Stormy Weather

This morning, I woke up to a flurry of text messages from our travel companions to Antarctica last year. One friend shared a video of a ship recently crossing the notorious Drake Passage,  facing waves up to 40-feet high. The video almost seemed fake as the ship and passengers braced to absorb the roller coaster waves. A few minutes later,  I turned on the news, and the weather featured prominently: A swath of storms crossing the country is posed to wreak havoc. Indeed, weather, always a topic of casual conversation, is today much more volatile than it has been in the past. Some days, a drenching rain soaks the roots of my towering oak trees, threatening their demise. The next day, the sun scorches the pavement, and the temperatures soar to 90 degrees in early April. With Hurricane Helene devastating Asheville only last fall, North Carolinians, like most Americans today, know that unexpected storms can drastically impact lives. Just the threat of a storm today can be anxiety producing.

I grew up in a stormy household, unaware of when the next storm might blow in. Paired with an expectation of perfection, the combination weighed heavily on me. I am far from alone, as we live in a culture today where the pathway to success has never been more unknown, especially with AI looming. Parental involvement  frequently seems either remote or suffocating. Extremism has too often become the norm. Stormy weather, in other words, is prevalent everywhere.

To brace for such volatility, cruise ships today have built-in stabilizers. Without them, a cruise ship may not be able to comfortably face the “Drake Shake.”

In today’s chaotic world, the family home needs to be a safe haven for our high school students, and to achieve that stable environment, parents must seek to minimize volatility, to lead with structure and clear values, and to keep inflexible expectations at bay. It is difficult for parents to fully understand the “storms” that our children regularly encounter. A social media post may suddenly rock their world, as they learn that they were not invited to a party. Their chrome book may fail to charge on the one day that their charge cord is at home. Their partner for the big history PowerPoint project may fail to turn in that project on time. These events should amount to simple “showers” – unexpected but manageable inconveniences, where if the student remains calm, an equitable resolution can be achieved. However, if the home environment is rocky, a small ripple can cause huge waves and sleepless nights and rattle the student into disarray.

Moreover, most families simultaneously cope with some mental health issues or addiction, both of which still carry a stigma. I know that if I struggled to navigate my own path during the 1970s Me Decade, our children’s path is certainly fraught with peril in what could easily be nicknamed the Chaotic Twenties and in what began with a pandemic. Parents, no doubt, must work harder today to maintain a sense of normalcy at home, to cultivate an environment where our children realize that success is a possibility and where our children see themselves as worthy.

Storms today are certain to invade every household. Some volatility is to be expected and, frankly, is needed. How we manage our response to storms – that is where character is demonstrated and where our children gain resiliency. Constant volatility, however, is what we must seek to avoid, what we must guard our children from facing.

If your own home lacks structure or fails to serve as the safe haven for your children that you know is needed, take steps to find stability. Seek out a qualified therapist or support for an addiction. Or engage in your community  and volunteer for the needy. Nothing grounds us more than understanding better what we may be taking for granted.

Raising Resilient Kids: Reflections from My Parenting Journey

As a mom, I believe that most parents try to do their best. Ultimately, we all aim to avoid the possibility that, one day, our children will be complaining about us to some therapist, which is probably not preventable. As I reflect on my efforts raising my two boys, I know that I made many mistakes, but like most of you, I am very proud of the men they have become, even if the results are primarily due to my children’s own hard work, rather than any efforts my husband and I exerted to guide them toward a life of purpose.

I think it can be a worthwhile exercise, though, to evaluate what kind of parents we are. Are we more strict or permissive? Do we parent with a primary philosophy that we simply want our children to be happy, or do we parent to prepare them for the rugged realities of adult life ahead? How much of our parenting styles are due to our own experiences as children?

Balance, of course, is likely what we should strive to obtain. Parenting styles, much like diets, will come and go, but balance is likely the best path to success.

In my own personal reflection, I was part drill sergeant. Those of you who know me won’t be surprised by this admission. I urged physical fitness above all else with my boys, which meant that they always maintained a busy schedule and always had a lot of exercise. I intentionally prioritized fitness because it is a lifelong habit that I deem important. I still believe that lots of physical activity, especially for boys, builds confidence both outside and inside the classroom and helps foster a child’s ability to sit still, whether in school, at a religious service, or at the dinner table.

I also set very high expectations, admittedly pushing them past the point of comfort. They chose their own activities, but once engaged, I expected full effort. The results were that they often surprised themselves. Such experiences build resilience and self-satisfaction. If we do not put any pressure on our children in terms of expectations, in my observation, children often fall short of their potential.

The third reason, that I was, quite frankly, a taskmaster of a mom is because I have no tolerance for laziness. Absolutely none. That is not to say that I don’t value walking in nature or sitting in the grass to examine a dandelion closely. That is not to say that I don’t value play, such as a game of Scrabble or building a Lego model, or that I don’t appreciate a hobby, even introspective ones, such as painting.  I do, however, have a very low tolerance for hours spent gaming or for gaming as a “social activity.” I have very low tolerance for mindlessly streaming reels on Instagram up to the point where the streamer has no idea why his or her feed is filled with videos about a particular subject, totally unaware of the algorithms that are reflecting personal habits. And I have no tolerance for sleeping Saturdays away. In my experience, all of these activities reinforce depressive tendencies and isolation.

My fifteen years of experience as an academic coach have affirmed my personal observations. I am neither a doctor nor a mental health counselor, but after working with hundreds of children, I can confidently say that I do not regret raising my children with high expectations, pushing their physical limits, or encouraging them to fill their days with activity and social interactions.

I am extremely aware that some children are more fragile than others. I have worked with many such children, but I am also aware that coddling our children, even if they are highly sensitive, does not bode well for them, in my experience.

I was a product of a very rigid household. Naturally, I have tried to swing the pendulum in the direction of more nurturing, but I also exercised a lot of restraint to ensure that I did not overdo the nurturing, to the point of becoming a pushover. Admittedly, in my mind, ideal parenting is likely a little bit more gentle than my approach. Thankfully, I had a husband who balanced out my efforts.

From my personal reflection, I hope that you will gain insights to your own parenting styles. Whether you agree with my observations and my approach or not, increasing our awareness and the intentionality of our decisions is important. I also hope that you hear my loud cry that today’s children need greater parental involvement. Not helicoptering. Not controlling. Not usurping their individuality or personal responsibilities, but genuine, loving attention and interest in their days, their friends, and their activities. Personal connections have, in my estimation, never been more important.

Cultivating Grit Through Sports

When I was in high school, February, the shortest month in days, often seemed to drag on forever. Spring break seemed like a mirage on the distant horizon. The cold weather, the lack of holidays (except for Presidents’ Day), and the drudgery of the repetitive school day at this point in the academic year weighed on me. I longed for snow days and a change to shake up the monotony.

I am not sure that I can describe our current February as monotonous. The shifting and ever-changing political landscape, the rampant flu season, the temperature changes from brutal cold to shorts weather, and the heightened pressure to move through  AP curricula because of lost days to ice and snow have made this February anything but boring. I still find, though, that what students need most and what they are often lacking at this time of year is resilience, the very same quality that I needed back in the day to survive February.

Fortunately, spring sports start their practice seasons in February and foreshadow approaching light. I have written blogs in the past about the importance of sports in today’s world for our high school children, and spring may be the most important season for sports because it revives students, refocuses them, and directs them to finish the year in stride at a time when, I believe, all students need some adrenaline.

High school sports have become increasingly competitive over the years. Because students are starting sports at tender ages and honing their expertise for a particular sport through travel teams and summer camps, many of our children feel squeezed out of the opportunity to participate on high school teams. Nevertheless, trying out for a team and failing or signing up for a club sport are important ways that our children can build grit. Nothing, in my experience, instills doggedness like athletics, and sadly, perseverance is lacking in much of our youth. Resilience is borne on the sports field. Everyone knows that sports is where a student builds fortitude, which is exactly why every high school teen should, in my opinion, experience a sport.

