lot of resentment.

"You don't overspend your income.

"You stay cheerful in spite of your troubles.

"You deal with reliable people.

"And you do what you're supposed to do.

"And all these simple rules work so well to make your life better. And they're so trite."

His prescription is logical, he says.

"Staying cheerful" is "a wise thing to do," Munger told Quick, adding that in order to do so, you have to let go of negative feelings.

"And can you be cheerful when you're absolutely mired in deep hatred and resentment? Of course you can't. So why would you take it on?" Munger said.

What afantastic post by Eric Barker. I do this a lot, but helps to remember the magic rules.


If I asked you "Do kids have the abilities and self-control of adults?" you would laugh and say, "Of course not." But we often treat kids -- especially during heated moments -- like they have the abilities and self-control of adults. Does not compute.

But it does mean we need to think a little less of parenting as being a prison warden and more like it's about teaching.

Mad Skillz

Start with the assumption that your kid is lacking skills, not the desire to comply. Work from the idea that kids do well if they are able to. If someone does not have the skills to deal with frustration and rationally problem-solve at a particular moment, they simply cannot do the right thing, no matter how much you shout or threaten.


From The Explosive Child:

I encourage you to put aside the conventional wisdom and strategies and consider the alternate view: that your child is already very motivated to do well and that his challenging episodes reflect a developmental delay in the skills of flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem solving. Your energy can be devoted far more productively to collaborating with your child on solutions to the problems. You and your child are going to be allies, not adversaries. Partners, not enemies.

But instead of thinking about the skill that's lacking, we just focus on the bad behavior. If we aim to discover and solve the underlying problem, the behavior goes away on its own.

Help them identify the unsolved problem, teach them the lagging skill, and the awful behavior gets replaced by something that will make them a more effective human -- and stop you from going prematurely gray.

"But I’m The Parent!"

Most times when you see conflict escalate it's because of that logic -- that it's a contest of wills, not skills. If a child is upset, threats just make it worse, and if a kid is not upset, threats are an excellent way to get them upset. You have the skills to control your behavior, they don't.

Nobody's saying you have to cave and give in. But it's not weak to ask questions. To assume that maybe there is a legitimate reason they're struggling, and that it's something you can help them get better at. Being immediately dismissive of someone's feelings is rarely a good idea.

Do you want your child to be an adult who just mindlessly obeys? No. We want them to have better self-control, better problem-solving skills, to consider the feelings of others and to negotiate.

From The Explosive Child:

If a kid is putting his concerns on the table, taking yours into account, and working collaboratively toward a solution that works for both of you—and if therefore the frequency and intensity of challenging episodes are being reduced—then he’s most assuredly being held accountable and taking responsibility for his actions.

We're forgetting that parents don't just need to be enforcers -- they need to be teachers.

Without them, they're not learning a lesson about emotional control or frustration tolerance, they're learning that whoever has more power can unilaterally make the rules. Congrats, you're raising a bully. Start saving bail money and tell him to stop breaking into my car.

There are three steps here and Greene has a Magic Formula for each.

Step 1: Empathy 
So what's the Magic Formula for the Empathy step?

“I’ve noticed that…” + (problem) + “What’s up?”

So you'd say, "I've noticed we've been having some difficulty when it's time to do your homework. What's up?"

Be calm and gentle. This isn't an argument or an interrogation. That said, we do need an answer. And most kids will respond with the dreaded, "I don't know" or silence. That's okay.

Frankly, the kid probably doesn't know. They probably haven't thought that much about it.
Be patient. Ask questions. Encourage them to talk. Get them to clarify. And try to find out why this problem occurs at homework time and not during other moments. Beyond that, the important thing to do is shut your big adult mouth. Do not rush to give your side of things or to solve the problem for them.

Patience. Gently ask questions. Don't judge.

Step 2: Define The Problem 

Okay, they told you their side. And knowing how kids are, they probably didn't think too much about how that affects anyone other than themselves and that’s why they’re in trouble. But that’s okay.

Again, don't jump to solutions just yet. We need to teach them those skills: being considerate of others, problem-solving, etc. And that means we collaborate, not dictate.
The defining step:

“The thing is…” + (communicate your concerns about the problem)

Calm and gentle. Avoid the word "you" because unless it's followed by "are wonderful" it's going to sound like an accusation. Stick to the word "I" and talk about your feelings. This teaches them to think about other people's perspectives.

Step 3: The Invitation 

Now it's time for solutions. And, no, you still don't get to suggest one. Sorry.

Magic Formula?

“I wonder if there’s a way we can...” + (address kid's concern) + "but that still makes sure to" + (address your concern) +“Do you have any ideas?”

