A few weekends ago my son played in his first lacrosse tournament.
They played three games… The goal was to learn the sport and have fun.
Lacrosse is one of the few sports I’ve never played. I’d never picked up a stick. Didn’t know the rules. Couldn’t have told you what a cradle was or what equipment he’d need.
The spring season is over now and he won’t have an opportunity to play in the league again until the fall.
So… for the summer, I figured… Why not learn and play with my son?
I didn’t have a stick, so I bought one.
The other day after I picked him up from school we stopped at the lacrosse field and threw the ball around. I dropped it. I had trouble throwing. Trouble scooping it up. We both laughed so hard we had to sit down.
Once we both caught our breath, he said, “Dad, let me show you.”
What’s Inside
THE INSIGHT: Why bedtime stories plant identity, and how the way you live it turns it into belief
PARENT SKILL: Pick one thing to do with them this week. Or get curious about what they already love.
PICKS: A Roman emperor’s notes on the people he watched growing up, James Clear on identity, and one line on character
CHALLENGE: One thing your kid does that you don’t. Let them teach you.
THE INSIGHT
They're watching how you handle it.
I’ve talked about how a bedtime story installs identity. How stories can be used to shape values and build character in children. How stories pass the critical faculty and slip into the unconscious. We’ve discussed how this doesn’t just work at bedtime, but anytime… in the car, while cooking in the kitchen, etc. We discussed the three programming windows. Stories become even more important as kids get past age 7 into the modeling window between ages 8-13, and they keep doing the work into the socialization window.
Now, my son is about to turn 7 and I’ve been thinking about what things will look like while he moves into the modeling window and what I do… and how I do things will shape him.
Your kid is watching you.
When something is new and you're bad at it, they watch what you do. Frustrated, or laugh. Quit, or come back tomorrow. Ask for help, or tough it out. Pick the stick back up next week, or leave it in the garage.
Then they shape a story around it. Not to tell someone else… but to file it away deep inside their unconscious.
That story could be…
When things get hard… Dad gets frustrated… or
When things get hard… Dad gets curious… he fumbles, he makes multiple attempts, he stays calm… and even asks for help. He doesn’t take himself too seriously… and neither should I.
That's the install. Same identity work a story does at bedtime or anywhere else, but this time you’re telling the story with your actions and how you show up.
One session, and he saw all of it. I'm allowed to be bad at things. I can laugh when I mess up. I can take instruction from a six-year-old without skipping a beat or letting my ego get in the way.
He saw it. None of it needed a moral.
Something magical happens when a kid this young teaches their parent. Something gets installed you can't install any other way. I am capable. I have something to give. My parents take me seriously.
You can tell him a bedtime story about a character who learns something new. That works.
Do something with them and learn alongside him, and the story stops being a story. It becomes proof.
That proof turns into a belief… a belief that they carry into adulthood. One that helps shape the life they build.
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK
Pick something. Do it next to them.
If there's something you already know how to do, bring them in for real this week. If you cook, let them measure and pour the actual ingredients, not stir an empty bowl beside you. If you build or fix things around the house, let them turn the screwdriver and hold the level. They need to feel like they're doing it, not standing next to you while you do it.
If there's something they're learning that you've never done, pick up the tool this week. Don't watch from the sidelines. Be in it. They'll see how you handle being bad at it. That's the lesson.
If there's something they're already into that you don't get, get curious about it this week. A game. A sport. A book series. A TV show. You don't have to like it. You have to be interested in why they like it. Ask. Watch them do it. Let them explain. Find what's good. Name what isn't. Help them see both.
Pro tip: If you catch yourself narrating the lesson, stop. The lesson is the doing. As soon as you explain it, you turn it into a lecture they tune out.
PICKS
🎧 Listen: Identity-based Habits by James Clear. Short clip on why identity beats motivation. Useful for parents. More useful when you remember your kid is forming theirs by watching yours.
📚 Read: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Book 1. The whole first chapter is the emperor listing what he learned from each person he watched growing up. Not what they told him. What he absorbed. Worth re-reading once a year.
❤️ Quote: “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10
CHALLENGE
Pick one thing your kid does that you don't know how to do. Sit down with them this week and let them teach you.
Twenty minutes. Take the instruction.
Don't quiz them when you're done. Don't grade the lesson. If you don't get something, ask.
When the twenty minutes is up, thank them and ask when they want to do it again.
STORY STRONG SESSION
If you want to show up alongside your kid on something specific and you don't know where to start, that's what these sessions are for.
Bring one situation. We'll work it out together.
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