So many of our children lack confidence. So many of our children suffer from anxiety. So many of our children succumb to avoiding work. So many of our children are out of shape. Conversely, a few of our children actually think too highly of themselves. Each of these deficits, though, can be overcome through sports. If “there’s no crying in baseball,” as Tom Hanks proclaimed in A League of Their Own, than that is because children need to toughen up a bit. The world can be dark and cold – especially in February – but our children need to learn that the little failures, such as bobbling a ball, missing a goal, or veering off course, can almost always be overcome. Perhaps more significantly, these failures are vital to experience.

The time is nigh to get our children out of their rooms and onto the field. Sports is not only the antidote to seasonal depression and other ailments, but it is also the pathway to transform self-image and to instill confidence.

Creating Confidence Through Positivity and Gratitude

In December, a friend shared a reel from Instagram with me. I try not to watch reels, if I am being honest. They can be polarizing and addictive, but this particular reel had a profound effect on me. It was about setting up a gratitude jar for 2025. Each week, the content creator suggested adding a Post-It note to the jar about something for which I am thankful, so at the end of 2025, I can then reflect on the many events and moments that brought me joy during the year. I found myself wishing I had completed this exercise in 2024, a year for which I knew I had much to be thankful – two family weddings and a monumental trip among them – but I also knew that I had forgotten many positive moments, too. I now have a jar in my office and am adding my colorful Post-Its with notes of gratitude to it weekly.

A strange thing, though, has already happened because of this exercise. My mere glance at the jar conjures positivity, and I have become more intensely aware of how attitude affects us all, including our children.

Much of what I do in my office is work to change my students’ attitudes, attitudes about school, about their work, about their futures, and about themselves. Students who are flailing in school almost always have attitude issues. Students who are struggling with tests or who are seeking to perform better on tests are looking for greater ability and understanding, yes, but also for confidence. Confidence is a game-changer in the world of academics and testing.

The conversations we have with ourselves and with our children can either work to build confidence or work to erode it. Setting the tone for each day and for the year ahead can have a more profound impact than we know.

I hope that you and your family will join me in my efforts to adopt positivity and gratitude in the year ahead. With a fresh semester ahead, consider setting high, measurable goals for and with your children . . . and for yourselves. Consider adding a gratitude jar in a prominent location to which you and your children can contribute Post-It notes of gratitude. Another great thing about joy and positivity is that they are contagious, and with the negative and often tragic news stories filling our daily feeds, we can all use reminders to make the most of every day.

Moral Ambiguity and the Erosion of Authority

The targeted slaying of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has laid bare the ethical crisis in our nation. We are a country that seems to be going rogue, ignoring traditional rules and celebrating the breach of authority and law. Many are excusing, in jest or outright, the murder of an individual that few, if any, of us knew personally - a man who was a father and a husband but who worked in an industry plagued with deceit. To make this situation worse, the alleged murderer used a 3D printer to create his weapon, a ghost gun because it’s unserialized.

The moral ambiguity implied by the pushback to the prosecution of this assassin is palpable. Should we be permitted to take the law into our own hands to right perceived injustices?

This murder does not stand in isolation. Other popular news stories include the Menendez brothers’ murder of their parents in 1989. Media attention has prompted a recent demand for the release of the imprisoned brothers, suggesting that the killings were justified due to the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse the boys faced during childhood at the hands of their parents.

Many teenagers are attempting to process these stories through the lens of comedy, because they are watching this news play out on TikTok and in sketches, such as those on “Saturday Night Live.” Too many of these teens lack moral guidance, a dangerous combination.

High school has long been a location where sharp one-liners get a laugh and attention. No doubt, the moral ambiguity woven into these stories becomes even more prominent as teens recreate and share the jokes that they have heard about these stories and others.

Amid these headlines, Reynolds experienced a school shooting last week.

When our high schoolers come home, most of them retreat to their bedrooms where they stream, watch football, and game, each of which reinforces, to some degree, violence and unhealthy rhetoric as opposed to morality and well-reasoned debate.

Parents also seem to lack authority these days. Many parents feel as though they have no ability to punish or to control their children and no way to enforce their own house rules. At the holidays in the coming weeks, I encourage you to reconnect with your children. We as parents must get these children out of their bedrooms and into common spaces.

Authority is under attack, but structure and order, not anarchy, preserve safety, stability, and goodness. By reconnecting with your children and by engaging in deep discussions about these headlines, you may be able to realign your children’s moral compasses and eliminate the ambiguity.

Battling Burnout: Rekindling our Boys’ Motivation

A lot has changed since my two sons were in high school. Girls have long outperformed boys in the classroom, but only recently did I become seriously concerned about today’s high school boys.

As an academic coach, I am witnessing boys’ lack of motivation. Their often short attention spans and inadequate discipline are causing them to falter. I fear that our boys are slipping away from us. They are falling down the class rank ladder, so much so that boys now make up only one-third of the top ten percent of high school classes and two-thirds of the bottom ten percent (Brooks, David. “Voters to Elites: Do You See Me Now?” New York Times, 11/6/24).

Parents contact me regularly to share that their boys are fully capable but fail to complete any schoolwork outside of the classroom or are completely incapable of effective studying. Moreover, they are uninspired and distracted in the classroom. The schoolwork has become tedious. They long to be somewhere else, doing something else, even if they are unsure what. They resent the long hours dedicated to school, a place that fails to deliver the excitement and reassurance that they seek. They have lost self-confidence. It is important that we, as parents, understand the contributing factors.

Many boys tend to struggle with executive functioning, which means initiating their work is a challenge, and they mature at a slower pace than girls. Our curriculum moves quickly for many children from foundational middle school work to an AP curriculum that requires independent learning. Suddenly in the tenth grade, our sons must attend to a lot of work independently, watching and synthesizing videos and applying the lessons provided there to online assignments. When motivation and self-confidence are lacking, a work-around by copying work from friends or otherwise cheating (looking up answers online) seems an easy resort.

Additional consistencies among these young men contribute to their lethargy. Boys seem more belligerent about the “busy work” assigned in school. Boys usually benefit from a tactile or project-based education and, therefore, may initially struggle to learn from textbooks, videos, or lectures. Meanwhile, gaming and cell phones have become addictive distractions, and a largely prescribed course schedule with minimal room for choices seems to affect boys more adversely than girls. In general, girls are more organized and willing to sit for longer periods of time studying. I realize that these observations are not true across the board, but they are true, in my experience, most of the time. Our post-pandemic shift to more computer work and less physical interaction, therefore, seems to be taking a toll on our boys. If this sounds familiar and if my comments seem directed to you, I suggest a few courses of action.

First, get involved. Boys may put out signals that they don’t want you involved in their lives, but they do. They just don’t want the wrong kind of attention. They don’t want to be pestered with your nagging questions about grades and missing work, but they do want to connect with you. Indeed, many are lonely. Show an interest in your children’s days, and model your own self-improvement and growth. Do not allow your children to isolate themselves in their rooms. Instead, show them how to cook, clean, wash the car, or do lawn work. They would also benefit from discussing news, politics, religion, and money with you, because these are pressing issues today. Many parents fail to include their children in these discussions or to seek their emerging points of view. Firming up the parent-child bond has never been more important, and just because they have schoolwork to complete does not mean that they do not have time for family chores and discussions.

