Thanks to politics, pandemics, technology, and destructive philosophies, our world is being turned upside down. Every day, there’s some crazy new change in how we live our lives or the ideas that govern them. This state of affairs has made a lot of parents very worried. They fear not only for their own future but also those of their children. They wonder how they’ll make it in a society that seems to be buckling at the seams.
Parents, however, shouldn’t fear too much. Adversity is actually what helps to forge character. Children growing up today have an opportunity to overcome the challenges in their path and become more robust human beings in the future.
There have been tough times throughout human history. And in every instance, individuals have used the force of their emotions to achieve the lives that they want.
The role of parents is to prepare their children for the future that’s coming at us all faster and faster. The goal is to create minds that can survive and thrive, no matter what technology comes out or what politicians decide to do.
Here are the specifics:
Problem-Solving
Modern companies want people who are able to solve problems effectively. The jobs of the future won’t be pushing buttons or doing the same task over and over. Instead, they’ll be all the tricky, detailed stuff that machines can’t do (and, arguably, will never be able to do).
Kids, therefore, need to practice solving problems from a young age. Problems can be personal, educational, and even societal. The key point here is that they face them. Without practice dealing with problems, their problem-solving skills won’t improve, and their long-term value will decline.
Problem-solving usually involves finding ways to use existing tools to create a new solution. For instance, let’s say that the child wants to solve a problem like getting people to eat more veggies. Well, it’s a massive challenge that could involve setting up a website, investigating people’s psychology, and writing the latest nutrition science in an interesting way.
Problem-solving requires thinking broadly and laterally. It doesn’t work if the child has a narrow focus.
When encouraging your kids, try to find a problem they care about. You want them to be passionate about solving it. That way, you can tease out their inherent desire and drive to complete the task.
Math problems are okay. But, in the broad scheme of things, they don’t add a huge amount of value to the world around the child. Solving real problems does.
Creativity
Industry leaders are increasingly looking for creative people.
Creativity isn’t what you think it is. It’s not just the ability to come up with new forms, like sculptures and paintings. Instead, it’s the child-like ability to think about things unencumbered by reasons they can’t happen.
That’s fundamentally what children do. Their imaginations run wild because they don’t have a stern voice in their brains telling them something can’t be done.
As adults, we tend to lose this ability. Ideas pop into our heads and then we immediately pile a million reasons on them why they won’t work.
Creativity is about keeping that passion open. Never shut down a child’s ideas just because you don’t think they will work or they sound naive. Nobody thought reusable rockets were realistic, and then Elon Musk did it. Nobody thought palm-sized supercomputers were possible, then Steve Jobs made it happen.
Creativity can’t be taught. But you can leave the door open to blue-sky thinking by changing how you relate to your child. Supporting their imagination and delimiting their experiences are two of the best approaches available.
Curiosity
Children are naturally curious creatures. Evolution didn’t endow us with these massive brains for us not to use them. We want to learn and grow.
But curiosity can eventually get crushed, often because kids’ questions get shut down.
Do you remember that sense of wonder you had as a child about the world? Everything was new and exciting. It was a lot of fun to explore.
But as you got older, that marvelous feeling ebbed, and eventually, you didn’t feel it at all. You were too focused on the stresses of life.
Your goal should be to prevent kids from going down the same psychological road as you. Thriving in the future is going to rely on always asking the next question. Problems are going to be complicated and protracted. And solving them is where the value will lie. Kids need to have a basic sense of curiosity if they’re going to be driven to come up with answers.
The Ability To Work From First Principles
We think we have an idea of what’s possible. But many of us don’t have the intellectual tools to know for certain whether a set of ideas will work.
That’s because we’re not working from first principles. We’re not taking fundamental truths and building on top of them.
When you teach a child a language, you start with the basic building blocks. They learn the importance of letter sounds and how they fit together into words. After that, they get to grips with sentence structure. And eventually, they’re able to write down their ideas.
From a simple starting point comes tremendous complexity and beauty.
The same happens when you use scientific or philosophical first principles. You start with the basic physics or ethics, and then you ask what’s possible to build on that.
First-principles show children the space that they can explore. In many ways, it’s the antidote to cloistered thinking and unleashes creativity. Kids have confidence that they can explore ideas in a particular direction because they conform to what they know is true at a basic level.
Adaptability
Lastly, parents can teach their kids the skills of adaptability – something that they’ll need in the world going forward.
Kids that learn a rigid set of skills won’t be able to thrive or have freedom. Instead, they need to be able to deploy their learning no matter where they go or who they interact with.
