Dr. Kathy said one of the best reasons to delay a phone is that it gives children more opportunities to learn to put other people first and have real conversations. But she made a critical point: not giving a child a phone is not enough. The freed up time has to be used for something better. If a child doesn't have a smartphone but spends those same hours entertained or rarely engaging in deep interaction with others, we have removed a device without necessarily building the strengths we hoped would replace it.

The 8 Great Smarts give parents a useful lens for this because children rarely approach every opportunity the same way. Dr. Kathy encouraged parents to watch what kids naturally gravitate toward in their free time. A young Body Smart child may turn the living room into a gymnastics floor before anyone ever suggests lessons. A Music Smart child may repeatedly head toward the instruments in the church nursery or spend unusual amounts of time tapping rhythms or noticing melody. A Picture Smart child may constantly draw, build, arrange, design, or imagine. Those patterns are worth noticing because joy and energy often clue us into the smarts a child uses most comfortably.

Dr. Kathy made an observation that seems almost comical until you realize how true it is: plenty of kids probably think their parent “sits at a desk all day.” A parent may spend hours analyzing data, solving engineering problems, managing employees, designing systems, counseling people, writing proposals, or working through complicated financial decisions, while the child experiences nothing more than a closed office door and a glowing screen. We shouldn't assume children know what our work actually involves just because they know where we go every morning.