Second, our sons need to gain some traction in school. Attaining some success in school will help breed greater confidence and motivation. Structure can help them do that, and a busy life ironically leads to a more organized life. Just as sleep begets sleep, productivity begets productivity. Accordingly, ensure that your children have ample healthy activities or interests to hold their attention outside of the classroom.

You should also expect your children to do some schoolwork at home every day, even every weekend, whether that is reading over class notes for improved retention, filing paper work, polishing off written assignments, actively preparing for upcoming assessments, or reading a book. (Note that reading over notes is not active studying.) Scheduling with your child a one-hour period at the same time every day for the completion of this work without access to a phone and preferably in a common area will help them gain that initial traction. Many of them might benefit from more time, but one hour is a reasonable start.

As we move closer to the second semester of our school year, let’s address the waning motivation of our high school boys. Let’s get them involved in family and in activities, and let’s get them reengaged in their own futures.

Tackling Test Anxiety

In the ninth grade, I vividly remember standing in front of my English class. My knees literally knocked as I attempted to level my voice. My wobbly stance and stuttering voice put my anxiety on full display. I had a fear of public speaking, even if it was just in front of about 24 students in my public school classroom.

I made a promise to myself, then and there, to overcome my fear of public speaking. I vowed to prepare thoroughly when facing any presentation and to force myself into the spotlight. I began teaching soon thereafter: ballroom dancing at our local cotillion, swimming lessons at our local pool and at camp, and even a ballroom dancing short course for other students in college. I gained confidence in my public speaking skills by teaching topics I knew well to others. 

Over the span of five to six years, I got my sea legs. Before I knew it, I had earned a spot on the National Moot Court Team in law school and, thereafter, I became a trial litigator, speaking before a full courtroom almost weekly. In ninth grade, I would never have envisioned a career that involved public speaking.

Today, a different anxiety seems to plague many of our children: test anxiety. A large portion of my students seem to handle their classwork without a hitch. They are fairly organized and attentive to their daily work. They “study” for tests; however, on test day, they falter. They earn a failing or near failing grade. The students and their parents are dismayed. How could they do so poorly after ten years in school of nearly straight As? These children are  bright. In fact, they may have never needed to study much before tenth or eleventh grade – maybe for the occasional spelling or history unit test but certainly not in math.

Unfortunately, test anxiety today is very common, and students now seem to simply adopt the phrase, “I have test anxiety,” as if they’ve been stricken with a disease, without adequately addressing it. Parents used to share with me in hushed tones that their child suffers from test anxiety. Now, students themselves “own” the label. Teachers who struggle to reconcile their classes’ poor grades offer the students the opportunity to earn points back on tests and to opt out of exams, relieving them of the need to sharpen their study habits and test taking skills. Teachers offer extra credit to bring up quarterly grades, too. Our high school students can now navigate high school and sometimes even college without ever facing a full courseload of exams, and college students shop classes looking for the courses that have final projects or papers in lieu of exams.

Therefore, when many colleges went test optional in admissions, the number of students to jump ship and avoid the SAT and ACT altogether soared exponentially.  

Avoidance, however, is not the best way to combat this problem. Test anxiety is a very real thing for some students; however, in my experience, the best way to overcome test anxiety is by sharpening the student’s approach to preparing for the test and by, well, taking the test!

Test prep is more than just gaming the test: It is skill development – learning the math and grammar concepts that were never perfected, gaining an understanding of what it means to read a passage strategically, and learning how to evaluate multiple choice questions with a keen eye. Yes, there are tricks involved, but many of my test prep students become not only significantly more confident and more shrewd test takers but also better students overall. We can denounce the importance of test taking, but a strong test taker is often an observant and knowledgeable student, which is why colleges do, in fact, care about test scores and are reinstituting testing requirements.

I know that fears only grow in time when they are not addressed. If your children continue to struggle on unit tests, they need to revamp their study habits, and if they want to improve on the SAT and ACT, they need to dig in and practice. Conquering fears is empowering, too, and most of our children will benefit from a boost in confidence.

Recently, I added group test prep sessions to my offerings, specifically to broaden my reach and to accommodate my waitlist, so if your child needs support in test prep, please reach out. My next group test prep session is for the ACT and will take place on Sunday, October 6.

Reestablishing Real-Life Connections

I continue to be concerned about our children’s overindulgence in technology, and now my concerns have taken new life as I read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, which has ridden the best seller list for over twenty weeks. Haidt’s overall message resonates with me: “We are overprotecting children in the real world and underprotecting them online.” For years, we have heard of the dangers of helicopter parenting, which has served to make our children dependent and fearful, but the combination of limiting their sphere of physical freedom and simultaneously allowing them full access to technology and online material has proven very dangerous. Despite efforts to limit phone access in schools, which is a positive step, I believe that we, as parents, must do more to restore what’s left of this generation’s childhood.

Today’s high school students, in addition to being anxious, are socially immature. Not only did the pandemic strip them of necessary social and play time to develop their emotional intelligence, but we have also compounded their deprivation by moving to a much greater reliance on technology than ever before.

While I applaud our public school system’s decision to largely ban the use of cellphones, teachers seem to be substituting one screen for another, as they rely increasingly on technology to educate our children. EdPuzzles, Delta Math, DuoLingo, AP Classroom, online class offerings, Flipped Classrooms, and IXL are among the digital platforms our local teachers are not just offering but requiring. These programs are effective learning tools, but they should never be replacements, in my opinion, for instruction. They are being overused, in part, because they make instruction so easy for our teachers. Students should have the opportunity not just to learn class lessons at school but also to gain interpersonal skills by engaging with other students and by learning directly from a mentor, their teacher, in the classroom. Our teachers must continue to serve as role models and mentors to help our children grow socially.

Moreover, because of the excessive screen time taking place within school walls, our children need screen time seriously curtailed at home. Setting aside phones at dinner and during conversations should be required, not just for the children but for us as parents. Detaching from our phones and screens must be prioritized.

I’m amazed at how screens are increasingly involved in daily life. Every appliance in my home seems to have an affiliated app. I go to a concert, and the crowd is watching the concert through their phones as they film. I go on a hike, and along the trail, everyone is using an app to track the path rather than absorbing the scenery. It’s no wonder that we are failing to connect and that our children are struggling to read our emotions and finding it difficult to write a meaningful thank you note or to engage in a pointed conversation.

This lack of real human connection only enhances our children’s vulnerability online. And this need for our phones to do everything, from turning up the air conditioning to discovering our homework, makes putting our phones down nearly impossible, but we must carve out times to do so.

Simultaneously, the guard rails on our children have grown increasingly higher in the physical world. When my youngest son was ten years old, he asked me if he could go for a run. After giving him instructions about my expectations for his journey and the intersections to avoid, he headed out on foot. Admittedly, he was relatively small at ten, but the next thing I knew, the police rang my doorbell, certain that my child was running away and in danger, alone in my neighborhood. We have become conditioned to being overprotective of our children in the physical world, yet our children scroll through the internet and TikTok for five-plus hours a day unrestrained, through information that they should not likely be sourcing and potentially in contact with real predators and certainly at risk for bullying.

Please have conversations with your children about limiting phone usage. Please track their online activity, which is what we should really be helicoptering. Please push your kids into sports and arts where they can leave their phones in a locker or at home. Let’s reclaim some of the adventures we had as kids for them. Let’s get lost in the woods; let’s be in the moment, whether going to a concert or attending a wedding; let’s be bored during car rides and, therefore, forced to engage in family conversations. It’s a choice only we as parents can make.

Finding Inspiration for the New School Year

This week, Hurricane Debby brought the threat of heavy rain and floodwaters, robbing us of our final days of summer outdoor activities. Indeed, as I write these words, the wind is howling, a reminder that we are at the storm’s mercy, and I know that Debby will likely wreak its havoc on our state, possibly resulting in tragedy for some.