This teaches them to take other people's feelings into consideration when problem-solving -- which is a much better lesson than blind obedience to unilateral demands.

Giving them first crack at suggesting the solution doesn't just improve their empathy and problem-solving muscles, it also lets them know you're interested in their ideas. It's a bonding moment. It teaches them, by example, how to collaborate -- as opposed to teaching them "How To Be A Dictator."

This is how you teach them skills that will make them a successful adult. And it doesn't involve lectures that they'll ignore.

The 2 Criteria For Good Solutions

In order to work, any solution has to include two elements:

• It has to be realistic. The kid has to actually be able to follow through.
• It has to be mutually satisfactory. It must solve the concerns of both parties.

So let's start teaching -- but not by lecturing.

Greene's Magic Formula for this one?

"Well, that’s an idea, and I know that idea would address your concern, but I don’t think it would address my concern. Let’s see if we can come up with an idea that will work for both of us."

And let them try again. They're learning to think about others' feelings and make a plan before they behave. And when they come up with something realistic that works for both of you, you're done for now. They'll be more likely to follow through because it's their solution.

You'll know you're making progress when the kid starts following through on their plan without reminders or help. Until then, they might screw up. No problem. Ask them how you can improve the solution so it's more realistic or more mutually satisfying.

Sum Up

Here's how to be a fantastic parent:

• Step 1 - Empathy: “I’ve noticed that…” + (problem) + “What’s up?”
• Step 2 - Define the problem: “The thing is…” + (communicate your concerns about the problem)
• Step 3 - Invitation: “I wonder if there’s a way we can...” + (address kid's concern) + "but that still makes sure to" + (address your concern) + “Do you have any ideas?”
• 
  
• Some might say the adult world is not always such a collaborative place. Your kid may end up in a job with a boss who unilaterally dictates orders, doesn't listen and makes threats.

That is a 100% real possibility. And that is a problem...

Which is why we taught them awesome problem-solving skills, right?

From The Explosive Child:

A (dictator) boss is a problem to be solved. How does your child learn to solve problems? (With the above three steps.) Which skill set is more important for life in the real world: the blind adherence to authority... or identifying and articulating one’s concerns, taking others’ concerns into account, and working toward solutions that are realistic and mutually satisfactory...? If kids are completely dependent on imposition of adult will to do the right thing, then what will they do when adults aren’t around to impose their will?

You're teaching your kid the skills they need to be empathetic and respectful, to problem-solve and negotiate.

When it comes to abilities, we act like kids are our equals. But when it comes to respect, we act like they're inferior to us.

Try reversing that.

my list of must-have resources for bringing up happy and succesul kids

1/12/19
the day care decision
steve biddulph - books
singapore math - intensive math books
spell and write - evan moore
wearing your baby
learning to write
jim trelease - read-aloud handbook
read-aloud revival

https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2019/01/long-awesome-life/

This is how to live a long, awesome life:

• Inconvenience Yourself: Build more movement into your day. Take the stairs, not the escalator. Don’t use the phone, go see a friend. If you want French Press coffee, walk to France.
• Hara Hachi Bu: Eat until you’re 80% full. (The people of Okinawa seem pretty cool and I don’t think they’ll mind if you culturally appropriate this concept for the purposes of death prevention.)
• Plant Slant: More veggies. Nuts are the Infinity Stones of longevity eating, Thanos.
• Downshift: I’m not writing a description for this. I deserve a siesta. Taking it easy will extend my life so I can write more blog posts later.
• Belong: In the Blue Zone of Ikaria, there is no word for “privacy.” Now I do enjoy my privacy — but being so supported and loved that you don’t even bother to create a word for being alone is pretty cool too.
• Don’t Zone Alone: Start a “Blue Man Group” — sans face paint. Surrounding yourself with others who follow some of the Blue Zone ideas will make living longer easier and more fun.

So what’s number 7?

Purpose in life.

Ask yourself, “Why do I wake up in the morning?” If it’s a good reason, you’ll probably have a lot more mornings ahead of you.

https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2018/10/how-to-have-more-energy/
This is how to have more energy:

• Meaning: Do things that benefit others. Effective “job crafting” starts by looking at how much time you dedicate to specific tasks that give you energy each day. When university call center employees who were asking alums for donations got to meet the scholarship students who benefited from their work, productivity, enthusiasm and the amount of money coming in went up dramatically.
• Interaction: Be 80% positive. (I am 99% certain of this.) People consistently said that the most positive times in their lives all had to do with belonging and connecting -- not achieving. When researchers ask people to reconstruct the most positive and negative experiences of their lives, they consistently describe social events as their most influential memories over a lifetime. “In short, it was the moments of connecting to others that touched people’s lives the most.” 

