Blog Posts

The Mental Block on Mental Health

What comes to mind when we hear the term “mental health”? Many people might be unable to give a straight answer. Ambiguous terms like “happy” or “stable” might pop up, but it’s likely that the average person has never given it a whole lot of thought. What about the term “mental illness”? Today it often encompasses a spectrum of images: suicidal or self-harming teenagers, Prozac prescriptions, people who are a “danger to themselves and others,” or more. Regardless of your personal reaction, the fact that we have a more concrete perception of mental illness versus mental health is saying something about our cultural values. Stigmas against mental illness exist all over the world, but let’s focus on the stats in the US: while mental illness affects about 25% of the population, nearly two-thirds of these will never actually seek treatment. This is observed even more so in minority groups. Most interestingly, 50% of …

In My Travels

This week I headed to Maine for a 60th birthday party. Long cross country flights almost always provide an interesting array of parenting choices and this trip was no different. On this entirely full flight I was surrounded by families with young children. Directly beside me was a young mom traveling alone with 2 girls, I would guess about 18 months and 3 years old. They were excited to be on the plane and chatty with their mom, who was well prepared with plenty of snacks and lots of activities. A good start, I thought. Then it got interesting. Mom told the girls that once they took off she was going to take a nap and, once in the air, she handed them their electronics, put her head on the tray table and proceeded to sleep. The girls pretty much played with their devices with a few skirmishes along the way for the entire flight, rousing their mom once when they needed a potty run. As I watched I couldn’t help feeling conflicted. On one hand, I was thinking how great it would h …

“We’re” Not Going To College

A human unfolding into adulthood is an ugly, beautiful thing. I should know. As Stanford’s freshman dean for ten years I had a front row seat as thousands of teenagers emerged into their adult selves through the alchemy of trial, error, and dreams. They made me laugh. They made me cry. I rooted for them either way. I also have two kids of my own making their way through the rigors of public school in Palo Alto so, between my own parenting experience and my decade with undergraduates, I know a thing or two about parents. Nowadays, in well-to-do communities like mine and throughout our country, we parents over-direct, over-protect, and over-involve ourselves in childhood. Of course we don’t want to see our kids struggle, let alone suffer, and we act with the best of intentions. Yet bestselling author and psychologist Madeline Levine (Teach Your Children Well; The Price of Privilege) tells us that when we do what our kids can already do for themselves or can almost do for t …

Living the Dream

I would be lying to you, parents, if I told you I wasn’t having fun working at summer camp. Glassy, calm, blue lake, rowboats, sailboats, hiking, yoga, improv, and even disco bingo- these are a few activities that are a part of my job. When prefacing working at summer camp, many people put “job” in quotes, insinuating that camp is not a real position, since we do not work in a cubicle or the depths of a sunless research lab. But do I have to dislike my job to make it a serious, important stepping-stone for my future? It is my third summer working at a beautiful camp nestled in Lake Tahoe, California. I had some friends who decided to stay on campus or work in a big city; they were so excited to work one-on-one with their idol professor, or so they thought. I even considered a summer staying on campus, as the majority opinion insisted that would be the best place to make connections hereafter. Instead, many of my friends became lab rats and spent most of their da …

Six Things That Matter More Than Perfect Grades

Well, actually, this piece could be entitled seven hundred and six things that matter more than perfect grades. But hey, I needed to pick a number and there is a word limit for blogs. While there is no debating, that for most kids, grades do matter, and that they matter significantly, the fact is that we’re thinking about grades in entirely the wrong way. Good grades as an indicator of engagement with learning, curiosity and persistence mean something both in the present and as indicators of being successful out in the work place. But getting straight A’s so you’ll get into Harvard, in order to get an internship at Goldman Sachs, so you can go to Wharton for your MBA, and as a result, will be set for life is a very poor way to think about grades. Unfortunately, this has become the paradigm for many young people and it bodes poorly not only for their mental health, but for their success out in the work world as well. Here is an example of the kind of thinking that all …

