I recently spent time with some friends who are sending their 6thgrade son to farm school. Their son is a bright, engaged student and young person. He isn’t going to farm school because he can’t do “real” school. His parents aren’t conspiracy theorists, or off-the-grid enthusiasts, or Luddites.
As I mentioned in my last Challenge Success blog post, I have taken up the challenge of trying to condense what I have learned about family life over the years into a series of aphorisms that (hopefully) illuminate in valuable ways the many fascinating facets of the parent-child relationship.
In fall 2015, Challenge Success launched a research-practice partnership with three northern California camps. These camps believed deeply — like many of you — that summer camp provides kids with long-term benefits and essential learning experiences, but they wanted to better understand if and how this was true.
Over the years I have offered countless lectures, workshops and seminars for parents on the wonders and woes of childrearing. Invariably, during the question-and-answer phase, an attendee will make an inquiry along the lines of the following: “If you could leave us with just one piece of advice, the most important takeaway from your presentation, what would it be?”
Here’s the deal: There are over 3,000 4–year colleges and universities in the United States. There are more than 1,500 accredited 2-year institutions – which are great options for lots of kids for lots of reasons. All kinds of kids go to all kinds of schools, and go on to live all kinds of lives. I know this. And yet, as a parent of a high school senior bound for college, I sometimes find it challenging to remember that (as Frank Bruni reminds us) – where he goes is not who he’ll be (and where he goes is certainly not who I am as a parent).
During the next few weeks you may find yourself in the company of high school seniors and may think that a logical topic of conversation is the college admissions process.
At Challenge Success, we sometimes get the question: can’t some forms of stress be okay, or even helpful for students?
Denise Pope shares why eliminating class rankings can reduce undue student stress without decreasing engagement.
When I overheard a troubling conversation at a recent dinner about a child’s academic performance, it reminded me about the importance of the words we use when speaking with our kids
My office phone has been ringing lately. A lot. It’s been a while since parents were quite so worried about the impact of media coverage on their children’s mental health.
I always chuckle at Norman Mailer’s pithy depiction of masculine rivalry: “When two men stop in the street to say hello … one of them loses.” But it would not be difficult to extrapolate a bit and substitute “parents” for “men.”
We are all familiar with the adage, “Ask a silly question, you’ll get a silly answer.” The questions that parents ask children are worth considering because the depth of the questions that we present to them correspond closely with the depth of self-awareness and understanding that will be engendered by those questions.