I, though, see the positives of the storm’s timing. These storm days afford us the opportunity to enjoy the end of the Olympic games and to prepare for the school year ahead. While I respect the power of a big storm, I anticipate that the calm that follows Hurricane Debby will nicely coincide with the start of the school year, easing our children’s transition back to school. I, for one, also find inspiration in the Olympic games as I face the year ahead. I would like to share one Olympic highlight, in particular, with you and your children as a guidepost on how to mentally prepare for school.

Cole Hocker shocked everyone when he won the gold medal this week in the 1500-meter race and established a new Olympic record. With less than 300 meters remaining, Hocker, a runner from the University of Oregon was in third place. He was blocked by runners both in front and beside him with no room to make a move. Moreover, the pace of the lead runners was faster than ever, a 54.6 second split on the first lap.

As the runners approached the backstretch, reigning Olympic Champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the runner immediately in front of Hocker on the rail, blocked Hocker’s attempt to pass on the inside with a push, causing Hocker to stumble, but he quickly regained his footing, albeit at a slower pace and still boxed in. In the final 150 meters, though, the current world champion Josh Kerr started to overtake Ingebrigtsen, and that distraction for the leader, along with his glance at the time, caused him to drift to his right, giving Hocker a narrow pathway to pass on the inside. Hocker not only recognized the split-second opportunity but also seized it, overtaking Ingebrigtsen on the inside and charging to the finish line to the raucous cheers of an explosive arena.

Beyond the sheer inspiration of Hocker’s performance, I believe that there are important takeaways.

First, Hocker defied expectations by setting a goal and adhering to it. Second, Hocker believed in himself. He had always been a good finisher, so bolstered by his own self-confidence, he soared to victory. Third, Hocker took advantage of his opportunities.

Hocker was not expected to win. He had finished the Olympic semifinals race with the sixth fastest time, so he was a bit of a longshot. Yet, by running a smart race, by training daily, and by seizing the opportunities available, he literally found a pathway to win.  He stayed focused, not on his time, according to post race interviews, but on finishing first. By doing so, Hocker pulled off the upset and made Olympic history.

Likewise, our children must set specific goals for the school year ahead: to run a smart race, to take advantage of opportunities, to put in the daily hard work, and, perhaps most importantly, to believe in themselves. As parents, we can be that raucous, supportive crowd that most certainly plays a part in any victory.

I urge you to watch and discuss Hocker’s race with your children –   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sb32uxUO10 – so that they, too, can benefit from his inspiration and modelling. Winning today rarely happens by coincidence. Instead, winning is plotted and planned by focusing on what matters – study habits and a solid game plan – and by recovering from any stumbles and ignoring the time splits (grades) and distractions. Let’s start this school year inspired.

Devaluing Class Rank

I was the salutatorian of my high school class. When I learned the news, I was pleasantly surprised. In the dark ages of the 1980s, I had no prior information that I would earn this honor other than my admission to the National Honor’s Society during my junior year (one of maybe 25 admitted from a class of 225) and my receipt of The Jefferson Book Award, one of two book awards distributed to my class. These were not goals that I had set for myself. Indeed, I was completely unaware of them. If I had attended a prior awards assembly for the distribution of academic honors, even ones for my two older sisters, I could not recall it. My surprise at the salutatorian announcement, I believe, made the honor all the more precious to me. Had I worked my entire high school career toward that specific goal, my reaction may have been, in part, relief, but instead, my reaction was pure pride. I had earned this award because of my strong work ethic.

Today, due to substantial changes in GPA calculations and course offerings, I believe that high schools should abandon class rank altogether.

The educational landscape has dramatically changed over the last forty years. Now, parents and children plot to secure a high class rank even before entering high school and track their rank semester to semester. A weighted GPA system, which evolved because of the entry of “college level” classes into the high school curriculum including AP coursework, is now used strategically and widely by students to game the system and leverage class rank. Honors courses that also offer a GPA premium can be found locally in the areas of sports marketing, JROTC, PE, Food Science, and Horticulture, courses that do not typically suggest different levels of proficiency among teenagers. Students, often guided by their parents, make decisions about class selection based on these weights and the reputation of teachers who are easy graders and forge a path to maximize their GPAs, often sacrificing student interests in favor of “weighted” coursework. As a result, classes such as AP Human Geography have skyrocketed in popularity. I have never had a student demonstrate any interest in human geography before registering for this class. Often, the registrants do not even know what the class is about. The course’s allure is due to the bump it delivers to a student’s GPA and due to its relatively lower level of difficulty.

This now common weighted GPA has skewed  ranking results. A student’s high GPA may no longer signal top performance but rather a savvy approach to course registration. Most high schools, over 60%, have now eliminated class rank altogether because it, perhaps unfairly, disadvantages some students in the college admissions process and because the presence of a class rank and the intense attention to it create undue anxiety.

These GPA changes oddly remind me of my old supper club. Back in the day, our supper club felt that we needed to become more inclusive. The supper club grew and grew to larger numbers as we indulged inclusivity, until, one day, hosting the supper club became such an ordeal that anxiety prevented folks from wanting to host the club in their homes. The exact opposite of our original intention became true: The more inclusive we tried to make the club, the more exclusive it became. “How could you not be invited to join that humongous supper club?” The supper club eventually folded.

From my observation, this exclusivity argument has become at the center of the debate for class rank and for National Honors Society membership. The prestige of the top quintile of the class has eroded as strategy now plays a significant part of the process, and today, parents worry if their children are not admitted to the National Honors Society. Many parents believe their children are entitled to access these honors, and the system has afforded students a route to access them.

I am not trying to strip our most studious students, those who earn positions at the very top of their classes, of any prestige. They no doubt have worked tirelessly to earn their titles, so if your child is or was valedictorian, salutatorian, or nearly so, please know that I am not depriving him or her of any glory or satisfaction. But the “everyone gets a trophy” mentality of today’s parents is doing just that.

I am pointing to the parents who grovel for As on behalf of their children and to their children who dedicate just enough grit to slide into the A grade range (often a very low threshold) but not one ounce more than is necessary and who pad their course load with an array of “soft” honors coursework intentionally to elevate class rank. We live in a society that has normalized such behavior, so if you are among these parents or children, you have likely been swept into the mania.

We, however, have just one opportunity to raise our children, and I am suggesting that we should refocus our attention on the key values that make children strong students and fine young adults: kindness, honesty, curiosity, diligence, and genuine pride. Focusing on these fundamentals, as a society, can strip down the building inequities in our educational system. We need to redefine who is a “winner.” Winning is finding enjoyment in the educational process, savoring a good book, finding fulfillment from working hard to develop a skill, and showing kindness to a friend or community member in need. If your children have these qualities but do not earn that targeted class rank, the admission to that choice college, or any other so-called coveted honor, your children will have won and will be employable and likely fulfilled, firmly rooted in these values.

To accomplish this desired result, eliminating class rank is likely a necessity. By doing so, we can reclaim core values, curb some of the GPA strategies, and appropriately refocus attention on the fundamentals.

Addressing Chronic Absenteeism: The Importance of Attendance and Respecting Deadlines

When my oldest son was a junior in high school, I distinctly remember one evening, about this time of year, that he had to travel over an hour for a tennis match. He returned home, notably fatigued, on a bus at or around 10:30 pm that night. His course load, much like that of many of your children, contained a hefty dose of AP classes, and he was scheduled for three tests the next day. In a move that was decidedly unlike him, he asked me to write him a note so he could miss a class and defer a test or two. My son was very conscientious, and he consistently worked diligently in school. Still, I refused. I recognized in the moment that, yes, his GPA might take a hit, and yes, he might understand the material better if afforded more time; however, I wanted him (and his younger brother) to respect the importance of a deadline (and of integrity). He had known in advance of his tests that day. He had known in advance of his away tennis match that day, too, but he had not planned ahead, at least not adequately enough to meet his own satisfaction. In retrospect, he should have gotten a bigger jump on his studying the weekend before.

