My colleague and I got onto the subject of raising kids. His child is around ten; mine is four. I told him my four-year-old is into everything, rarely sticks with one thing, and seems unable to concentrate. I said I needed some method to rein her in before the problem became harder to fix later. By the end of the conversation, though, I had to admit that the real issue starts with the parent. If I want her to focus, I have to be patient and focused myself. I have to stop standing on adult dignity and join her on a child's terms—play and learn alongside her as if I were a child too. The shift has to happen in my thinking first.
For a long time, I looked for the most economical, least effortful way to spend time with her. That approach backfired. If I want her to enjoy something, she needs to feel the pleasure of it herself, or at least see that I am genuinely interested in it. I want her to fall in love with reading.
There is a huge upside to raising a child who loves reading. She will spend a lot of her future time buried in books, falling for imaginary kingdoms and forest squirrels, for the people and events inside stories. The more time she spends reading, the less she spends on a phone, and the less time she spends tearing around the house and turning everything upside down. If I can spend one to three years now—while she is four—helping her find pleasure in books, I may get a bookish daughter for the next decade. As a time investment, that seems hard to beat.
So my next move is to buy more "useless" children's books—all kinds—and learn alongside her. I can keep that up for three years. I no longer plan to buy "useful" books; the more of those she gets, the more she resists.