Parenting advice powered by Lenny's podcast wisdom

Is It Actually Valuable?

Gina Gotthilf

Inspired by on Lenny's Podcast

Your parenting approach either provides real value to your kid, or it doesn't. Retention tells you which.

Gina Gotthilf simplifies retention in a way that cuts through all the complexity: "I don't think of it in terms of like, wow, I must retain this user. It's like, is this thing valuable or not? That's what retention is to me. Either it's actually providing real value or it's not. If it's providing real value, people stick around. It's as simple as that."

Apply this to any parenting practice you're trying to implement.

The consequence system. The reward chart. The morning routine. The conversation structure. Does it actually provide value to your kid? Not "does it sound good in theory" or "did it work for that other family" - does YOUR kid experience it as valuable?

If it's valuable, they'll engage with it. If it's not, they'll resist it forever. You can force compliance temporarily, but you can't force buy-in.

Before you blame your kid for not cooperating, ask: is this actually providing value to them? Or is it just providing value to me?

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PM Theme: Retention and value creation

Parenting Theme: Testing if approaches actually work

Quotes that inspired this tip
I don't think of it in terms of like, wow, I must retain this user. It's like, is this thing valuable or not? That's what retention is to me. Either it's actually providing real value or it's not. If it's providing real value, people stick around. It's as simple as that.Gina Gotthilf · 00:32:11
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