I admit that I now cringe at how harshly I delivered this news. I was not the popular parent in our household, especially that day. My son was, and is, incredibly responsible; however, I had witnessed many other parents make these exceptions for their children, and I knew that it was a dangerous path. I wanted to instill in my own children that deadlines are not negotiable and that attendance is of utmost importance.

Today, student absenteeism is reaching chronic levels in high school classrooms. Last week, I listened to a podcast on The Daily, entitled “Kids Are Missing School at an Alarming Rate.” In this podcast, Sarah Mervosh, an education reporter for The New York Times, highlighted data to establish the significant growth in student absenteeism following the pandemic. Specifically, in the last five years, chronic absenteeism, defined as missing at least 10 percent of school, has almost doubled, from a student population of 15 percent to 28 percent. A closer look reveals that in public school classrooms, chronic absenteeism has grown from 19 to 32 percent, almost one third of all public school students, and in private school classrooms, it has increased from 10 to 19 percent.

Her report rang true to me. As an academic coach, I have found myself counseling families with much greater frequency about why skipping classes for flimsy reasons is a bad habit and why every course must be treated as core curriculum, including art, foreign language, and music.

Mervosh attributes part of these higher percentages to an increase in viruses; however, she notes that perhaps even more significant contributing factors are the growing anxiety in and the depressive tendencies of our children. Moreover, these mental health factors have become a vicious cycle, where children’s choices to avoid school because of fear and anxiety actually “beget more fear and anxiety.”

Now, absenteeism has become normalized. Parents find it more acceptable to withdraw their children from school for a vacation or to allow them to skip school for nebulous reasons. Our absenteeism culture has inadvertently suggested to other students the acceptability of missing school.

At a time when our children have not yet bridged the academic losses from remote learning, chronic absenteeism is compounding the detrimental effects of these losses. Many of my academic coaching students are struggling because they lack respect for deadlines and often fail to report to class on time. Indeed, if a child has a below-B average in a class, absenteeism and the failure to respect deadlines are often critical contributing factors.

The working world is reflecting this trend as well. We are beginning to see the ramifications of remote work, where young professionals who work remotely are less likely to receive raises and promotions. After all, employers and teachers are much more likely to connect with the worker or the student who is actually present, on time, and visibly engaged.

As parents, we hold the power to reverse this trend. I can attest that doing so may become a battle at home, but it is a battle worth waging. I dare say that part of the reason that my sons are so attentive to deadlines and so responsible is because I demanded it of them. They never again asked me to excuse them from school short of verifiable illness. Popular, no, but necessary, yes.

The Truth about Testing

I took the SAT exactly twice. Both times, I recall tearing open my scores, delivered by snail mail, with great trepidation, apprehensive about the fate that would be delivered to me. I recall well my reactions: disappointment the first time around, tearful even, but excitement with my second set of results. The clouds lifted when I opened that second envelope. I remember thinking in that moment that my opportunities had just significantly broadened – aware, even then, during the dark ages of the 1980s, that standardized testing mattered, even though I had never before heard of the ACT and even though my test prep meant that I had read through just the instructions before that fateful Saturday morning.

Strong standardized test scores still make a critical difference during the college admissions process. We have always known that standardized testing matters, yet the pandemic and so-called “optional” testing policies adopted by colleges thereafter misled parents into believing that their children can avoid standardized testing altogether without penalty.  In reality, though, these optional testing policies were often offered disingenuously. Every decision about a change to the college admissions process is designed to help, first and foremost, the college, not the applicant. Never doubt that, despite how that change is marketed. Colleges are carefully tracking their application and yield statistics and working these numbers to their advantage, and every decision the college makes, including the adoption of test optional policies, has to do with dollars and statistics.

Standardized testing is, and long has been, one of five primary factors considered during the admissions process, alongside the students’ transcripts, essays, extracurricular activities, and letters of recommendation. It is, in fact, one of the most critical of these five components because, despite its faults, testing levels the playing field, allowing students to be compared relatively fairly, across states, schools, and economic or social circumstances.  Several well-known colleges recently reinstituted testing as a requirement for admissibility, abandoning their optional testing policies, including Dartmouth, MIT, Yale, Brown, and the University of Texas – Austin. Rising juniors should, in particular, recognize this trend as a warning. Colleges see standardized testing as strong predictors of a student’s likely success. Many large universities will likely follow this trend, reverting to required testing, because it simply makes the admissions process faster. Cut-off scores enable large universities to sift through and quickly narrow huge numbers of applications, fair or not.

I understand why students and parents want to ignore testing, why they want to cling to the hope that testing does not matter. Students and their parents are often discouraged by their results on the PSAT or pre-ACT, and they assume the position that these students just don’t test well. I confess that it is true: A segment of the population, in my experience, has the horsepower to test well but falls short, often because of significant pacing issues or poor reading fluency. Most of the time, however, students are underperforming because of critical learning gaps and because of a lack of familiarity with the tests themselves. A strong test prep program can almost always move these scores, sometimes very significantly. Many of my serious students who enthusiastically embrace test prep and engage in regular practice earn astounding score gains.

The standardized testing universe is complex, another reason that families shy away from it. The SAT just went 100% digital and is now adaptive, meaning that the second parts of both the verbal and math tests - the second modules - vary, depending on the student’s performance on the first modules. The SAT and the ACT tests are very different, too. Many students do not understand the ACT’s science section at all, for example; and the ACT now also offers a digital test. How can families keep up with all of these changes?

The answer, again, is test prep. I wish that I had had access to strong test prep back in the day. Strong test prep not only raises scores, but it also improves a student’s understanding of grammar, writing, math, and general test-taking strategies. With the learning gaps incurred during the pandemic, test prep can bridge the gap and really prepare a student for the college curriculum. Moreover, test prep can boost a student’s college applications.

Reflections from Antarctica: Prioritizing Order

My husband and I just returned from a cruise to Antarctica. I feel extremely fortunate to be among the few who have experienced this remote and beautiful part of our planet, and I feel genuinely refreshed from my exposure to pristine landscapes; magnificent blue waters; crisp, fresh air; immense, free-formed icebergs; and playful penguins and whales – all in a largely untouched environment, free of litter.

As I reflect on my adventure in this unspoiled world park, I am reminded of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that nature universally flows from order to disorder unless we actively resist that flow. The largely untouched glaciers of Antarctica are, literally and figuratively, miles away from our world here, which is cluttered with reminders of our wired, fast-paced environment. On my street alone, I see utility poles and litter every day. Because of the stark contrast between these two environments, I readily recognized that the more immersed we become in our hectic world, the more we tend to ignore growing clutter. In other words, disorder breeds disorder, or entropy increases over time. We can, in some ways, become acclimated to a littered, disorganized existence if we do not activity resist it.

On a macro level, we need to be concerned about our environment, about how global warming is destroying Earth. On a micro level, however, we need to focus on the next generation; we need to build our children’s awareness that they can resist disorder. And that resistance begins with us, teaching our children to take responsibility for themselves and for their material possessions.

