My son told me about a kid at sports the other day.
Not someone from his school.
A kid he only sees there.
He’d been mean to my son and his friends.
I’d just finished re-reading, or really re-listening (love audio books) to How to Win Friends and Influence People.
So I skipped the lecture and instead...
I told him about a man named Dale Carnegie.
What’s Inside
THE INSIGHT: Why the mean kid shouldn’t get all the attention, and why most kids are waiting for someone to be curious about them.
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK: Tell the story. Then catch them being curious.
PICKS: A psychologist on why we underestimate how much people like us, the 1936 book itself, and a line from a cowboy.
CHALLENGE: One story where the hero gets curious about someone new.
THE INSIGHT
Don’t spend it on the mean kid. Spend it being curious about everyone else.
Last week was the bridge, connecting the thing your kid shrugs at to the thing they already love.
This week it’s people.
When my son told me about that kid, I could feel the usual script coming. What to say back. How to stand up for himself. Whether I should talk to the coach.
Instead I told him a story.
Dale Carnegie grew up on a farm in Missouri. He spent his life teaching grown-ups how to get along with people, and in 1936 he wrote it all down.
Remember the books upstairs from last week? I told my son that whenever someone solved a problem, they put it in a book.
This is one of those books. Getting along with people is a problem every kid runs into, and Carnegie wrote down what he’d learned.
People are still reading that book today.
And the first thing he tells you about people is simple. Be interested in them.
His words: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
Then I told my son what I’d do with a kid like that. Walk away. Let him be. And spend that energy getting curious about everyone else. Ask them questions. Be the one who’s interested first.
A mean kid can take up a whole afternoon. Kids replay it, retell it, plan what they’ll say next time. That’s a lot of attention going to the one person who hasn’t earned it.
And turning it around works better than it sounds.
Researchers at Duke paired up 241 kids between 4 and 11 who’d never met. They built a tower together for five minutes. Then each kid said how much they liked their partner, and guessed how much their partner liked them.
Starting around age five, kids guessed low. They liked their partner more than they thought their partner liked them. And the gap got bigger as they got older.
Grown-ups do the same thing. Psychologists call it the liking gap.
So picture a team, a classroom, a playground. Most of the kids are quietly waiting to find out if they’re liked before they risk liking anyone back.
A curious kid doesn’t wait. They ask the kid next to them about their team, their dog, their weekend. And most of those kids were hoping someone would.
That interest tends to come back around. In a 1986 study, Rebecca Curtis and Kim Miller told adults that the person they were about to talk with liked them. Those people opened up more, disagreed less, and were warmer. And the other person ended up liking them more.
The belief came first. The warmth followed. The liking followed that.
That’s the part a story can reach. You can’t hand your kid a friend. You can offer them a belief to carry in: most people are probably glad to see me. A kid who carries that is free to be curious. A kid who doesn’t tends to stay guarded. It’s the same thing we talked about in Our Stories. The story we tell ourselves about people shapes how we walk up to them.
Carnegie wrote his book for adults who had to learn this the hard way.
Our kids can grow up with it.
That kid at sports might stay mean. That part isn’t up to my son.
Where he puts his attention is.
And there’s a whole team of kids waiting for someone to be curious about them.
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK
Tell the story. Then catch them being curious.
Tell a story where someone gets curious about someone new. Carnegie works. So does your own. The first friend you made at a new school, and who asked the first question. Give it a character, the moment they had to choose, what they did, and what happened next. Keep it short.
Leave the lesson out. Skip the “So you should be nice to people.” Let them get there. It sticks better when it’s theirs.
Catch them doing it. When your kid asks someone a real question, or waves first, or saves someone a seat, name it. “You asked him about his team. That’s what Carnegie meant.” A kid who hears it about themselves starts to live up to it.
When someone’s mean, give them somewhere else to put it. It isn’t your kid’s job to win over every kid. Walking away and turning their curiosity toward someone else is a real option, and it keeps the mean kid from running their whole afternoon. One thing to be aware of: if it keeps happening, or it goes past mean, that’s a grown-up’s job. Walking away is for the passing stuff.
How you tell it changes with age.
With little kids, keep it close. A story about a bunny who asks the new kid at the playground what game they like.
From about eight, they’ll hear a lesson coming. Make it about someone else, not about them. Carnegie is perfect for this. So is a grandparent, or an athlete they look up to.
With teenagers, say less. Leave the book where they’ll find it.
Pro tip: Be curious first yourself. At pickup, on the sidelines, with the new family on the street. Ask the other parent a real question. Your kid is watching who you get curious about, and whether you wait for them to go first.
PICKS
🎧 Listen: How Others See You - Hidden Brain with Erica Boothby, a psychologist at Wharton who helped name the liking gap. Why most of us underestimate how much people like us, and what that costs.
📚 Read: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie - The book from this week. Written in 1936 and still one of the plainest guides to getting along with people. Read the first chapter of Part Two, then tell your kid about it.
❤️ Quote: “I never met a man I didn’t like.” - commonly attributed to Will Rogers
CHALLENGE
This week, tell your kid one story where the hero gets curious about someone new.
Then watch for the moment they do it themselves.
Reply and tell me what you saw.
PAST NEWSLETTERS
September 18: The Replay Question: Let Them Say It Before You Do