In 2010, Gustavo Rodríguez was a mergers and acquisitions banker for Merrill Lynch, living in London, where he had moved from New York. Then, he became a father.

Like many new parents, Rodríguez said the day his son was born was both the happiest and the scariest. “I realized how poorly equipped I was to provide this child with all the things he was going to need, especially in the first few years of his life,” he says.

For nearly 30 years, Javier Aceves worked as a pediatrician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, focusing primarily on disadvantaged families. His approach was holistic: along with treating children, he did outreach with teens, and helped children’s parents with everything from addiction to learning how to be a supportive caregiver. For all the programs he helped develop, the patterns he kept seeing haunted him.

We live in confusing times. Kids have never been so depressed, averse to failure, and incapable of doing their laundry. Parents respond, understandably, by trying to help: assisting with homework, attending every imaginable activity, and giving detailed guidance on life skills, only to be reprimanded for over-parenting, helicoptering, and generally rendering their children helpless.

K. Anders Ericsson has spent 30 years studying people who are exceptional at what they do, and trying to figure out how they got to be so good. His conclusion: in most cases, talent doesn’t matter—practice does.

First-time parents, by definition, are clueless. They intensely study, and worry, about every little thing. With a second child, they adapt, cutting corners to manage life with two little beasts. By the third or fourth, the editing becomes hyper-precise: it’s not about options, but efficiency.

Your teenager has a science project due. He hates science. He hates projects (as do you). Do you:

A. Set deadlines for him, get the necessary materials, lay them out on the table with some homemade chocolate chip cookies

B. Ask your neighbor who is a renowned chemist to stop by and wax poetic about the joys of the periodic table

C. Hide and pray