Parenting

Mastering a Crucial Skill for Adaptation: Learning How to Learn

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Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It’s shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. Frank Herbert, Dune  An article published by the World Economic Forum says that we are “in the middle of a global reskilling emergency” as AI will automatize some of our …

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Proven Strategies against Procrastination

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Etymologically, procrastination comes from the Latin word procrastinare, meaning “deferred till the morning” or “belonging to tomorrow “. Naturally, there is a better side of postponing work where we can use purposeful delaying of our work as a creative way to let ideas and concepts grow arms and legs. The difference between meaningful task delaying and procrastination is when a tomorrow to accomplish that specific work never quite arrives.  A common opinion is that procrastination is about poor time management skills or that procrastination is related …

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How Parents Can Instil Good Homework Habits in Children

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It’s not some kids are good, and some kids are bad. Some kids have good habits, and some kids have bad habits.   Angela Duckworth  In another article, I wrote about how we can create or break habits by taking advantage of a habit structure: the cue, the craving, the response and the reward. To recap that article, James Clear presents in his influential book Atomic Habits the following laws for habit-building processes:  How to adapt this framework to teach good homework habits to our children? The …

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A Practical Framework to Create and Break Habits

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Habits are behaviours we repeat regularly or automatically. The good side of habits is that they can act as energy savers. We don’t focus on them while performing them. Take, for example, brushing teeth: we have to remind ourselves to be mindful of this action. Change your hand, and suddenly, brushing teeth becomes something novel and no longer a habitual activity. Imagine the mental load of getting ready in the morning if we hadn’t encoded each step of the morning schedule as a habit. …

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Playing Stereotypes: How We Assign Gender Roles to Children

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Note: This article concentrates on male/female gender roles and not on the broad spectrum of gender identity. Gender expectations start before babies are born. It is not unusual for fathers to want a son to play sports together and mothers to want a daughter to doll up. While pregnant, I told a lady in the tram that I am expecting a baby girl. She told me to count myself lucky as daughters are more inclined to keep in touch with family after leaving the nest. …

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Colours and Gender Bias: The History Behind The Pink Versus Blue Debate

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More often than not, marketers rely on a simple concept to create products designed for women, “pink it and shrink it”. This strategy involves taking an everyday product, paint in pink and making it smaller: razors, clothing, earbuds, technical gear, toolsets, notebooks, pens, etc. Then we have the Pink Tax, gender-based price discrimination where identical products are priced differently based on the targeted gender.  Boots had to correct their prices on toiletries and charge men and women equally. A study compared different industries, such as toys, clothing, …

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Letters to my Daughter: Myths and Tips to Strategically Distinguish Between Careers and Passions

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My dear daughter, you are still so incredibly young. But no sooner than I catch my breath for one moment and puff, you will be quickly wondering: what should I do with my life? What job should I pursue? Should I follow my passion? After all, isn’t what they say “choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”?  No, my dear daughter, following your passion is terrible career advice. Focus instead on building rare and valuable …

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How Parents Can Use the Deferred Imitation Skill

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Deferred imitation is an astonishing skill that develops rapidly. A 13-month-old child can remember an event a week after a single exposure. By the time she is almost a year and a half, she can imitate an event four months after a single exposure. John Medina – Brain Rules for Baby Deferred imitation can shed light on how we construct our mental models and long-term memory, by studying how information is perceived, encoded, stored, recalled or retrieved. Through deferred imitation (repeat and practice the actions of others, either immediately or …

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