Hacking Kids - Part 1
eytanlevit.com
Hacking Kids - Part 1
1–10 of 24 posts
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#2I'm a new father (4 weeks). From the pregnancy, to the delivery, to the first smile, to the every morning warmly feeling of having created life with my love one, it is all about love and sincerity. We are already thinking about a second one...
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#3I've got 4 kids, from 14 to 5, and have always treated it as a "grand experiment". We've made some decisions that are a bit "outside the norm" - mostly the choice to home educate. It's been scary, but seeing the results as the oldest enters adulthood is fascinating, awesome, and rewarding.
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#4I'm a new father (4 weeks). From the pregnancy, to the delivery, to the first smile, to the every morning warmly feeling of having created life with my love one, it is all about love and sincerity. We are already thinking about a second one...
Go for Irish twins! :-)
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#5To anyone who is not a parent reading this, please note that not everyone's experience of parenthood is blissful. The first few years of fatherhood were, for me, the unhappiest of my life.
Don't get me wrong - I've always loved my kids, but the physical and emotional demands they put on you, and the relentlessness of those demands, are impossible to understand from the outside. My youngest was almost two before she slept through a full night, and the constant exhaustion had a profound effect on my relationship with my wife, on our sex life, on my health, on my whole outlook on life.
Children are not experiments, they are actual really real people who will live in your house with you for 18 years or more. You will love them, yes, and hopefully they'll love you, but if you think love circumvents everyday practical difficulties then you've never experienced it.
New parents - please PLEASE don't only listen to stories of how amazing parenthood is, or you may get the shock of your life (as I did)
(FWIW my youngest is 4 now, and I'm probably the happiest I've ever been - but who knows what teenage years will bring)
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#6Thanks for sharing!
I'm curious about your experience running your own early stage startup and raising kids at the same time. (I was also inspired after meeting with Joel to start blogging!)
When did you start YouSites, was it before or after having kids? What was the reason behind that decision? As an entrepreneur and a new parent, what experiences have been most rewarding, and what would you have done differently?
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#7To anyone who is not a parent reading this, please note that not everyone's experience of parenthood is blissful. The first few years of fatherhood were, for me, the unhappiest of my life. Don't get me wrong - I've always loved my kids, but the physical and emotional demands they put on you, and the relentlessness of those demands, are impossible to understand from the outside. My youngest was almost two before she s…
Raising kids can definitely fit the definition of "experiment." Their status as real live people isn't mutually exclusive with that.
And yes, infants/toddlers are a serious PITA.
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#8To anyone who is not a parent reading this, please note that not everyone's experience of parenthood is blissful. The first few years of fatherhood were, for me, the unhappiest of my life. Don't get me wrong - I've always loved my kids, but the physical and emotional demands they put on you, and the relentlessness of those demands, are impossible to understand from the outside. My youngest was almost two before she s…
New parents - please PLEASE don't only listen to stories of how amazing parenthood is, or you may get the shock of your life (as I did)
that depends on the way your try to see/address the issues - and I believe also the level of stress parents put in. Of course it hard and has many downsides, but I think as it's shown in the article, depends on the way we see things and think about it can produce better results in our personal lifes as parents.
I'm a new father (my son has ~3m) and I started to educate myself and my wife to the times coming, because there are things we can control (not much, but there are some) in ourselfs because it will impact the children the way we act, and we know there will be different stages that we'll need to discover day after day, and many things we cannot predict, but we can prepare: mentally and logistically.
I believe that the main challenge of educate and learn with our children is rich in the ways the article also describe, but very demanding specially because there are lessons that we know as right ones, but that need to be adapted to the "new reality" due to the generation gap.
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#9Great post! As a father of a 2.7 yo and a 1.3 yo, I agree with your points and would add the following (among others):
- Having kids makes you a better communicator generally. It's easy to get frustrated with kids and adults when they don't do what you say. Having kids makes you realize that you need to look at yourself first. Repetition matters. Consistency matters. Being the best example of what you want them to be matters. Having high expectations and then doing your part in helping them get there matters. And so on. The maturity that comes with these realizations make you so much more effective in other ways as a communicator.
- Having kids makes you INCREDIBLY efficient. After I had kids, I decided to be home by 6.30p every day with my mind cleared and ready for my family. Per Parkinson's law ("work expands to fill the time you give it"), I figured any level of success can be had while meeting that constraint, provided you (and your environment--a big factor) prioritize accordingly. So I've become incredibly efficient. Once I made efficiency a priority, I realize that improving my thinking was a necessary step. Among other things, I started meditating as a way to improve mental clarity and the ability to switch efficiently between tasks. It's had a huge impact on my life in ways beyond what I intended. I now do more things than I did before I had kids and wonder what I did with all the time I had before I had kids!
Re: Hacking Kids - Part 1
#10“it’s better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do”
Isn't that line from Satan, by Orbital?