Consider our children’s backpacks, for example. There are, in my experience, generally two types of students: First are the students who recognize that intelligence and success are linked to organization. My strongest students are very organized: They never miss a deadline, they are not missing papers the night before a test, they are not rummaging through a stack of unfiled papers in the front of a three-ringed binder, hunting for that lost assignment, and they prepare for tests well in advance. Second are the students who may be even smarter than the first group but who fail to reach their full potential, at least in high school, because they suffer from a lack of structure. They often maintain a single binder, because, well, it’s easier and lighter. The front pocket of that binder is pulled from its seams because it is so full. This second group of students swears that they turned in “that missing assignment,” but a week later, the assignment is found, rumpled and torn, at the bottom of their backpacks amid lunch crumbs and wrappers.  Typically, their backpacks are not the only signs that I see of their disorganized existence. These same students often take little pride in their personal appearance. Once they hit puberty, they may start to reverse these trends, but by the end of puberty, their slow reversal may have already taken a toll on their academic records.

The first group of more successful students recognizes that organization takes time and energy, but the pushback pays dividends. Their beautiful binders put them in the right frame of mind to attack their work and have carryover effects, enabling them to absorb material in a more ordered framework.

Many parents fail to recognize that disorganization has such a significant impact. These parents are understandably tired of nagging their children to make up their beds and to clean their rooms, or these parents have attempted to organize their children’s backpacks and lives themselves. To successfully break the pattern of disorder, though, children must take ownership of their materials and must see first-hand the connection between actively resisting disorder and becoming more productive, retaining more information, and earning better grades.

With the return to spring, I am hopeful that our children can experience an awakening. Taking ownership of material possessions, maintaining a clean and organized workspace, and taking pride in personal appearance will result in stronger school performances. Moreover, these same children who recognize that we must act with intention to break the cycle toward disorder might just be able to save our planet, too.

Unlocking the Secrets of Successful Studying

My first memory of ever studying was in grade school. Like most students I know, including my own children, I’d receive a weekly spelling list. I’d take the words home and study on Thursday night by “looking” at the words and having either my sister or my mom read them aloud to me, so I could spew back the correct spellings. Fortunately for me, I was predominantly a visual learner, so my early success on spelling tests gave me confidence that I had a knack for school, even if it was no indicator whatsoever.

As the words became more challenging, I would write and rewrite the words to build my muscle memory, adding a kinesthetic layer of studying to back up my visual skills. I do not recall that anyone made this suggestion to me. Instead, I believe that I gradually deduced through an observation of others and through a growing awareness of my own needs that this practice might help. It did. I continued with success on my spelling lessons.

Despite breezing through middle school without too much challenge, I was in for a rude awakening as the coursework became more rigorous in high school. When I faced a subject that was less intuitive for me, such as chemistry, I had to scramble to adapt. I learned to lean on friends with an interest in these subjects, and building on my grade-school study skills, I would write everything down like a crazy person, so I could “play back” the teacher’s lectures at home.

In time, I realized that I was exerting far more energy than necessary in terms of my notetaking, and I, thankfully, was mature enough, invested in my school subjects and performance, to adapt. I tweaked my skills with each assessment to find a successful path and to become a more consummate learner.

Today, many parents seek my support and share, often with embarrassment, that their children, despite performing excellently in school and despite being very bright, do not know how to study. These children are not alone. They are following in my footsteps and in the footsteps of so many others, only the stakes “seem” greater and the pace “feels” faster. A few changes in recent years have heightened our concerns about our children’s inability to study.

We are pushing AP coursework, which demands more developed study habits, at an increasingly younger age, so the pressure to enroll in these courses has risen, even though our children may have no apparent interest in the offered subject matters. Historically, many of my tenth grade students enrolled in at most one or two AP classes, and always “softer” APs, such AP Psychology, a subject that is immensely relatable and vocabulary intensive, lending itself to easier studying. I always understood why some sophomores would seek out AP Psychology.

Recently, the public schools have added AP Government and Politics as an optional history choice for sophomores. While AP GoPo, as it is affectionately called, is frequently considered a relatable AP course, most tenth-grade students have not yet been exposed to or shown an interest in the subject matter. Political news is everywhere, but the current hot issues that plague our nation, such as gerrymandering and Supreme Court bias, are rarely the talking points of fifteen-year old students, and the vocabulary alone can strip these students of their confidence. Moreover, the mean score on the AP Government exam is notoriously low.

Meanwhile, underclassmen are also enrolling in pre-AP coursework, such as pre-AP English, which, frankly, does not seem very different from its counterparts, yet these pre-AP courses carry with them the “expectation” that students will pursue AP coursework the following year in that subject matter, again adding to the pressure culture.

Technology has had both positive and negative effects on our children’s study skills, too. On the one hand, students have access to incredible study tools and endless information. In some ways, studying has never been easier; however, this information overload, along with the pandemic and online schooling, has served to make our children more passive learners. They are often burnt out and have had access to so many shortcuts that they have not developed the work ethic or the motivation to put in the hard work required.

An underpaid teaching staff has compounded an already challenging issue. Low pay attracts low quality. While there are many strong teachers, schools are having a hard time snagging and keeping them with low salaries. The limited pay and large class numbers also dampen the teachers’ spirits. Many of these teachers are now taking shortcuts in teaching by using online lessons and homework assignments that lack the needed personal touch.

And the pressure of college admissions still looms.

Ultimately, many parents fear that their children do not have time to learn study skills through trial and error in this climate, which is why they seek my support.

As parents, you should know that children need to engage in active learning. “Looking over notes” will likely never suffice in preparing for a high school math assessment or for an assessment in other challenging coursework. You should be aware of whether teachers are inspiring and resonating with your children, and you should stand by, if you can, to help them troubleshoot their studying pitfalls. If you seek out my support or the support of others, know that the best possible academic coach should identify your children’s weaknesses and then give them the tools and skills that they need, so they can do the “heavy lifting” themselves. There are no real shortcuts to becoming a better student, nor would we want there to be. Success should require hard work.

Setting New Year's Resolutions and Finding a Sense of Purpose

            I have always enjoyed goal setting, so the New Year, which brings with it the tradition of setting New Year’s resolutions, presents a great opportunity for me. I invariably have a resolution or two on which I focus, setting my intentions for the new year. I, like most folks, may only stick with these resolutions for a month or two, but just a month or two, if not longer, of working toward a goal is, I believe, of value. After all, most adults would benefit from a month or two of consistent exercise, a more nutritional diet, and/or reduced alcohol intake. This year, as one of my resolutions, I have dedicated myself to playing the piano more consistently, hoping for steady improvement in my lifelong hobby.

            Working with a sense of purpose toward a goal has tangible benefits. Making that goal public, at least to family and friends, holds us accountable. I’m hoping that by sharing my goal here, I will adhere to it a little longer than usual and possibly throughout the year.

With the start of a new semester for our high school students, they too would benefit from a sense of purpose. Indeed, a sense of purpose is, sadly, what I see missing in so many of our children. They are working, often aimlessly, toward straight A’s in coursework with which they have little connection. Seemingly forced to enroll in AP Language, when they neither read nor write on a regular basis, or in AP Physics, when they have never before shown curiosity about how a machine works, these students muddle through their coursework, sometimes miserably, striving only to improve their grade point average throughout the year. They sometimes spend more time calculating what grade they “need” on the unit test to preserve that A than they do on exploring with a fervor the unit’s topics. How tragic this predicament is! They are failing to appreciate and to realize the luxury they have in pursuing an education, something to which so many children across the world do not have access, and they are often failing to identify their own curiosities.

            A sense of purpose is energizing. In a world where we all seem to be experiencing post-pandemic fatigue, energy is a much-needed and welcome attribute. It can help us get out of bed each morning with vigor, embrace personal relationships, and strive to make the most of precious time.

            Moreover, chunking our work into more tangible smaller goals can help calm students when facing long-term projects, huge unit tests, or overwhelming to-do lists. With a sense of purpose and more specific goals in mind, students can better prioritize work.

            Importantly, not all goals need to be academic goals. Much like my own shared goal here, personal interests can and should lead to goals that feed our spirits. Any steps we can take to be more intentional about how we are spending our time are, in my opinion, welcome steps.

