Field guide

How to ask a teenager a question they’ll actually answer

Every question that sounds like a check-in gets a one-word answer. Here’s what to ask instead, and the three subjects to leave alone.

7 min read · In progress

Full guide coming soon

This guide is outlined but not written. Read the car-ride guide in the meantime — it’s the finished template for all of these.

Keep reading

More field guides.

Short and specific.

Side by side, no eye contact, a hard stop. Why the car outperforms the dinner table — and the four-card sequence to run in it.

Twelve people, four opinions, one turkey. Which categories to pull, which to leave in the box, and when to end it.

The single most common mistake is starting with the best card. Start light, and let the fourth answer be the good one.