  My team’s research found that people who reported having great interactions throughout the day were nearly four times as likely to have very high well-being.

  
  How can you guarantee that? Make close pals at work. But how do you know if you're really friends with someone at the office?
  
  Ask yourself how much you share your personal problems with each other.
  The telltale sign of a friendship between co-workers was the amount of time they spent talking about topics unrelated to work. Then the next phase, a very close friendship at work, was marked by something less intuitive: sharing problems from one another’s personal and work lives.
• Health: Eat better, move more, sleep long and well. A 2014 study suggests that highly processed foods with added sugar may also contribute to laziness. Even “comfort foods” like baked goods actually have the opposite effect of comfort and are likely to make people more depressed. When people exercised moderately for 20 minutes they felt better... for up to 12 hours. So get to the gym early and you can boost your mood for almost the entire day.
  

  When researchers assigned one group of participants in a study to do 20 minutes of a moderate-intensity workout, they found that the participants had a much better mood immediately following the exercise than a control group who did not exercise. What surprised researchers was how long this increase in mood lasted. Those who exercised continued to feel better throughout the day. Even two, four, eight, and twelve hours later, they were in a better mood than the control group.

  While many concentrated on his findings relevant to 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, the other factor that differentiated top performance was sleep.  

The importance of friendships for only children cannot be overemphasized. 

From Arne Duncan's "How Schools Work":

Our sixth graders are not given any assignments. They are given coloring pages,  scissors, construction paper, and tape. A good day wasn't a day when they mastered fractions, or learned how a bill gets turned into a law. A good day was a day when no one got hurt.
There was no homework. We changed that from the very beginning, giving these kids assignments, to train them everyday after school, putting in long hours to bring the academics up to grade level.

- We found that categories had to slide one slot to the right. The kids who were in "exceeds standards", were actually just meeting the standard.

- we don't need rote knowledge anymore, we have the Internet for that. What we need are kids who can learn anything and continue to be able to learn for the rest of their lives. We need kids who can think, not just recall. We need kids were comfortable solving problems in the group, working together, supporting and challenging each other, and bringing out the best thinking in everyone.

-

https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/05/the-last-damn-thing-youll-ever-need-to-read-a/

Achieving Goals: Everything You Need To Know

Huh? Set goals? Why?

• Setting goals can improve your life. Goal setting is one of the four techniques the military used to increase Navy SEAL passing rates from 25% to 33%.
• Studies have also shown it makes you happier.

How do you set goals?

• Initially, the research says, aim high. Set ambitious goals. (But later on down the road don’t be afraid to settle to be happy.)

• Keeping goals vague sometimes produces higher rates of success but being specific will prevent procrastination.

• Structure your goals so that the focus is to learn and improve, not to outdo someone else. The former helps you grow. The latter can turn you into a jerk.
• 
  
• If you really have no idea what you want, imagine your funeral. In his famous Stanford commencement speech Steve Jobs said: “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” And science agrees with him.

What are the first steps in moving toward your goals?

• Write them down. Writing about goals makes you happier and makes you more likely to follow through with them.
• Sometimes the best way to figure out how to do something is to focus on why you want to do something.

• Grease the wheels for any behavior change by manipulating your context.

• Don’t look at goals like a death march. Putting some time into making them fun is both more enjoyable and more effective.

• Make the first couple milestones easy. Track your accomplishments on a chart. Do anything so that you can see progress because nothing motivates you more than seeing progress.

How do I keep going and not give up?

• Use checklists to make sure you’re accomplishing everything. They work. And depending on your goal sometimes you don’t need a “to-do list”, you need a “not to-do list.”

• Do NOT fantasize about achieving your goal. That’s eating dessert first and saps motivation. Thinking about what you have to do to prepare for a challenge was more likely to lead to success than imagining the victory.

• The secret to avoiding goal-induced stress is more planning. This reduces random factors that can throw a wrench into things and knock you off course.

• You can measure progress by how much you’ve completed or how much you have left to do. Research says you’ll be more motivated if you focus on whichever of those two is smaller.

• Understand the steps to expert performance. Keep in mind the lessons from Daniel Pink’s excellent book on the science of motivation, Drive. Know the techniques the Army uses to instill mental toughness.

What are 5 things that make achieving goals easier?

1. Make a step-by-step plan.
2. Tell other people about your goal.
3. Think about the good things that will happen if you achieve your goal.
4. Record your progress (e.g., in a journal or on a chart).