            It’s not too late to set those New Year’s resolutions, so I hope that you will set them tonight at the dinner table and pass them along to me. I’d love to hear from you. Let’s go score some goals!

Preserving Our Children’s Choices and Embracing Well Roundedness

For years now, as parents, we have received messages about guiding our children toward a passion when so many of our children seem truly passionless. The occasional perceptive student is highly driven to a cause or zealously pursues an off-kilter interest, but let’s face it, most of our children are less driven. They often cannot answer the question, “Which club would you like to join this year?” without consulting a friend or a parent. Finding a “passion” for them, therefore, seems like an impossibility.

I believe our pursuit of a singular all-in passion for our high school students was borne in the highly selective admissions practices of Ivy League institutions. Admissions committees for these schools have made it well known that they want to assemble a well-rounded class, which consequently is not comprised of well-rounded students. Instead, a well-rounded class means that, typically, an Ivy-League school will admit the very best tuba player, actor, chemist, and author who applies alongside stellar academic credentials in an effort to assemble a class of diverse, immensely talented, and (many) strangely quirky students. Parents, often hesitant to concede that their children may not be among this select and incredibly small group, are usually not deterred from trying to secure these slots and frequently plot a path to foster admissibility.

If, as parents, we are sitting at the dinner table with our children trying to brainstorm what activity or topic exists in which our young teen may have an interest and for which our teen may have great potential, such that he or she could conceivably “use” that interest to serve as an admission ticket to Harvard, well, that time and money will likely be wasted. I am not saying that an Ivy League admission is never earned in this way, but I am saying that it would truly be a very expensive lottery ticket.

These discussions about developing our children’s passions no longer apply just to Ivy League schools. The pursuit of a passion has now trickled down to other highly selective colleges, state universities among them, the likes of UVA, UNC, and UGA locally. Pursuing activities that will distinguish students from their classmates has often become the foundation for our children’s choices (which wrongly presumes that they are our children’s choices from the start when, in all likelihood, such decisions are often guided by a parent or counselor).

When I was young, my parents gave me the opportunity to pursue lots of activities without redirecting me. They enabled me to prove myself on the dance floor, to fumble the ball on the softball field, and to experience growth in sports that clearly were not natural fits for me. Because they were unaware of any college admissions stakes, they did not second guess my choices and allowed me the freedom to develop my own interests.

Part of the reason today’s children are so indecisive is because our society has made them question their decisions – which choice will distinguish me from my classmates? Parental advice on such matters is frequently steeped in judgment.

While I believe that students are best served to have multiple pursuits, whether they are joining a sports team, taking music lessons, or donating their time to service or whether they are obsessively mastering a personal pursuit, such as woodworking or ornithology, the choices our children make are less important than the self-discoveries made in the process, especially in today’s shifting educational landscape. While consistency in an activity is a bonus on a college application, making intentional choices to change activities midway through high school can lead to important lessons, too, and the accompanying learning lessons can make strong college essays. More importantly, though, these choices can help our children better understand themselves and prepare them for adulthood.

Well roundedness produces children who become insightful, sophisticated adults, adults who can move through crowds comfortably and who can adapt to different environments. The choice between pursuing a singular activity with complete dedication and enthusiasm versus trying a variety of activities to find oneself should be just that – a choice.

I was lucky enough to make that choice on my own as a high school student. I was the student who did not know until I had to declare what my college major would be. I had a string of activities listed under my high school senior picture, and I relish the memories of pushing myself to participate in a wide variety of sports, clubs, and jobs. I was emphatically denied by the Ivy League institution to which I applied, but I have no regrets about the way I spent my high school extracurricular time.

Banning Cell Phones in Our Classrooms

Recently, I was cleaning out papers in my house and came across an endearing note from my son who was seventeen years old at the time. In the note, he had applied his AP Language rhetorical skills and constructed an argument for his father and me about why he “needed” a smartphone.

At the time, circa 2012, believe it or not, he had a flip phone. Smartphones became the norm around 2012 or 2013. He contended that he was literally the only student in his grade who still had a flip phone. I think he may have been correct. Perhaps we, as parents, were overly protective, but having the world at one’s fingertips is, well, distracting.

Ten years later, we see just how distracting the smartphone has become, and now there is pushback in some school systems. Some schools are now banning cellphones. Rarely, in my opinion, is Florida on the cutting edge of education – they are self-declared anti-progressives -  but Florida may just have gotten it right this time.

Our impressionable young adults seem to be collecting their values from their cellphones now, notably TikTok, which is run by China, and Twitter, rather than from their parents, and the results are scary. Much of the rise in antisemitism on college campuses can be attributed to misinformation spread on social media.

Earlier this year, I shared my view that our high school students are not ready to learn to hone the powers of ChatGPT, countering the argument I hear often from teachers, that high school students need to learn how to leverage AI platforms to their advantage. Instead, I suggest that such mastery occur in college or even graduate school, not in high school, where students must first obtain and polish critical thinking and studying skills. I believe that position could well be extended to the use of smart phones by teens.

I understand that many parents may find banning cellphones in schools highly inconvenient and even barbaric. As parents, we would not be able to track our children 24/7, no sarcasm intended. In an age when a school shooting could break out at any time, the inability to track much less text with our children may be unfathomable. Yet, on the upside, cellphone bans reportedly reduce incidents of bullying, improve student engagement, and increase learning.

I concede that we do not want to curtail our children’s ultimate understanding of the power and breadth of technology. After all, our future will likely be driven by technology. Similar to  artificial intelligence, though, I believe our children would be well served to cross a few thresholds before diving deeply into the technology, namely establishing personal values, under their parents’ nurturing eyes, and learning how to read and think critically. Thereafter, these more mature students can proceed with caution. In other words, using technology and accessing social media is a question of maturity – it’s developmental – and while some children mature more quickly than others, teachers and school systems should establish rules about when students should have unlimited access to such technology in the classroom.

Imagine if when we were young students, we walked into the classroom with a teacher’s edition of the text with all of the answers to the day’s questions accessible at our fingertips. Imagine if we also had the capability of passing a note simultaneously to all of our classmates taunting, maybe even bullying, one student among us. Our past teachers would never have allowed such a farcical situation. Why then are we allowing it in today’s classrooms?

Easing the Anxiety Pandemic

            My goal as an academic coach is to give my high school students a broader, more informed perspective. I strive to help students find life-school balance. I help them realize, for example, the connections among physical fitness, consistent sleep, and a sharp mind. I build their self-awareness about their own academic interests, their learning needs, their organizational skills, and their study habits. I also wade through homework assignments alongside students to identify the teachers’ goals, to ensure thorough completion, and to assess within the assignments where students are most apt to falter.

            In recent years, though, I have watched my interactions with students lean increasingly toward therapy. Although I am not a therapist, I find myself spending more time reminding students of their strengths, boosting their self-image, and instilling renewed confidence. I make recommendations to them about how to handle interactions with teachers, parents, and friends. And I calm their nerves. Test anxiety, social anxiety, and a lack of confidence are so prevalent among today’s high schoolers that my primary job has often become to help my students relax first. They must relax in order to be ready to learn, and then I help them find ways to optimize their high school experiences.

            I have tried to pinpoint why we face on the heels of the COVID pandemic a new pandemic, a pandemic of anxiety. I believe that today’s children are bombarded with societal and parental expectations, so much so that they can do little more than move robotically, at times, from assignment to assignment and from test to activity. I also believe that a certain amount of cynicism exists toward education today that undermines the school experience. Students and parents question assignments, grades, and curricula, which derails the system and which causes students to question the value of their assignments and the need to take assignments seriously. Such uncertainty can add to anxiety and detachment and result in a lack of focus and discipline. The levels of anxiety I observe should not exist, in my opinion, in the absence of homelessness, abuse, or food scarcity, but they do.

