How Phones Affect Kids’ Social Skills: Increase Human Connection
Phones make it easy for kids to avoid human interaction. Here’s why real conversations, awkward moments, and social reps matter more than ever.
How to Teach Kids Life Lessons: Plant the Seed
“Did she get it?”
My friend Justin asked me that after I told him about a conversation I’d had with my daughter.
I had no idea.
And strangely, I wasn’t worried about it.
Valentina and I had been in the car listening to Rush’s “Subdivisions.” She’s ten. I’m fifty. This is one of the privileges of being the person controlling the stereo.
I started talking to her about what the song meant. About fitting in. Conformity. The choices people make as they get older. How easy it can be to trade the things you really want for the smaller things sitting right in front of you.
Normal lighthearted father-daughter driving conversation.
Did my ten-year-old understand what I was trying to tell her?
Maybe.
Probably some of it.
But when Justin asked me if she’d gotten it, I texted back:
You never know what kids are processing. I’m a “coats of paint” teacher. Plant the seed. Later I can water it.
And almost immediately, I remembered another car ride.
“Gio, If You Want to Be Great…”
My son was probably nine or ten.
We were driving home from baseball, which meant we were having one of our postgame conversations.
Gio was a decent baseball player then. He had some skills. He liked the game. There were flashes.
But he wasn’t yet the player he would become.
I remember looking at him and saying something very specific.
“Gio, if you want to be great at baseball—and I mean great—you need to put it in here.”
I pointed to my heart.
I was stealing from Mr. Miyagi.
I’ve written before about the life lessons from 80s movies that shaped the way I see the world. The Karate Kid was one of them. In one of my favorite Miyagi lessons, he points to his heart.
That’s where karate lives.
Years later, sitting in the car with my son after a baseball game, I found myself doing the same thing.
You can learn to field a ground ball.
You can work on your swing.
You can learn where the cutoff man should be and what to do with a runner on second and one out.
But if you want to be great at something, eventually it has to live somewhere deeper.
You have to love it.
I don’t remember what Gio said.
That’s probably important.
There was no swelling music. No nine-year-old staring thoughtfully out the passenger window before turning to me and saying, “Father, I finally understand the nature of excellence.”
He was nine.
We probably got home and he asked what was for dinner.
But I planted the seed.
Years Later, I Can See It
Gio is thirteen now.
And when I watch him play baseball, I sometimes think about that conversation.
Because the kid I see on the field is different.
He’s alive.
That’s the best way I can describe it.
He’s competing. He’s thinking. He’s talking to teammates. He’s anticipating what’s coming next. He’s playing hard. He’s trying to win.
He’s completely in it.
And it is one of the most joyful things I’ve watched in his life.
Not because he’s become a good baseball player, although he has.
It’s because I can see how much of himself he’s putting into it.
His heart is there.
Did that conversation when he was ten cause any of this?
Of course not.
That’s giving one conversation far too much credit.
There have been hundreds of practices since then. Coaches. Teammates. Games. Successes. Failures. Ground balls. Strikeouts. Big hits. Mistakes. Car rides home.
And probably a hundred other conversations with me.
Those were the coats of paint.
But I remember the seed.
How to Teach Kids Life Lessons Without Lecturing Them
I think adults sometimes make the mistake of believing that important lessons require important conversations.
Sit down. We need to talk.
Then we unload fifteen minutes of wisdom acquired over forty years onto a ten-year-old and wonder why they’re looking at the dog.
I’m starting to think the better approach is smaller.
Say the thing when life gives you the opening.
Then let it go.
A song comes on in the car? Talk about it.
Something happens during a baseball game? Talk about it on the ride home.
Your kid treats someone particularly well—or poorly? Point it out.
You don’t have to squeeze the entire lesson into that moment.
Plant the seed.
Then pay attention.
When life gives you another opportunity, add another coat of paint.
That’s the part I think matters. The first conversation doesn’t need to carry the entire load. In fact, it probably can’t.
Kids are building their understanding of the world one experience at a time.
Our job isn’t always to finish the picture.
Sometimes it’s just to add a little color.
I’ve Started Seeing Seeds Everywhere
Oddly enough, I’ve been thinking about this at work, too.
We spend a lot of time at Apple Spice trying to grow our catering business, and lately I’ve realized how often we expect one conversation to accomplish too much.
We tell a customer we offer holiday meals.
Nothing happens.
We ask whether they organize lunches regularly.
Nothing happens.
We bring someone a tasting and tell them about something we do that they didn’t know about.
Nothing happens.
It can feel like failure because there isn’t an order at the end of the conversation.
But that’s not necessarily what the conversation was for.
Now they know.
The seed exists where it didn’t exist yesterday.
Maybe three months from now they’re sitting at their desk trying to figure out food for a holiday party and suddenly think:
Wait. Doesn’t Apple Spice do that?
That’s growth.
It just happened underground.
I Don’t Know If She Got It
Which brings me back to Valentina.
“Did she get it?”
I still don’t know.
Maybe she understood exactly what I was trying to tell her about that Rush song.
Maybe she understood ten percent.
Maybe all she remembers is driving around with Dad listening to old-man music.
That’s okay.
I’ve seen this movie before.
Somewhere in my memory is a little boy sitting beside me in a car while I point to my chest and tell him that if he wants to be great at baseball, he has to play from here.
Three years later, I watch him run onto a baseball field and come alive.
So I’ll keep talking to Valentina in the car.
I’ll keep putting ideas out there.
I’ll keep adding coats of paint.
Because parenting isn’t one great speech that changes your kid’s life.
It’s a seed and a thousand coats of paint.
You don’t need to see something growing to know it’s worth planting.
“Know what’s enough. Build what matters.”
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