The Disappearing Skill of Starting

Last year, I completed a personal goal: writing a book about some of the research I’ve been doing on kids and technology.

I’d thought about writing this book for a long time. I’d plenty of ideas, notes, outlines, and half-formed concepts. What I didn’t have was a clear starting point.

So the project sat there as a vague “one day I’ll figure it out.” I’d think about it occasionally, imagine how it might come together, and then put it aside again, telling myself each time that I just needed to think about it a little longer.

Eventually I realized what I was really waiting for was to feel ready. I was waiting for the moment when I’d know exactly how the book should begin and where it should go.

The problem was that moment never came.

So finally I did something much simpler. I picked up the phone and called a publisher and made a pitch.

That conversation didn’t magically solve everything. But it did something more important: it forced the project to start moving forward.

Once something begins, momentum has a way of taking over.

Looking back, the hardest part of writing a book wasn’t the writing. It was the moment before it started, the moment when I didn’t yet know how it would work. Starting is often the hardest step.

Children encounter this moment all the time when they face a new task, a difficult problem, or an open-ended assignment. The question they face is the same one I faced with my book: “Where do I begin?”

Starting Is a Skill

Initiative is often assumed to be a personality trait. Some people are self-starters and others are not.

But starting is actually a skill that develops over time through repeated experience.

Beginning a task requires tolerating uncertainty long enough to try something, even when you're not sure it will work. It means generating possible next steps on your own, and persisting until momentum has a chance to develop.

These abilities are rarely taught explicitly. More often, they develop through everyday practice.

For generations, children practiced starting constantly without anyone intentionally designing it that way. They got bored, and their boredom forced a decision.

What could I do?
What should I try?
How could I solve this problem?

Those moments of uncertainty pushed children toward action.

They invented games, explored outside, built things, and experimented with ideas that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.

Boredom wasn’t just empty time.

It was the starting point for initiative.

When the Prompt Disappears

As I've been exploring in recent writing, many of these moments of uncertainty are interrupted before they even have a chance to begin.

My hesitation with the book wasn't a lack of knowledge; it was a temporary loss of the 'starting' muscle. But as an adult, I had decades of previous 'starts' to fall back on. Times I’d navigated boredom or uncertainty before. Today’s children, however, are growing up in an environment where those rehearsal opportunities are being bypassed by design. We are moving from a world where we had to generate our own momentum to one where momentum is constantly provided for us.

Phones, videos, games, and algorithmically selected streams of content provide instant stimulation. The environment supplies something to do before the mind has to generate it on its own. 

Boredom created internal pressure that pushed children toward action, just as hunger cues us to find food. That pressure is what made it generative. When stimulation is always available, that pressure never builds. Over time, this subtly changes behavior. When technology removes that uncertainty instantly, the brain never learns how to regulate the discomfort of a blank slate.

Children spend less time initiating activity and more time responding to stimulation that arrives from outside. This doesn’t mean children today are less capable or less motivated. But it does mean they are growing up in environments where the skill of starting is practiced less often. 

What Teachers Are Seeing

A teacher raised an important concern after I spoke recently about allowing students to sit with challenges for a bit before jumping in to help.

He said that in his classroom—especially in math—when he does that, some students simply sit there and do nothing.

They don’t attempt the problem.
They don’t try a strategy.

They just wait.

At first glance, that might look like a lack of motivation or willingness to exert effort. But it may actually reflect something else. The teacher described a heavy, expectant silence. It wasn’t the silence of deep through, but the silence of a passenger waiting for a driver to start the car. When he resisted the urge to provide the first step, the students didn’t eventually start moving on their own; they just sat there. This suggests that the issue isn't a lack of math ability, but a starting reflex that has gone dormant because the expected prompt, usually in the form of a screen or specific instruction, is missing.

Productive struggle only works when children have experience starting.

If students have regularly practiced asking themselves questions like “What could I try?”, then sitting with a difficult problem usually leads to experimentation. But if that habit hasn’t been practiced as often, moments of uncertainty can trigger a different response: waiting.

In other words, the issue isn’t simply tolerance for difficulty. It’s the skill of initiating action when the path forward isn’t obvious.

The First Step Matters

Once someone begins a task, momentum often helps push things forward.

But the moment before that when the next step is unclear can feel uncomfortable. It’s easier to delay, distract ourselves, or wait for direction than it is to try something that might not work.

Historically, children encountered that moment frequently. Long afternoons, quiet car rides, and unstructured time forced them to figure out what to do next. Those moments acted as rehearsal for initiative. 

Today, many of those rehearsal opportunities have disappeared. So when a student sits in front of a math problem and doesn’t begin, it may not be a lack of ability. It may simply be that the skill of starting hasn’t been practiced as often.

Rebuilding the Habit of Starting

Rebuilding the habit of starting doesn’t mean removing technology or trying to recreate childhood from decades ago. But it may mean paying closer attention to the small moments where initiative develops.

Children need low-stakes chances to resolve their own boredom, to experiment with ideas that might not pan out, and to decide what to do next without being handed the answer. Teachers and parents can support this process not by leaving children alone with difficulty, but by helping them practice the act of beginning.

Sometimes the most helpful question isn’t:

“Do you understand the problem?”

It’s:

“What’s one thing you could try first?”

It's worth asking: when did you last sit with an uncertain beginning and resist the urge to fill it? That discomfort that leads many of us to reach for our phones to avoid might be exactly what we should be protecting in children's lives.

When I finally picked up the phone and called that publisher, I didn't know how the book would turn out. I still don't think I was ready. But the call made it real and real things have a way of moving forward. That's what we want for children too. Not certainty before they begin. Just enough courage to make the call.