When I was a kid, I thought mistakes were simply bad, and to be avoided. As an adult I realized many problems are best solved by working in two phases, one in which you let yourself make mistakes, followed by a second in which you aggressively fix them.
I talk to my kids as if they were naive colleagues. I think they learn a lot this way, and if not, it at least seems fairly harmless.
The idea of spending (small amounts of) “quality time” with your kids is dangerously mistaken, because the best moments happen at completely random times. You not only can't predict them, you may not even know they've happened.
Asked 7 yo how many Star Wars characters he could name. He named 59. Measured by space occupied in his brain, Star Wars is his Greek myths.
If there is a better background noise to have in your house than a 7 year old laughing, I can't imagine what it is.
Interesting game to play with kids: do back of the envelope calculations about what percentage of sentences have ever been said (on Earth), and encourage them to invent short sentences that probably never have been.
10 yo asked what age kids are the most difficult for parents. Told him newborns are the most overall load, but teenagers cause the highest spikes, because they have the highest ratio of power to judgment.
As I explained to my son, one of the most important techniques for doing well on standardized tests is simply to go back and check your answers. Because most standardized tests are too easy, the difference between a good score and a great one is avoiding random slip-ups.
Something I taught my 7 yo on the way to school: Don't underestimate how many people you can help. One person can help thousands of other people.
Told 7 yo I wrote an essay about having kids. He asked if there was anything about him in it. I showed him the paragraph where I said that you don't just love your kids, but they become your friends too. He had a big smile reading that.