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7 smart habits
Kids, amirite? We want the best for them.
I’ve been on a years-long mission to collect as much science-based advice as possible regarding how to raise successful kids. Here are seven of the most interesting and useful strategies I’ve found and highlighted.
1. Make sure they get enough sleep.
Researchers at the University of Maryland studied 8,300 children aged 9 to 10, focusing on how much sleep they got and what it meant for their success years later.
Kids who slept less than nine hours per night had less grey matter in areas of the brain responsible for attention, memory, and inhibition control. These differences persisted after two years, a concerning finding that suggests long term harm.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that children aged 6 to 12 sleep 9 to 12 hours per night.
2. Fight for later school start times.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a start time no earlier than 8:30 a.m. for middle and high schools. But about 85 percent of American public high schools start earlier than that.
“In those first early morning hours … children are just essentially half-asleep,” Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience at UC Berkeley, told NPR.
A 2014 study suggested that later start times could result in up to a 70 percent reduction in teen car accidents.
3. Let them see you struggle.
MIT researchers found that 15-month-olds who watched adults struggle to accomplish tasks before succeeding were consistently willing to try longer to solve their own problems.
“There’s some pressure on parents to make everything look easy,” MIT’s Laura Schulz said. “But this does at least suggest that it may not be a bad thing to show your children that you are working hard to achieve your goals.”
4. Read with them, not just to them.
Reading to your children is “the bare minimum,” according to neuroscientist Erin Clabough. Instead: Read with your kids, not just to them.
Interrupt the story to encourage your children to put themselves into the minds of the characters. “What would you do, if you were the baby bird?”
Even for books you’ve read 216 times, your child can imagine different decisions the character could make.
5. Cultivate awe.
A University of Rochester study of almost 900 parents found that experiencing awe regarding their children was correlated with profound effects on parents’ well-being.
“Awe can actually strengthen parental well-being more broadly and holistically, compared to pride, making parents lives feel happier, more meaningful, and richer in experiences,” researcher Princeton Chee said.
6. Give them agency and independence.
Three professors reviewed hundreds of studies for a report in the Journal of Pediatrics and found that over-structuring children’s time and curtailing their freedom to engage in adventurous play is one of the factors leading to the mental health crisis.
Caveat: Being the only parent who sends your kids to walk to school might be a good way to get a visit from social services. Better to make these changes on a societal level first.
7. Praise their effort, not their gifts.
Stanford’s Carol Dweck gave 11-year-olds a test and praised some for their intelligence, others for their effort.
Praising intelligence put kids into a fixed mindset. Praising effort pushed them into a growth mindset.
“The most astonishing thing to us was that praising intelligence turned kids off to learning,” Dweck said.
Instead of praising a child for solving a puzzle, Dweck suggests saying, “I’m sorry I wasted your time. Let’s do something hard—something you can learn from.”
The bottom line
I’m drawn to these studies because they suggest that small choices now can have ridiculously outsize effects on our children’s futures. Honestly, most of them aren’t that hard to implement.
Get them to bed on time. Let them see you fail. Praise the effort, not the outcome.
These aren’t earth-shattering revelations. But, now you can point to sciece that says they work.
Isn’t that easier than “because I said so?”
7 other things
The U.S. Navy will build “Trump-class” new-age battleships, President Trump announced. The naming convention bucks tradition, but it’s actually fairly similar to the Air Force’s earlier announcement of “F-47” fighter jets (Trump being both the 45th and 47th president). (Axios)
CBS News pulled a “60 Minutes” report about the Trump administration sending detainees to a maximum security “mega prison” in El Salvador just hours before its scheduled broadcast Sunday. Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi accused the network of pulling the segment for “political” reasons, according to a private note she sent to CBS colleagues. The full video leaked quickly in any event. (NBC News, BlueSky)
The Department of Justice removed but later restored a document from the online Jeffrey Epstein files that contained images showing President Trump. Overall, the DOJ on Friday a fraction of documents and images from the Epstein case, even though a new law mandated that all Justice Department files related to him and Maxwell be released by that date. (CNBC)
Boys at her school shared AI-generated, nude images of her. After a fight, she was the one expelled. (Yahoo News)
Can Americans learn to love tiny, cheap Japanese kei cars? (NPR)
52 good news stories you may have missed in 2025. (The Times)
Pop culture in 2025: A ring for Taylor, an ill-timed KissCam ... and whatever ‘6-7’ means. (AP)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Tadeas P on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this at Inc.com. See you in the comments!
Funny how what the “experts” say about raising kids is the way I was raised. And how I raised mine. My mother in law was aghast that I would let my kids roam the children’s rides area at the Calgary Stampede, but I knew it was good for them. They were encouraged to be independent and it has served them well. And they are both avid readers.
How sad for that girl, she will never be the same again and to have that taken from her at such an early age. Shame on the school for not taking her seriously and for not dealing with the boy in the same way. You would think adults involved with the school system would know what Snapchat is.
The thing with Japanese cars is that they drive on the opposite side of the road, so the steering wheel is on the passenger side. Makes it a challenge to use drive throughs. We see a lot of them here, I think they should be banned just for that reason. Certainly would not want to be in a head on collision in one. The Smart cat is also pretty small, probably more expensive to buy but more safety. There is definitely a market for smaller cars.
I think Trump is trying to start a war with some of his actions.
Kids...
I can attest to the importance of #1. My daughter was born to a chain smoking birth mother. It caused very low birth weight (3lbs. 15oz.) and a whole slew of physical/mental developmental issues. One of the outcomes was that she never slept...n-e-v-e-r. To this day she will be up at 1am cooking a full meal for herself. She is grown, and a chef, so things turned out well, but that whole attention, memory and inhibition control thing is real.
#4 read with them not to them. We would sit with my son on one side so that he could, at first, pretend to be reading, then later read with us. I remember my FIL reading him a book one night. It was a nice effort, but the guy was not one for sitting and reading a book, regardless the genre or length. He started skipping pages and my son stopped him in his tracks, "papa, you forgot the part that goes...."and proceeded to recite the entire 2 pages of text that he skipped. My FIL came downstair hysterical laughing. He never tried that again.