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.

Andreas Schleicher is a German data scientist—tall and precise with a grey mustache and a steely gaze. The head of the education division at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), he gives off an impression of determined focus. That’s useful, considering that he’s on a mission to change the way countries around the world teach their children.

On a Monday morning in October, Faith stands before her class of kids, ages 10 and up. She looks down at her tablet computer, which details the day’s lessons. Her teaching plan gives instructions down to the minute, including when kids should stand up, solve problems, cheer for a classmate, and work with others.

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.

Lisa Damour, a psychologist and clinical instructor, loves teenage girls. “There is not a moment as clear-eyed as adolescence,” she says.

Parents of teen girls don’t always feel so starry-eyed. Daughters who not-so-long-ago hugged you suddenly seem to hate you. They confide in you, and then turn on you. They call out your weaknesses, roll their eyes, and whipsaw between four moods before breakfast

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

When the financial crisis hit Iceland seven years ago, Gudmundur Kristjansson, a 55-year-old fisherman with a wide smile, weathered face and mischievous eyes, almost lost his business. Interest payments on his loans soared 300 percent. He had to sell his two fish factories and two of his five fishing boats. “We didn’t invest for many years,” he said, “because we were only paying interest.”

LONDON — They are among the British moneyed elite: the head of the nation’s largest bank, a billionaire hedge fund manager and the owner of some of London’s most luxurious nightclubs.

Yet for tax purposes, they are not entirely British.

LONDON — Suggest to Helena Morrissey that she is Britain’s version of Sheryl Sandberg, and she smiles politely.

“I think I am meant to be flattered,” Ms. Morrissey, a 48-year-old money manager, said recently in her office in the City, London’s historic financial district. “But I am doing my own thing.”

WESTCOTT, England — When Taylor Wimpey, one of the largest residential construction companies in Britain, proposed building 34 homes in an empty field in Westcott, 30 miles southwest of London, it was doing just what Britain’s leaders were calling for: attempting to alleviate a severe housing shortage, which politicians consider a key factor in the country’s soaring real estate costs.

LONDON — With Andy Murray knocked out of Wimbledon and Britons bereft about yet another prominent sports defeat, there is at least one small silver lining: the British can once again embrace “Wimbledonization.”

WHEN Ayinde Alleyne arrived at the Trinity School, an elite independent school on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, he was eager to make new friends. A brainy 14-year-old, he was the son of immigrants from Trinidad and Tobago, a teacher and an auto-body repairman, in the South Bronx.