(Some) parents felt as if our proposal was lowering the standards to make it “easier” for students in high school. But we aren’t lowering the standards: we are redefining them. We are “challenging” what they define as a child who is “successful.”
Student-athletes at Head-Royce School face stressful challenges balancing the demands of school and sports. As an initiative to improve student-athletes’ health and well being, Challenge Success Club members decided to host a student-led H block discussing the issues and struggles of being a student-athlete in November 2017.
I love school. As a child in elementary school, I would be so excited to get the school supplies list and go get things like new sharp colored pencils and books.
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.
As a clinical child psychologist interested in youth sports, I’ve seen a huge cultural shift in the meaning and culture of youth sports. Parents have noticed it, schools have noticed it, and psychology researchers have noticed it.
The most important piece of advice my oldest daughter and I heard when she was packing for college was: Don’t forget to bring a doorstop.
When some parents and students refer to March Madness, they aren’t necessarily talking about basketball. They are referring to this particularly stressful time of year when college admission decisions arrive via email and snail mail.
As a clinical psychologist who works with athletes, I’m often asked to give talks to groups of parents, teachers, and coaches about healthy youth sport participation.
The Stanford student approached me after the second session of our “Exploring Happiness” course. “I’m sorry but I have to drop your class. The course conflicts with my family values.” Perplexed, I inquired further.
“I want to be happier. I just don’t know how.” In my work as faculty, presenter and leadership coach, I hear this confession from adults, 18-80. We live complex, stressful and often disconnected lives, often bombarded by media that convinces us that buying all kinds of stuff will make us happy, beautiful, successful, prestigious, and even more loveable individuals. Sometimes it does, in the short run. The real problem, however, is that this media-created trance can blunt our quieter universal quest for deeper joy and kindness. But there is very good news. Deep happiness is within reach.
Everyone wants to be successful in high school. Success comes in a variety of ways: academic success, social success, financial success (except babysitting hasn’t really been cutting it). But the kind of success that I’m describing is not something that comes in the form of a transcript or an Instagram post with this or that person. A couple of weeks ago, as college notifications were rolling out, my friend and I had a long chat and reflected on the end of high school. The conclusion we came to was one that will always stick with me: the people who truly succeed in high school are the ones that can look back and say “Wow, I had a blast doing the things I loved and I would not change a single thing.”