Gardening for Agency

So many of our kids never develop a real sense of agency - the belief that you are an independent, capable person who can have opinions and make decisions that will influence the path of your life, paired with the capacity & confidence to actually take action on those decisions.

As Alison Gopnik said in an NPR interview about her book, The Gardener and the Carpenter,

The idea is that if you just do the right things, get the right skills, read the right books, you're going to be able to shape your child into a particular kind of adult... We're so concerned about how these children are going to turn out that we're unwilling to give them the autonomy that they need to be able to take risks and go out and explore the world.

The thesis of Gopnik's book is that there are fundamentally two different approaches to parenting (and teaching, mentoring, management... anything where you're in a position of training and educating other people, really): you can be a carpenter, taking the raw materials you've been provided with and sculpting that to be whatever you want, or you can be a gardener, creating a supportive environment for your subjects to grow and develop in their own way.

It seems that modern American society has, especially around our smart, ambitious kids, largely adopted a carpenter mindset, creating enormous pressure on kids - and their parents - to check all the right boxes and jump through all the right hoops. But this tends to produce kids who are good at following instructions and meeting external expectations, but don't really stand out because they're really good at all the same things that everyone else is good at. They end up with a resume full of impressive accomplishments, but don't really have a strong sense of who they are or what they want to do with their lives because they have gotten stuck in the Loop of Increasingly Uncomfortable Stagnation. And even if everything does go according to plan, well...

Remember kids: if you study hard, get good grades, go to a good college, get a job, work hard, never take a sick day, live within your means and do what you're told ... then one day your boss might go to space Dan Price on Twitter, right after Richard Branson went to space with Virgin Galactic

I've found that the kids who grow up with gardener parents - or have plentiful access to gardener-type adults - tend to be a lot happier, more confident in themselves, and grow up to live more fulfilling lives. Why? Because that lack of pressure gives kids room to figure out who they are and what they want to do, develop some internal motivation, and seek out relevant support from their environment.

This doesn't mean that gardeners just let the kids in their care run wild without any guidance or structure. Gardeners provide a safe, supportive environment where kids can explore, take risks, and make mistakes - all essential components of developing agency. They help set boundaries, provide resources, and offer encouragement and support when needed. In doing so, they help kids develop the skills and confidence they need to navigate the world on their own terms. They're fulfilling the role of ritual elders, guiding kids through the challenges and transitions of growing up.

I'm a big believer in the Theory of Positive Disintegration (and my Growth Spiral that visualizes that idea), and I think that agency and the Spiral are deeply interconnected. But there's kind of a chicken-and-egg thing going on. Is agency born from navigating the Spiral, or is the journey only possible because the kid has enough agency to navigate that process? There's probably some truth to both of those options, but I think that agency is probably the more fundamental of the two. Kids with a strong sense of agency are more likely to be able to navigate the challenges and uncertainties of the Spiral, and come out the other side with a stronger sense of self and purpose - which they can then leverage to continue growing and developing. This is why I also think rites of passage are so important: they provide structure & scaffolding for kids to navigate the Spiral and develop a base level of agency that they can build on moving forward.

So if you want to help the kids in your life develop a strong sense of agency, be a gardener. Create a supportive environment where they can explore, take risks, and make mistakes. Provide guidance and support when needed, but don't try to control or micromanage their lives. Help them develop the skills and confidence they need to navigate the world on their own terms. By doing so, you'll be helping them grow into independent, capable adults who can live fulfilling lives.