How to Let Your Kid Become an Effective Person
Dear Kid Whisperer,
How can my teenager be so academically smart but have no common sense? She's a really good kid, but she doesn't really seem to understand how the world works. I want her to get a grasp on these things before she learns to drive, gets a job, or leaves for college and will be on her own. How can I get her to apply her "book smarts" to the real world?
That just isn’t how it works.
That isn’t how it works and you need to make a paradigm U-turn, or things are going to get really frustrating for you and your daughter’s life is going to be way worse for way longer than it needs to be.
More to the point, most likely, your daughter is probably academically smart for many reasons, including parental involvement and high expectations, better than average intelligence, hard work, and good teaching in her school and in her home.
Not having any common sense is a totally different thing. It really has very little to do with academic learning, as your daughter has demonstrated. I think that when parents refer to “common sense,” what they are really referring to is an ability to attend to everyday life in a responsible, safe, and productive way. This is essentially what you meant by referencing getting a job, driving, etc.
Here’s the answer to your question. Most likely, your kid doesn’t know how the real world works because you haven’t let her find out how the real world works.
While academics can be learned in a classroom, the real world needs to be learned in the real world…mostly without your involvement.
Yes, parents and caregivers of 2025…
…kids need to learn about the real world…
…by experiencing the real world…
WITHOUT YOU.
If you find yourself telling your kid how the real world really is, you’re probably not allowing your kid to have enough access to the real world.
You learn about stuff in books from books, and you learn about life from life. Kids need access to books to learn from books, and they need access to life to learn from life.
So, give your kid some access! Here’s how I might give your teen access if I were you:
Kid Whisperer: Drat. We’re out of milk. We need milk. Please go to the corner store to get milk.
Kid (long pause) Are you talking to me?
Kid Whisperer: Yup.
Kid: But it’s three blocks away.
Kid Whisperer: I don’t know what to tell you. I know you can do it. One gallon of milk please. Here’s 20 dollars. Please give me the change if there is any.
Kid (holding the cash with a confused look on her face): What’s this now?
Kid Whisperer: We used to call it money in the old days. It’s like Venmo IRL. Thanks for taking care of that. It’s a big help.
So let kids live their lives. The best (and most exciting and fun) way to learn about life is to figure it out. Your kids will fail and learn, fail and learn. It will be painful at times, but the best way to learn is through struggle. When kids fail, be sad, supportive, and encouraging, but don’t bail them out. Solving their problem for them demonstrates a lower regard for their abilities than if you’re sad and you let them know that you think they can do it next time. Asking how they might do things differently works way better than giving them unsolicited advice on what they should have done!
Your kid will not end up being a 70-year-old who never figured out how to successfully drive a car, go to college, or get a job. However, the sooner she has access to real life--and that’s making her own choices and taking the consequences, good and bad, that will follow-- the sooner she will be able to learn from those consequences and become a better, stronger, more savvy, more sophisticated, and more prepared person. The sooner she is allowed to learn those lessons, the higher of a percentage of her life she will be able to live using “common sense.” After all, you want her to have the life you want for her as soon as possible!