At work, you wouldn't delegate a task and then hover over your colleague's shoulder criticizing their execution. This micromanagement is disrespectful and inefficient, signaling a failure to truly transfer the entire responsibility for a task, which is key to effective household co-management.
Economist Emily Oster suggests adopting business processes, like sending post-conversation email summaries with bullet points, to handle family logistics efficiently. This seemingly "cold" method prevents administrative tasks from bleeding into and consuming quality time reserved for connection and fun.
To combat a child's fear of failure, parents should actively pursue new skills they are not good at, like an adult learning to wake surf. This public display of struggle and persistence teaches a more powerful lesson than any lecture: it is okay not to be good at something initially, and the value lies in trying again.
Drawing from the CIA's "you-me-same-same" approach to building rapport, parents should expose kids to a wide variety of skills and topics. This creates a broad portfolio of genuine interests, not just for personal enrichment, but as a strategic tool for finding common ground and connecting with people throughout their lives.
Former CIA officers advise teaching kids the "Get Off the X" concept, where 'X' is any dangerous situation. Crucially, children should visualize and mentally prepare their reactions beforehand. This pre-planning helps override the common and dangerous tendency for people to freeze in chaotic, high-stress emergencies.
For big, uncertain choices like schooling, use a formal process: Frame the question, Fact-find without deciding, set a time for a Final decision, and schedule a Follow-up. This structure prevents endless deliberation by acknowledging you can't be 100% certain but can still move forward confidently and revisit the choice later.
Using the Sewol Ferry disaster, where students who obeyed instructions to stay put perished, former CIA officers argue for teaching kids that authority figures can be wrong. In emergencies, critical thinking and trusting one's own gut must supersede the ingrained habit of following orders, as it can be the difference between life and death.