The skills I try to instill in my kids are things like: empathy, self-regulation, effective communication, personal boundaries, autonomous decision making, high-level planning, and the basics of adulting. The biggest one I think is adapting to change, because their world will be even more mercurial than the one we are navigating now.

I’m an expert software developer but have not spent time teaching these skills to my 10 year old son. He can get that from literally a hundred other places, and while I am a decent teacher, I’d rather spend our time together focusing on the things I place value on that I don’t think he is likely to get through other sources. I sometimes feel like a full-time therapist for my 12 year old daughter, what good is another A on her middle school report card when she is doing herself in trying to mold herself to meet others’ expectations? She needs an advocate more than a trade skill.