The Problem With Solving Your Child’s Problems
When your child comes into the world, your job is to solve all their problems.
Every single one.
They’re hungry. You feed them. They’re cold. You warm them. They’re afraid. You hold them. You solve all their problems. Because that’s your job.
But as they get older, there’s a problem with that.
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Your Endgame as a parent isn’t to take care of them forever. Your job isn’t to keep them a happy child forever. If your child turns 50 years old and people describe them as a “happy child,” you’ve got a problem.
Which means the Endgame for your child is something else.
For most of us, part of the Endgame we want for our children is this: They are a capable adult.
Capable of taking care of themselves. Capable of taking care of their loved ones. Capable of taking care of us, when we reach our own Endgame.
And there’s a bonus: a capable adult is usually a happy adult.
If a capable adult is part of the Endgame for our children, we need a strategy to help them get there.
Like all strategies, it requires positive-sum and zero-sum games along the way.
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The CIA doesn’t send new case officers into life-or-death situations on day one.
You start in controlled environments. You start with low-consequence exercises.
You practice running a DADA chain when the stakes are low. You gather Data. You do the Analysis. You make the Decision. You take the Action. And if you get it wrong, your instructor tells you what you messed up. Nobody dies.
Then, the stakes go up. You do more difficult things. The safety net gets smaller. After your final exercise, they ask the instructors: Would you trust your life with this trainee in the field? If the answer is no, you’re out. You’ll never be a spy.
If the answer is yes, you go into the field. At first, your tasks in the field are simple. Then they become risky. And riskier. Until you’re doing dangerous things every day.
And you’re ready. Because you’ve gone through the DADA chain of a spy many times.
You’ve acted and collected the results of your action and started the DADA chain again. Many times.
The DADA chain of a spy becomes instinct.
Good parenting follows the same path.
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Some societies built this path into their culture.
The Spartans ran a thirteen-year training program. Boys left their families at seven. They trained with older boys who were harder and faster. Each year, the exercises got more difficult. The safety net got smaller. By twenty, they’d built the DADA chain of a Spartan so many times that it was instinct.
Medieval apprenticeships worked the same way. A child left home at twelve or fourteen and started watching the master work. Then carried materials. Then did simple tasks under supervision. Then harder ones. Then produced something on their own. Years of progressive training. Until the DADA chain of a mason or a blacksmith or a weaver became instinct.
In America, we have informal versions of this. Sports. The arts. University. In their teens, children start competing. Representing their school. Their town. They perform in productions the community comes to see. Then many go on to university. Where the stakes go up.
But today’s society doesn’t structure training the way the Spartans or the medieval guilds structured theirs. They’re partial. Optional. Some children get them. Some don’t. And there’s no one connecting the stages.
There’s no one designing the progression from low-consequence to high-consequence.
No one is running your child through the training of how to become a capable person until it becomes instinct.
Except you.
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It’s up to a parent to train their child to run through a DADA chain effectively.
It’s up to a parent to train their child how to build positive-sum games.
It’s up to a parent to train their child how to win zero-sum games.
For DADA chains, here’s what you can do:
Hand pieces of the chain to them. One at a time.
Start with Data. Let them see the problem. Don’t hide it. A young child can notice the milk spilled. A teenager can notice their grades are slipping. You’re not asking them to solve anything yet. You’re asking them to see what’s really happening.
Then Analysis. Let them think about what the data means. Ask questions instead of giving answers. “What do you think happened?” “What do you think caused that?” You’re still there. You’re not solving. You’re asking them the questions that make them think.
Then Decision. This is the hardest one for most of us. Letting your child decide. Knowing they might decide wrong. The instinct is to step in. But a bad decision made in a low-consequence environment teaches more than a good decision you made for them.
Then, let them take Action. And live with the results.
But we don’t stop there.
We encourage them to collect the results of their Action.
So they can start the DADA chain again. And then again after that.
Again and again until the DADA chain of a capable person becomes instinct.
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But for some parents, the hardest part isn’t the training.
For some parents, it’s letting the child solve their own problems.
Every time you solve a problem for your child, it’s a positive-sum game. They get the problem solved. You get the satisfaction of doing something for someone you love. Both sides win in the moment.
But a positive-sum game in the short term can become negative for the child over time. Every problem you solve past the point they could have solved it themselves removes a game they could have played themselves. A game that could have moved them closer to the Endgame you want for them: Being a capable adult.
Parenting is self-sacrifice. That’s understood. But sometimes the deepest self-sacrifice isn’t solving your child’s problems. It’s removing yourself from a positive-sum game that feels good to you. You give up the satisfaction of being needed so they can become capable of not needing you. So your child can grow.
Which is tough. Maybe one of the toughest things a parent can do.
But it’s how they get more capable. Capable of taking care of themselves. Capable of taking care of their loved ones. Capable of taking care of us.
Capable of being a capable adult.
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Even more, you should make it explicit. So the child doesn’t feel neglected.
After all, the parent helping the child is a positive-sum game for the child, too. So the parent removing themselves can feel like neglect to the child.
So tell your child why they must figure out the game on their own.
Paint the picture of their Endgame for them: A day when the child is grown and capable. Respected for their decisions. Admired for their actions. That’s what the child wants. And that’s what the parents want, too.
Tell the child that the steps to get there start today. With them taking in the data, analyzing it, deciding what to do and taking action.
With them building new positive-sum games.
And figuring out how to win the zero-sum games they face.
As the child grows, the child knows the game is changing. The positive-sum game where the parent solves problems and the child receives the benefits is ending. New games are starting. Where the child solves problems and the parent watches.
And both the parent and child are better for it.
Which is the ultimate positive-sum game.
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The DADA chain and Endgame reasoning are two of six frameworks on the Spy’s Guide frameworks page.
The DADA chain is from A Spy’s Guide to Thinking. Positive-sum and zero-sum games are from A Spy’s Guide to Strategy.
-John Braddock