Running L&D for My Kids with Claude

TL;DR: Before AI, I would have ideas for what I’d like my kids to learn more of outside of school, but no way to action on it as my laundry list of nice-to-haves run deep. Now I tell Claude the kinds of lessons I want, it builds printable worksheet packets with a unique ID on every sheet, and I’m setting it up so I can photograph the finished pages and have Claude help track my kids’ progress. I almost bought a very expensive computer for this, but good news, a printer, Obsidian, and a prompt turned out to be enough!

One of the scariest and most exciting things about having children is that you can have such a strong influence over the types of ideas and lessons they are exposed to throughout their foundational years of life. While I believe school is important, I see teachers as key players in my child’s education, and I am the conductor (the main conductor while my kids are young, then I gradually transition the duty to the kids themselves as they get older).

Because of that, I have a lot of opinions on what skills are important for my kids to grow up developing. This matters even more in the age of AI, where it’s easier than ever to never have an original thought. That is exactly why it’s more important than ever to raise curious, self-starter children.

Where My Drive Came From

Before I get into the skills I’m trying to instill in my kids, a bit of context on my philosophy toward education and abilities. I do not see myself as a Tiger Mom (I’ll write an article about what a Tiger Mom is in the future).

On paper, I’ve done pretty well for myself academically – I didn’t speak English when I first immigrated to America for 2nd grade, but I ended up valedictorian of my 6th grade class and my 8th grade class, got into the prestigious Stuyvesant High School by studying on my own without any paid test prep, eventually ended up at the Cooper Union and the University of Southern California, then wrapped up my education with an MBA from Columbia.

I think some people would assume my mom was a Tiger Mom, but the truth is she never had the luxury of becoming one, because she was too busy working 7 days a week to pay for basic living expenses for the both of us.

I was internally motivated because I saw how hard my mom worked, and I believed the best I could do for her was to give her something to brag about (it’s an Asian parent thing). I don’t recall my mom ever sitting me down to talk about academics, but really, she didn’t have to. Just as how many Asian parents don’t say “I love you” and instead they show it by cutting up fruit and giving their kids the best pieces while settling for the core, my mom didn’t need to tell me to do my part because I saw her working every single day just to keep us going.

Now that I’m grown and have kids of my own, I feel really grateful that they don’t have to go through the growing up I did, teaching myself everything on my own. At the same time, part of me wants them to go through some hardship, because that’s how I built my own self-determination and drive.

Luckily for my kids, I don’t believe I need to recreate that kind of hardship to get them there. Instead, I’d like to teach them certain skills and build up their curiosity, so they can find that drive in a different way.

I also want them to love learning and enjoy expanding their brains, even more than I did. When I was growing up, learning mostly meant studying for the next test, because I thought that the numbers were all that mattered, and I never had the luxury of learning just for the sake of it. This is my chance to give that to my kids.

That is why I see myself as the current manager of my kids’ enrichment curriculum, basically L&D (learning and development) for my kids. I want to pass on this joy of learning by identifying what they are already good at, where they might need more coaching, and introducing them to new learning material I don’t expect them to come across in school. I don’t believe in limiting my kids to grade-level academics, because I believe human beings are capable of so much, especially younger children with their ultra neuroplasticity.

My Enrichment Plans for My Kids (so far)

Here’s an unsorted list of skills I want my kids to grow up with. I believe I can influence them up until probably the age of 10-12. After that, I’d leave it up to them to see if they want to continue with any of these and if I did my job right, they would be getting to know themselves well enough to be able to make that decision on their own.

• Read and write Chinese. I don’t really have regrets in life, but if I did, quitting Saturday Chinese school when I was a kid would probably top the list. I remember fighting my mom so hard on it. To be fair to myself, I think a big part of it was that I didn’t want my aunt and uncle to take me to school (again, my mom had no time, she was working every day). I knew my mom had to pay them and I didn’t want that for my mom. Nonetheless, the 3rd grade level Chinese I did retain has been super helpful in my life- it helps to be able to think in another language. My mom taught me a lot of Chinese idioms that serve as my values, and the English translations of them just can’t capture the beauty and the meaning. For my kids, I want to unlock global opportunities and options for them in the future. Language also connects you to culture, which is something I hope my kids will retain as they grow up.
• Think logically and flexibly. Sudoku, logic grids, chess, riddles and rebus puzzles. Strategy and brain games, not school-style math. My older daughter will complain about being tired of equations, but she absolutely loves her logic grids and it’s so cool to hear her ask for more after speeding through her packets.
• Have real number sense. School is teaching my older one her multiplication tables, telling time and counting change, and I treat grade level as a floor, not a ceiling. I incorporate my kids in real life math such as calculating cost at the supermarket and restaurants.
• Tell a story out loud. Communication is so important in the real world. I do well with written communication, but I wish I had stronger public speaking skills. I actually find the idea of public speaking super fun myself, but then I get nervous when I have to do it. I’m slowly working on this myself, but I want my kids to grow up confidently instead of not realizing they have a voice. I was raised to “be seen, not heard.”
• Summarize and write. My older child is already reading a few grade levels beyond her current level, but I worry her writing is not as advanced. Consuming content is fine, but I want my kids to also be able to contribute with their own thoughts and ideas.
• Read before kindergarten. My older child did this on her own without much help from my husband and me, and we have seen how much it’s boosted her confidence. We are actively working on this with our younger child now, and have seen a lot of progress!

