11 pieces of advice for children

Nina Panickssery
Sun, 05 Apr 2026 19:49:19 GMT

I came up with these principles when I was a child myself.

1. Don’t be a sheep 🐑. Avoid mindlessly copying others. Resist the urge towards conformity. Think for yourself whether something is worth doing and useful for your goals. If appearing to conform is useful for your goals, think about ways to do the bare minimum. Others are making very many mistakes you don’t want to make, and things can be done much better and more effectively than most people do them. (Be extra aware of this point if you are a girl, girls are naturally drawn towards conformity. Girls must practice not conforming, standing out, being weird, so that they are comfortable with not following the herd when it comes to important matters.)

2. Don’t delude yourself. Sometimes it’s useful to pretend to belief a falsehood, but don’t go as far as to start actually believing itself yourself.

3. Related—think freely. Never be afraid to think a thought in the privacy of your own head. All thoughts are thinkable, no matter how scared you might be to express them.

4. Be realistic about your (and others’) natural/genetic qualities. If you are much smarter than others, keep that in mind. If you are not so smart, bad at certain things, somewhat ugly, uncoordinated, or whatever else, be aware of that too. Don’t let political correctness, self-delusion, or “growth mindset” propaganda[1] get in the way of you being aware of your own nature (you’ll encounter a bunch of this misleading content at schools).

5. Keeping (4) in mind, consider whether common advice applies to you. If you are very capable, advice for the less capable is bad for you. If you are less capable, advice for the very capable is bad for you.

6. Value yourself intrinsically, irrespective of your achievements, position in society, or other qualities. It’s best to choose to love and value your own nature since you will be living life as yourself and it’s nicer to live life as a person you love. If you are a boy (I say this because this brainworm is spread to boys more than girls; many girls are happy to become rich housewives with lives of leisure), don’t let society indoctrinate you into thinking that you need to “produce value” for it in order to feel good about yourself. Always feel good about yourself because you are you, the best person from your point of view. Work hard out of a desire to achieve your goals and not out of a desire to raise your own intrinsic value (which should, as mentioned, always be sky-high). If you can achieve your goals without working hard, even better!

7. Focus on what’s most important to you. Caring is a limited resource—you don’t have infinite brain cells or money or power. You can’t keep caring about more and more stuff without caring less about other stuff. Don’t adopt more cares out of a desire to conform (see (1)).

8. Respect yourself in the past, present, and future. Don’t make excuses for being young. Even if you, the reader, are currently 4 years old, don’t let adults make excuses on your behalf. “Age is just a number” is not true, but is directionally correct compared to the societal status quo that rids children of agency. You can start setting the foundations for the life you want today, no matter how young you are. Childhood doesn’t have to be all fun and games (fun and games are good, but they can also continue your entire life)! Start planning the life you want by thinking freely in your own head. You can beat others by starting earlier because you respect yourself and haven’t fallen for the “children aren’t people”-style propaganda. One thing to start very young is picking good principles and sticking to them stubbornly—having a long track-record of principledness is very useful for establishing good character.

9. Recognize myths as they are. People pretend (or self-delude into thinking) certain things are real and objective—true irrespective of perspective—because they are convenient for cooperation in society. Morality and religion are the big ones. Remember that these are useful (to some) fictions and not things that are real like you or the sky or a cute stoat.

10. Argue with people—your parents, friends, strangers, me, everyone. If someone doesn’t want to argue with you they are much less good and useful (don’t be afraid to think this loudly in your own head). Avoid being part of cultures where arguing is frowned upon. Also give and accept unsolicited advice.

11. You don’t need to make “rite of passage”-style mistakes (e.g. drinking or taking drugs, getting into bad relationships, cramming for exams, ignoring your health, becoming a socialist[2])! Avoid them. Adults often say things like “all kids make mistake X and then gradually learn not to do X”. If you observe that many people who do something later regret doing it, strongly consider not doing it ever yourself unless you have good information that your situation is different. You don’t need to learn from experience, only sheep do! As a thinking human, you can also learn from others’ experiences. When I was a child, many fellow children made unforced errors like this out of a desire to conform, and the “rite of passage” framing only strengthens this conformity pressure. As per (8), hold yourself to an adult standard of avoiding regrettable decisions.

1. ^

On Substack, someone commented that "Typically people assume they’re too fixed relative to the optimal!". I actually agree with this. Most people assume they are more fixed than they actually are, i.e. they don't try to positively change as much as they could, while also being insufficiently aware of their own nature. What I'm proposing is trying really hard to achieve your goals and improve while also being very aware of your own nature. When I make fun of "growth mindset" stuff, I mean more that you should be well aware of what things you find easier or harder compared to others because that should inform your strategies a lot (and of course sometimes modify your goals).

2. ^

These are just examples, the specific list will vary depending on what types of things people similar to you tend to regret doing. On Substack, someone commented that they did these sorts of "bad" things but don't regret it because it's nice to try many sorts of things in your life (not sure where that comment went, maybe it was deleted). This is an understandable view, though also I specifically mean things people do tend to regret. If people like you don't tend to regret becoming socialists, that's a bad example for you. However, I also said the following, which I am adding here as advice point 11.5: "I think if a child reads and follows my principles, they get a unique opportunity to be pure (I mean this in a figurative, general sense). Destroying purity is easy, having it is rare and valuable; only attainable to those who commit to the path early. Unfortunately most people are impure and therefore have no chance to go back, so they don’t consider what it would be like to be pure from day one. You can always try something, you can never un-try something."

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