One of the core messages of our parenting classes is patience. Effective parenting is patient parenting.
Now, it’s natural to hope for a quick fix, to look for a shortcut. And I wish there was something I could teach you that would create the kind of instantaneous, dramatic change you’re looking for – some magic words you could say to your child tonight that would produce the outcomes you want tomorrow.
But that’s not how parenting works. That’s not how life works.
So instead, we teach parents how to play “the long game.” It’s a tough sell because the short game is tempting. It seems like there should just be a way to “fix” the problems you have with your kids – their behavior, their grades, their attitude. But people aren’t robots who can be fixed. They’re human beings who can grow.
So the short game is a lie. The only thing that really works is patiently helping your kids grow. The long game is the only game.
Problems With Short-Game Parenting
“Immediate and visible benefits seduce you into the short game. You win today but lose tomorrow.” –Shane Parrish1
Playing the short game is like maxing out your credit cards to get what you want today. The immediate results feel better, but the long-term consequences are terrible.
The short-game parenting might produce the results you want for a while:
- You don’t want your kid to fail, so you rescue them.
- You want them to stay on top of their homework, so you micromanage.
- You want the house to be clean, so you do all the chores yourself since you know how to do them properly.
But there’s a serious cost to this approach. The immediate results come at the expense of long-term benefits. Overparenting stifles your child’s growth:
- Rescuing them from failure prevents them from experiencing the natural consequences that would motivate them to work harder.
- Micromanaging prevents them from developing the executive function skills they need to succeed on their own.
- Doing all of the chores yourself is not only unfair to you, it also deprives your kid of all of the benefits of chores.
When you play the long game and parent patiently, the benefits won’t immediately show up in obvious ways. So it’s tempting to intervene and force the change you want to see right now, but this always backfires, making the problem worse in the long run.
The only way to create lasting change is by playing the long game, so let’s break down what that really means.
Short-Game Parenting vs. Long-Game Parenting
“We play the short game because we lack patience. Everyone wants to win, but there is a difference between trying to win the moment and trying to win the decade.” –Shane Parrish1
Long-game parenting means leading by example rather than making your kids do things a certain way. It means asking guiding questions rather than telling them what to do. It means letting them try things on their own rather than doing everything for them.
Playing the long game means creating an environment where intrinsic motivation can grow on its own rather than motivating with rewards and punishments. It means giving your kids the opportunity to remember their responsibilities on their own rather than reminding and nagging them.
Long-game parenting means letting your kids make choices about what to do, how to do it, and when to do it rather than micromanaging their lives. It means letting them fail – early and often – rather than rescuing them because failure is a great teacher.
Playing the long game means focusing on building trust and strengthening your relationship with your kids. It means asking for permission before giving advice and making it okay if the answer is “no.” It means gently reframing the things they say with more helpful language rather than telling them they’re wrong.
Changing Your Approach
“The longer you play the short game, the harder things get.” –Shane Parrish1
There is perhaps nothing parents find harder than making the shift from short-game parenting to long-game parenting.
For starters, any behavioral change is difficult. But adopting the practices of patient parenting is particularly emotional.
When you stop micromanaging, your kid’s performance will almost certainly dip. They’ll start doing worse at school. They’ll forget or neglect their responsibilities. It is very difficult to stand by and watch this happen, biting your tongue instead of jumping in to fix things.
They might lose privileges as a result of their poor choices. They’ll probably get upset. They might suffer the pain of a significant failure. But this short-term pain should only be short-term. After the training wheels come off, they’ll crash, but then they’ll learn how to ride on their own. They’ll figure it out because they’re being forced to adapt.
And remember, you’re not doing nothing. The alternative to helicopter parenting isn’t neglect. It’s providing the scaffolding for success. It’s designing a home environment where good choices are easier. It’s actively modeling how to be productive, how to be strategic, how to be curious, and how to be resourceful. These actions won’t produce big, immediate results, but they will help, accruing and compounding like a retirement account.
“The first step in the long game is the hardest. You have to be willing to suffer a little today in order to make tomorrow just a little bit easier. And you have to be smart enough to know that just because you can’t see the tiny advantage you created doesn’t mean it’s not there.” –Shane Parrish1
Modeling the Long Game
Parenting isn’t the only place where the long game is the only game. This holds true for nearly everything in life. So one of the most valuable things you can model for your kids is playing the long game for yourself.
Kids are just as tempted by the short game as adults, if not more so due to their underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. Delayed gratification and long-term thinking don’t come easily to young brains. So they need your help learning to play the long game. Not the kind of help where you tell them what to do, but the kind of help where you show them how to live by the way you live.
Kids need to see lots of examples of adults playing the long game. Not just adults making wise choices about the future, but adults modeling the use of strategies to make it easier to play the long game. Committing to one new healthy habit at a time. Starting small and gradually expanding that habit. Not only is this a good thing to model for your kids, it’s the only sustainable way to change your behavior. If you want to lose weight, cultivate mindfulness, or grow your career, you have to think long term.
For example, I have a habit of doing daily push-ups. As of this writing, I’m doing 44 push-ups per day. I started this habit 44 months ago, doing just one push-up per day. Each month, I’ve added one push-up per day. The success of this approach came from thinking in terms of years and decades rather than weeks and months. If you can approach self-improvement with that level of patience, you can do truly astonishing things.
Kids also need to see adults modeling the mindsets of the long game. Having a growth mindset. Giving yourself permission to be a beginner, to struggle, and to fail (but then troubleshoot and recommit). Giving yourself permission to be human and being kind to yourself. Practicing self-care rather than overworking to the point of burnout. Ditching perfectionism and embracing the philosophy that everything counts.
You can’t teach these attitudes directly (if you try, it won’t stick), but you can instill them in your kids through your example. When they see you embody the long game in your life, they’ll unconsciously learn to play the long game in their own lives.
And there’s one more benefit to playing the long game in your personal life: practicing patience. The patience you need to play the long game with your kids is the very same patience you need to play the long game with yourself.
Your physical and mental health. Your finances. Your habits. Your progress. Your relationships.
For all of these things, accept that the long game is the only game and commit to playing it for the rest of your life.
1Parrish, Shane. “The Surprising Power of The Long Game.” Farnam Street.
Chris Loper has been working as a tutor and academic coach since 2014, racking up over 13,000 hours of experience supporting students.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the co-creator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
Chris writes the popular self-improvement blog Becoming Better, where he also offers habit coaching, helping busy adults with habit formation and productivity.
Chris’s most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, he published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA, where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.