I admire the Chinese emphasis on math, logic and actually using your brain. I also value the Western emphasis on risk-taking, confidence and storytelling. I don’t want to pick one, so I want practice that builds both.

That is a lot of nice-to-haves for someone with a full-time job, and for a long time that’s all they were. Here is how I make that happen with Claude.

How I Run It

I log my ideas for the girls and notes on the girls’ interests and abilities in Obsidian. Claude builds a pack for each girl at her level based on those notes. Every sheet has a unique ID in the top right corner and a score box at the bottom. The ID tells me exactly which sheet it is (these examples use “K1” and “K2” in place of my real IDs):

Sheet ID	What it means
K1-P1-D1-SUD	Kid 1, Pack 1, Day 1, Sudoku
K2-P1-D2-RID	Kid 2, Pack 1, Day 2, Riddles
K2-P3-D06-S66	Kid 2, Pack 3, Day 6, 6×6 Sudoku

When a sheet is done, the plan is for the girl and I to circle four things in the score box: finished, hints used, minutes, and how it felt (easy, just right, hard). Then I take a photo of the whole page and send it to Claude. It reads the ID and the score box, checks the answers against a parent answer key, and adds a row to a progress log.

I am more of a guide than a boss here, so it’s really important for me to get the girls’ feedback on their enrichment program to see how I can continue to best serve them.

The log is where the decisions live. The level rule is simple: three clean solves in a row (finished, no hints, not marked hard) means step up. A puzzle that takes about twice the usual time, or two “hard” ratings in a row, means ease back one notch. A missed day never resets anything. Any sheet can be done on any day.

Adjusting the System to the Child’s Level

My first pack started my 4-year-old on 9×9 sudoku, even though Claude’s first suggestion was to start at 4×4 and 6×6, because I wanted to see how she would do on it. I believe in trying to push boundaries instead of conforming to them when it comes to the abilities of our brain.

It didn’t cost anything to try it out, and it showed me that my younger daughter understood the basics of why a number cannot show up in a box if it is in the same horizontal or vertical row. However, it took her a lot longer to see the payoff, so I backtracked and told Claude it was right.

I printed her a 4×4 packet and she breezed through those within two days. Turns out, she is more suited for 6×6 puzzles.

The reason I’m excited about this setup is that the level is meant to come from the log, not from my guess or her age. If my guess and the evidence disagree, the evidence should win, and the system will tell me.

A prompt you can use

Here is the master prompt I would give Claude to set this up from scratch. Fill in the brackets and paste it in. As a systems thinker, the last line matters most to me, because it turns the whole thing from a one-time favor into a system you can rerun each semester.

You are going to help me build a printable worksheet system for my kids and track their progress from photos.

Before you build anything, ask me up to 5 questions about my kids (age, current level, what they love, what I want them to learn, how much time we have each week). Then propose a plan and wait for my approval.

What I want for my kids: [one or two sentences about your goal]
My kids: [age, grade, and what each can do today]
Time: [minutes per session, sessions per week]

How the worksheets should work:
1. Make one pack per child, pitched slightly above their current level. Each page has 1 to 4 puzzles of one type.
2. Give every page a unique sheet ID in the top right corner, in the format CHILD-PACK-DAY-TYPE (for example K1-P1-D2-SUD).
3. Put a score box at the bottom of every page: Finished (yes or no), Hints used (0, 1, 2+), Minutes, and How it felt (easy, just right, hard). I will circle these by hand.
4. Put the answers in a separate parent answer key, never on the child's pages.
5. Make every page printable on plain letter paper with large print.

How tracking should work:
When I upload a photo of a finished page, read the sheet ID and the score box, check the answers against the key, and add a row to a progress log with the date, sheet ID, finished, hints, minutes, how it felt, and how many answers were correct.

Level rule: three clean solves in a row (finished, zero hints, not marked hard) means step up one level on the next pack. A page that takes about twice the usual time, or two hard ratings in a row, means ease back one notch. Base levels on the log, not on my guesses or the child's age. If my guess and the log disagree, tell me.

Consistency: show me how many pages each child did each week so I can see a drop-off early. A missed day should never reset anything.

When you are done, turn this entire system into a reusable skill I can run at the start of each new semester, so all I have to update is my kids' ages, goals, and the log.

What I Do With the Time I Get Back

I am not outsourcing my kids’ education. I am in charge of the girls’ enrichment curriculum. Before, I would have had to put the worksheets together by hand and then make my kids complete them on their own. Now I can have AI do the manual work, taking the ideas from my brain and making them a reality, while I sip on hot tea and sit next to my kids as they work. That means I am more involved, not less.

I’m not one to hover, so I try to just observe. As crazy as it sounds, having time to watch my kids think and do their work is such a beautiful, important thing for me. Then we talk through the puzzles together.

In my opinion, the whole point of AI is to give me time back to do what I value most, which is spending quality time with my family. I often think about how crazy fast kids grow up. I just love watching them, because I know I can never bottle this time up.

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