In Defense of Occasional Dullness

We’ve hit the heart of summer, a season that conjures up sepia-toned memories for all of us grownups. Coppertone-watermelon-seed-catching-fireflies-ice-cream-truck-spotlight-tag-come-home-when-the-streetlights-come-on memories. Periodically, there’s talk of year-round school. It’s true, the current schedule was built around agrarian kids helping with the summer harvest. It’s been perpetuated by the myth of a stay-at-home mom in every house. It makes no sense educationally or economically. Still, I’m sad for the kids who’ll someday suffer through a theoretically ‘better’ schedule. Because they won’t get those magical, endless days of nothing-to-do, nowhere-to-be summer that we dreamed of all year. Except they’re not actually getting that now. Rare is the kid these days who can look forward to even a week of ‘free’ time over the summer. Instead, they’re in sleep-away and day camps, sports and art camps, com …

BEYOND A WAITRESS

Five months ago, I started working nights at a restaurant. Though the restaurant is cozy and well-attended, I noticed something peculiar: many diners were not communicating with each other. They were distracted by their screens. Disturbed, I wrote an op-ed and published it in The Seattle Times. At the end of the article, I included this short bio: “Shoshana Wineburg graduated from Stanford University in 2009 with a degree in American Studies. She waits tables in Seattle.” Comments ensued. Most people responded to the article’s content; others could care less. They wanted to talk about my degree. One user wrote that my bio was “the saddest part of the article.” Someone else said my degree was not “worthwhile,” and that waiting tables after graduating from Stanford was “kinda depressing.” I haven’t just waited tables after Stanford. I’ve done other things. But that’s beside the point. The point is that …

Giving Our Kids the Best Practice Years of Their Life

The taxi number was up on the refrigerator. She knew the time had come. She had missed the bus one too many times. I was upstairs biting my tongue. I had rescued my daughter enough times by driving her to school when she overslept. “The next time you miss your bus, you’ll have to figure out how to get to school on your own,” I had said. “But none of my friends drive yet, how will I get there? I can’t take a taxi, it’s too much money.” And so that became the solution to the problem, which quickly became extinct when she didn’t have enough money for her small pleasure items. When Esti had to dip into her weekly spending money and then some, getting up on time seemed like a better alternative than giving up her cash to a cab driver. I was out of rescue and savior mode and she was learning some great skills: responsibility, accountability, self-reliance. She obviously didn’t like it, but is parenting always about Liking and Pleas …

Second-Hand Performance Anxiety: 5 Reasons Why Parents Fret Over Their Kids’ Performance

Welcome to the season of parental anxiety. As surely as winter melts into spring and Uncle Sam demands his yearly tribute, we start worrying about end of semester tests, registration deadlines for the “right” summer camps and the arrival of college acceptance (or, heaven forbid, rejection) letters. That parents fret about their kids’ performance is no secret. Why and what to do about it is less clear. In this blog I’m going to explore some of the reasons behind the handwringing. Yes, we all love our kids and we all want them to be successful. But that has always been true of parents, and yesterday’s parents didn’t obsess over every test grade and spend every spare minute shuttling them to rehearsals, matches and tournaments…did they? No. They did not. (Ask yourself: did your parents parent the way you do? Did your friends’ parents?) You probably know my position on overparenting. However well-intentioned, it doesn’t do kid …

Put On Your Own Mask First: A New Year’s Message To Parents

Put your own mask on first, then assist children with theirs. Anyone who has ever flown has heard this bit of wisdom. It’s also a familiar analogy for how we should approach parenting. We can’t help our kids if we’re not okay ourselves. Most of us know this in theory. But how many of us live like we know it? We parents worry about our kids’ grades, their social lives, their emotional health, how much sleep they get. We worry about whether they’ll get accepted to a good school and what their employability will look like. And (might as well admit it), we worry about how they stack up against our friends’ children. What we don’t worry about is whether our own (metaphorical) mask is securely fastened. I’m sure there are a few parents who wear their self-denial like a badge of honor, who think living for their kids is the ultimate virtue. In most cases, though, the “kids first” life sneaks up on us. We wake up one day to find …

Lingering, Lights and Longing

In this holiday season, too much of our lives are determined by desire. We are bombarded by the newest toys we must have. We obsess about the plans we painstakingly make. We long for friends and family from afar to be in our midst. Some of those desires uplift us. Some are imposed upon us. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the blizzard of questions and assumptions faced by students navigating to and through high school toward a future college. Too often, for young adults and those who love them the holiday season can feel like trial by query. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Where did you apply?” “How many schools?” “What’s your safety school?” “What do you think you’ll major in?” While the questioners are often well meaning, the degree of desire increases exponentially with each question. Students, how can you remove the heavy mantle of other people’s needs, anxieties and expectations a …