Day one
Birth
You arrive with four instructions: eat, sleep, excrete, and be held. The Guide starts here.
Guide for Humans
The species, marked out of ten.
This Guide is for anyone who does not know how to be human. It has not asked who that is.
You were issued four instructions at birth: eat, sleep, excrete, and be held. Everything after is a trade. The Guide covers each one in order, with a report card, from the humans' own measurements of themselves.
Read the opening chapters
Two chapters from the book in progress. The drawings, the report cards, and the sources are all here.
Age three
Three
The first lies, the endless questions, and the parent who finds nursery harder than the child.
A few reasonable questions
Short answers from the Guide, with drawings and the research behind them.
Why do three-year-olds lie?
The first denial often survives until the next question.
Read the answer →
Why do children keep asking “why”?
Another question can mean your answer worked.
Read the answer →REPORT CARD
Unofficial marks. The measurements are real; the judgement is the Guide's.Being heldBirth
3
About three seconds per embrace in the Olympic study. The medal presentation lasted longer.
The tantrumTwo
7 at two, 3 at the till
Most are over inside a minute. At the till, forty-three per cent of Americans with a serious complaint raised their voice in 2023.
LyingThree
9 for the skill
By four, about four in five who peeked denied it, and three in four of the youngest liars then named the toy.
WaitingFour and five
1 in view, 8 hidden
About a minute with the treats on the table, about eleven without, of fifteen.
SharingFour and five
9 claimed, 3 counted
About half, said; an eighth, given. Adults hand over twenty-eight per cent.
Leave an email address. You will be told once, when it is issued, and not again.