1) Are you solving the problem that someone (your customer / manager / stakeholder) wants you to solve right now?
what makes you think the thing you're working on is the priority, have you checked with someone or got convincing data
2) Are you taking longer than expected?
if yes, why? What's a practical solution now and for the future so everyone remains happy? If no, why do you think so?
3) Are the people in charge of your future happy with what you've delivered?
How do you know and what's the reason if they're unhappy?
4) If there's a disconnect on any of the points between you and the stakeholders, what is a practical solution that you can implement it quickly?
5) Are you knowledgeable enough that people can rely on you to solve their problems in the most practical manner?
Unsure what you want to explain or what your nine year old already knows, but generally I would start by explaining to him/her/them that these are pictures of very far away and enormous objects taken from a telescope that is located further away than the moon.
The telescope takes pictures in a different frequency band, like an infrared camera. These pictures are then color mapped to blue, green yellow and other colors that you normally see because just black and white image are boring to look at.
I too grew up outside the USA, I'd say in a culture very different from any western ones and not just America. We didn't have anything like dad-jokes as far as I can remember.
Both my children (almost teens now) have only lived in the USA, and they yell "dad-joke" at any attempted humor that fails to make them laugh. On my part they're mostly sarcastic remarks veiled as a joke to keep the conversation pleasant or makes a fun one more interesting, by showing my participation. Sometimes I also initiate it because I simply want to bond with them but I don't know how to talk like their age. I don't want conversations to be too serious.
I guess, my ultimate motive is to bond with them with humor but I have to choose ones that isn't too confrontational, aggressive or other negative connotations. I pick these almost silly bad ones on purpose because they're light-hearted, they have been used it since they were very small and I really don't feel the need to be perfect around them, they're too young for me. Lately I have also been thinking that maybe I do want them the opportunity to laugh at me, instead of seeing me as authoritative, all the time.
In the culture I grew up in fathers were supposed to be quite strict so even talking to them was a big deal so jokes were rare. Even then we used talk about silly things our old men did, on rare ocassions in front of them so the last one might be a big part of it.
1) Are you solving the problem that someone (your customer / manager / stakeholder) wants you to solve right now? what makes you think the thing you're working on is the priority, have you checked with someone or got convincing data
2) Are you taking longer than expected? if yes, why? What's a practical solution now and for the future so everyone remains happy? If no, why do you think so?
3) Are the people in charge of your future happy with what you've delivered? How do you know and what's the reason if they're unhappy?
4) If there's a disconnect on any of the points between you and the stakeholders, what is a practical solution that you can implement it quickly?
5) Are you knowledgeable enough that people can rely on you to solve their problems in the most practical manner?