High Agency Kids

Shreyas Doshi noticed something about the product managers who surprised him most: it wasn't their intelligence.

'High agency is about finding a way to get what you want without waiting for conditions to be perfect or otherwise blaming the circumstances.'

Three components make up high agency: ownership (I'm responsible for this), creative execution (I'll find a way), and resilience (I'll keep going when it's hard).

'I have found that people who have high agency... they just took strong ownership and then they creatively executed through the challenges.'

Watch your child face an obstacle. The low-agency response: 'I can't. It's too hard. Someone else should fix this.' The high-agency response: 'Let me try another way.'

You build high agency in kids the same way you build it in adults - by not solving every problem for them. By celebrating creative workarounds. By praising 'I found another way' more than 'I got it right.'

The world is full of smart people waiting for perfect conditions. The ones who change things are the ones who don't wait.