There are two sets of metacognitive skills that you can help your child develop. One set involves the child’s ability to evaluate her performance on a task, such as a chore or a homework assignment, and to make changes based on that evaluation. The second set involves the child’s ability to evaluate social situations—both her own behavior and others’ reactions and the behavior of others.
Remember that a child’s time horizon is much shorter than yours. For a plan like this to succeed, the end always has to be in sight for the child. So don’t get too ambitious in teaching this skill. Expectations that the child will save for months or put all his resources into savings are unrealistic. Remember that learning to save requires ongoing and long-term practice. Be prepared to use savings systems over an extended time period.
A designer uses their expertise in the service of others without being a servant. Saying no is a design skill. Asking why is a design skill. Rolling your eyes and staying quiet is not. Asking ourselves why we are making something is an infinitely better question than asking ourselves whether we can make it.
“You may be hiring us and that may be your name on the check, but we do not work for you. We’re coming in to solve a problem, because we believe it needs to be solved and it’s worth solving. But we work for the people being affected by that problem. Our job is to look out for them because they’re not in the room. And we will under no circumstances design anything that puts those people at risk.”
For those of you not familiar with Ayn Rand, she wrote crappy books about the power of individual achievement while she collected social security and started some pseudo-philosophy called “objectivism,” which can be summed up in five words: I got mine, fuck you.
