Two years ago my 5-year-old was a walking argument machine. Dinner? War. Bedtime? War. Everything? War.
I was done arguing and repeating myself.
So I stole Elon’s first-principles thinking and paired it with pure FAFO parenting – “Fuck Around and Find Out.”
No lectures. No threats. Just: Break it to the simplest truth → run the experiment → laugh at the explosion → let reality teach.
The result? Arguments dropped ~85%. Tantrums nearly vanished. Evaan (now 7) now solves problems before I see them.
But the real magic? It lit a nuclear hunger to learn inside him, and gave him the ultimate meta-skill: a framework for learning how to learn anything, fast.
Here’s exactly how it went down.
Food → Science Lab (Zero Fights)
Evaan refused broccoli. We sat on the floor like tiny physicists: “What is food, really?” “Fuel.” “What’s in broccoli? Sun + soil = muscle bricks and brain fuel.”
Hypothesis: “Skip green fuel tonight → how do I feel at soccer tomorrow?”
He chose zero. Next day: slow legs, missed goals, grumpy ride home.
I didn’t gloat. I asked: “What did the test show?”
His eyes went wide: “My body needs the green stuff!” Next meal he ate half the plate and announced, “Science worked.”
We’ve done this with every food since. He now builds his own power plates. No more dinner wars. Ever.
Toys, Sports, School, Sleep: Hypothesis → Test → Giggle → Level Up
Lego fort collapsing First principles: “What actually holds things up? Wide base + locked connections.” Tested 9 versions. 10th one survived my best “dad monster” stomp. He still brags.
Soccer corners “Why does the ball go exactly where I want?” Angle + foot + follow-through. 20 kicks. Most of them landed away from the goal, but then…, this happened
Now he scores and explains the physics to his teammates.
School “Why do we even go?” “Brain gym + friends + cool stuff.” He tested “I’ll just play all morning and still be ready.” Result: rushed, forgot sports bag, stressed kid. Now he packs his bags the night before and tells me, “My brain needs the gym time.”
Waking up late (closest we ever got to a late mark) Hypothesis: “I can play EA FC 26 and Cricket 26 on PS5 till 10:30pm and still wake up fine.” He did exactly that. Next morning: eyes open at 8:00 am. School gate closes at 9:00. We sprinted, hair wild, shoes in hand. Made it at 8:57. Heart still pounding.
In the car he looked at me and said: “Dad… my body needs sleep fuel or the whole day crashes.”
He now wakes up at 7:30 by himself, and uses the extra time for sports training at home (his idea). Hasn’t been late since.
The Ancient Secret That Makes It Bulletproof
This is straight out of the Bhagavad Gita.
Arjuna is panicking. Krishna breaks reality to first principles: “You are not this body. Your job is to act skillfully. Do the action, then watch the result without attachment.”
That’s FAFO with 5,000-year-old wisdom. Evaan is our tiny Arjuna. We strip every problem to truth, let him test, then calmly see what reality says.
The Funniest Fails (That Taught the Most)
- Soccer power shorts indoors Full sprint → smashed a home decor (lost 6-7 in the last 2 years, Six-Seven ;)). Lost 50 dojo points. Lesson: “Power shorts only work on grass.”
- Unlaced shoes rebellion “I don’t need to tie them.” Face-plant in grass. Grass stains for days. Stood up laughing: “Okay… laces matter.”
- The Halloween Candy Avalanche “Eat all of it at once = happy forever.” Sugar rocket → crash + stomach ache. He made his own candy rules chart.
- Breakfast skip test Skipped → starving by 10 am at school. Now he demands his power breakfast.
Every fail ends the same: high-five, big laugh, then “What did we learn?”
The Real Superpower: Insatiable Hunger to Learn + Learning How to Learn
This is what blew my mind most.
The framework didn’t just teach him facts, it taught him how to learn anything, forever.
As Naval says: “The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.”
Evaan now has the desire on fire.
- He does 100-digit addition problems for fun (broke them to place value + carrying + patterns).
- Learned to ride a bike in one afternoon (first principles of balance, momentum, and steering).
- Chess strategies? He figured “control the center, develop pieces fast, king safety” in a weekend and now beats me regularly.
- Soccer shots and cricket bowling: spin, seam position, wrist snap, run-up rhythm – all mastered in under an hour of testing.
- Running: “Sprinting is all-out for 8 seconds max. Long distance is steady rhythm. Body is an engine, not a rocket.”
- He taught himself how to launch into a full sprint from standing still in less than an hour, by testing stride length, arm drive, and first-step explosion.
He doesn’t “study.” He experiments. He owns the process. That’s the meta-skill that will carry him through life.
We Scaled It to Grown-Ups (It Works Everywhere)
Work projects now start with “What are the actual first principles?”, one team cut budget 40%. Friend drama? Break to fundamentals → honest chat instead of weeks of texting wars. My own scrolling habit? Phone in another room. Sleep score jumped from 68 to 92.
As Elon says: “Reason from first principles… boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there.”
And on failure: “If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
Evaan’s little rockets explode sometimes. We just clean up, laugh, and launch again.
Two Years Later
At 7, Evaan:
- Solves problems I haven’t noticed yet
- Asks “why” like a philosopher, tests like a scientist
- Almost zero meltdowns
- Teaches his friends first principles on the playground
He’s still learning. Towers still fall sometimes. But the fights? Gone. The curiosity? Nuclear. The bond? Unbreakable.
7 Tips to Start This Today (With Your Kid or Yourself)
- Pick one tiny thing (food, toy, bedtime, sport).
- Ask: “What are the first principles here? What is true no matter what?”
- Turn it into a hypothesis: “If I do X, then Y should happen.”
- Run a safe FAFO test – no judgment, just data.
- Observe the result together. Laugh at the crash.
- Ask: “What did reality teach us?”
- Repeat. The hunger grows by itself.
Do this for one week and watch the arguments disappear.
Parents, if you’re exhausted from the daily battles, try this. Break it down. Let them test. Laugh at the mess.
You might just raise the next generation of independent, antifragile thinkers who know how to learn anything.
Let’s make curious, resilient kids normal again.
MKDA: Make kids great again.
Dhawal
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