Dear Friends,

You know my eldest daughter? She is the kind of person who never boasts about herself, not only does she never speak proudly of her achievements, but she doesn't even harbor such thoughts internally.

For instance, even if she secures the first rank in her class at school, she would never voluntarily announce, "I scored this many marks," or "I got the top score." We only find out about such things when we attend the Parent-Teacher Meeting (PTM).

Every time we attend a PTM, her class teachers praise her profusely, exclaiming, "Your daughter is absolutely brilliant!" Yet, not once has she ever come home and opened her mouth to say, "My teacher praised me today."

She always comes to me to get her mark sheets signed. Most of the time, she has scored full marks. However, there is never a trace of pride or triumph on her face; she simply gets the signature in a casual manner and walks away.

On one occasion, during a school assembly, she spoke on a certain topic in front of a large audience. Afterward, her own teacher—along with teachers from neighboring classes—approached her and heaped praise upon her, marveling at how beautifully she had spoken.

She didn't even mention about this incident to us when she got home. When I asked her about how it went on, she simply gave a two-word reply only with "I did well" and then walked off.

Two weeks exactly after that incident, when we attended the next PTM with her school,  her teacher who had clearly remembered these events, spoke to my wife saying that, "Madam, your daughter spoke absolutely wonderfully!"

Well... that is just how she is being.....

Yesterday, the three of us-myself, my wife and our eldest daughter spent over four hours talking together.

We spoke openly about a wide range of topics: what our own childhoods were like, the various difficulties we had faced, the importance of education, the significance of financial stability, the challenges she might encounter at her current age, and how to handle them effectively. 

For someone with her age, she has so too many insightful things for say, she spoke about the huge amount of power consumption and water scarcity that AI is projected to cause including with its datacenters and warned that if we rely on the Large Language Models (LLMS) s for every single thing, we risk losing our own critical thinking capabilities entirely. It was truly surprising to me that she was even discussing such topics even we could know so little.

The conversation meandered in all sorts of directions from one topic to another and eventually landed on the subjects of the stock market, savings, investments and holding webinars on various topics including finance and mental health.

That’s when she said...

"Dad, if you ever need to promote your brand,  just let me know; I’d be happy to help out. I’ve actually got a few followers of my own, you know."

Me: "What?! Followers? You do?

I knew that she has an account with Instagram, but I had never really paid much attention to it. I viewed it as her own private space, so I had never actually gone to check out her profile quite often. 

I thought, "Okay, maybe she has around 50-100 followers; but then...

She said—in the most casual tone imaginable "Oh, I just have about 4,000 followers on Instagram, Dad." 🙄

Both my wife and I were absolutely floored and shocked!

This is the lifestyles and habits of our children.

Need to build special skills to guide, mentor our children for sure..