If it takes a village to raise a child, our village is failing our children by disseminating negativity, prioritizing social media platforms, and demanding unrealistic expectations - that every student earn straight A’s and attend an esteemed university. Most of the children with whom I work seem weighed down by the pressures that they put on themselves (due to societal expectations), but they are also reading subtle but constant parental cues to determine what we deem important, too.

            While I believe in setting a high bar for our children, in these times, our children would benefit greatly if we as parents exercise some restraint and focus instead on role modeling. If we want for our children, as surveys suggest, ultimate stability and job satisfaction, we need to model stability and job satisfaction and model setting high but reasonable expectations for ourselves. And if we want to calm our children’s fears, we should care less about our social media presence and especially less about posting accomplishments. Our pride over familial accomplishments will mean more to them if it is celebrated quietly within our own homes. We should parent our children by emphasizing values, such as discipline, compassion, resilience, and integrity, instead of accomplishments.

We need to preserve our children’s childhood, so that they do not feel critiqued 24/7. By focusing more on our own lives and by freeing ourselves from social media, we can demonstrate the healthy lifestyles we want for our children.

Let’s loosen the reins just enough, so our children can gain the confidence they need to leave our nest and to spread their wings. We may be making this parenting thing harder than it needs to be.

Parenting in the Age of AI: Guiding High School Students Towards Integrity

* This is my second installment of two in my “Learning to Learn” series for the return to school.

“Character is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching,” a quote that has been attributed to multiple sources, some of biblical origins. If we could all adhere to this commandment, I believe that the world would be a much better place. Unfortunately, though, the world is filled with temptations, so straying from the “right thing” is often far too easy. Knowing what the “right thing” is can be confusing too because, depending on the source, we may receive conflicting directions. Every issue today seems polarizing.

As parents, we struggle with knowing what is the right thing to do as we raise our children. We are pushed more than ever before to ensure the happiness of our children. Accordingly, we enable them at times, become their friends rather than their mentors, and even sacrifice our own values due to societal pressures.  We are inclined to feel sorry for our children, who, as products of the pandemic, have had a difficult educational journey. No doubt, our high school children face uncertain futures in many ways, and their pressures may seem to be mounting (or possibly their resilience is underdeveloped). Naturally, we want to make their paths easier. But at what costs?

Our children are watching us closely and taking notes based on our lead, so we must step up and take responsibility, modeling the values that we hold dear. And this year will be a particularly critical year for such modeling, in my estimation. During this academic year, most high school students will be aware of the opportunity to cheat on almost every single school assignment by accessing ChatGPT or similar alternatives, and our children might not perceive doing so to be “cheating.”

The web is flooded with articles that convince parents and students that knowing how to leverage AI (a technical misnomer for these services but a readily-accepted label) is essential to optimizing learning. I disagree when it comes to high school students. Most high school students are too immature to be able to distinguish between acceptable uses of AI and unethical uses of AI, and the slope is ever so slippery.

High school students are using these platforms to solve math problems, to translate foreign language passages, to answer short answer questions, and to write term papers. They are using AI platforms to develop creative project ideas and to respond to take-home exams. They are using them to write college essays, too. The dangers of using AI in high school are monumental. Our students are developing a reliance on these AI tools, much as we have developed a reliance on Waze for directions or on Google for general daily information retrieval. In the process, our high school students are sacrificing a solid educational foundation for short-term results and are misrepresenting their abilities. They are simultaneously eroding their own self-confidence and motivation to learn. They are demonstrating a complete lack of character in order to secure higher grades, and they are doing so, often blatantly, because they believe that what they are doing is acceptable. 

AI detectors are still under development, and teachers are overextended and unlikely to catch transgressors. Any teacher who is willing and able to spend the time trying to subvert students’ misuse of AI, though, could likely do so. The discrepancy between the work produced by AI and the general high schooler’s understanding of concepts is usually significant. However, the educational system is overtaxed, so the burden of ensuring that students “do what is right” must fall on the shoulders of those with the most to lose: the parents.

Now is the time to have open discussions about these platforms at the dinner table. Now is the time to read your children’s essays. Now is the time to make ever so clear our expectations for our children. Right now, our high school students must learn how to learn. If they bypass this crucial skill development, they will likely fail to launch.

I’m still clinging to the belief that cheaters never win. These students will likely be “caught” eventually. If our students never learn to think creatively, to write proficiently, and to apply critical reasoning skills – all independently – then, they will lose self-respect and character, and they will lose genuine access to higher education.

Mastering the Art of Learning in a Fast-Paced World

 * This is the first installment of two in my “Learning to Learn” series for the start of school.      

     Like many students, I remember sailing through the early grades without needing to study much. I am a visual learner, which facilitated my ability to memorize spelling words and terms. When I reached high school, though, I had to regain my footing: I had to invest more time in studying elevated concepts, especially in order to respond to challenging essay questions. I made a few missteps along the way, and my mistakes helped me hone my study skills. In time, I became a more confident and capable learner.

Parents and students today, though, generally have less tolerance for the gradual building of study skills. We live in a much faster paced world. Impatient students seek shortcuts, and technology offers many. We have now all grown accustomed to accessing technological shortcuts. Leveraging technology appropriately can eventually yield a stronger academician, but first . . .first, our children must learn how to learn, and unfortunately, true growth in academic competence requires patience, both from the students and from their parents.

As we face a new school year, a reminder of what is required to achieve optimum success in high school is warranted.

First and foremost, students must put in the hard work to learn the basic content of their coursework, which means that they must complete their homework in a meaningful way and that they must strive to gain a full understanding of its content, no short cuts allowed  - no copying answers from the internet or their friends, no joint completion of assignments, and no ChatGPT. Then, students must gradually learn how to apply their knowledge.

Parents and their children often complain to me when their children face a high school assessment that covers material that the teacher (allegedly) did not teach and that the textbook (if there even is one) did not address. Occasionally, these complaints are valid, and the teaching is subpar. More often, however, these parents and their children fail to understand that what the teachers are asking their students to do is to apply critical thinking skills. The teachers are knowingly giving the students a question that they have never before seen in order to evaluate how well the students can reply to the question based on what they have learned.

            As parents, we have faced many unknown situations independently, without Google and without receiving prior instructions or guidance, whether as high school students or as adults (who cannot locate their phones). For me, these high priority dilemmas included in high school how to trim my accumulating post-pubescent weight, how to convince my parents to extend my curfew on prom night, and how to reengage the chain on my bicycle in the middle of my journey or, more recently, how to eliminate a stain from the sofa or how to make a recipe without a key ingredient. To address each of these predicaments, I gathered up all of the knowledge I had learned from prior experiences and developed a strategy. Sometimes I was successful; sometimes I faltered. Either way, I grew from these experiences.

            Today’s teenagers, though, are battling these daily crises with a constant resource in their pockets. They are not troubleshooting, developing strategies based on experience; instead, they are Googling. It’s no wonder then why our children may be less resilient and less prepared to become proficient learners. They are used to the quick fix.

            Learning is like Connecting the Dots. In order to realize the big picture, we can’t take shortcuts; we have to patiently connect each line, and we may even need our eraser.

            As an academic coach, I do not hasten the process as much as I make my students more aware of the context of their lessons, which helps them visualize the big picture perhaps a little faster but almost always in crisper detail. And I can accelerate the students’ understanding of how to successfully apply their newfound knowledge.

As we face the school year ahead, let’s instill in our children a hunger to learn without shortcuts and the patience to persevere. The world is spinning fast. We just need to slow down and enjoy the process.