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How to Learn Slippery Concepts
Some ideas are just plain slippery. Like a wet frog, they’re hard to grasp and even harder to hold onto. In other words, some of the things you try to learn will be difficult to understand and...
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Everything Bad About Homework is Good
Think of all the things you don’t like about homework: it’s hard, it’s time-consuming, it’s annoying, it’s boring. All of these supposedly bad things are actually good. Don’t believe me? Let’s break...
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Praising a Process-Based Identity
Any parent or educator who has read about growth mindsets knows that you’re supposed to praise process rather than character traits. It’s best to praise effort and strategy rather than intelligence or...
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6 Reasons Teenagers Struggle with Long-Term Thinking
Teenagers sometimes seem incapable of long-term thinking. They get home and spend hours on their phone instead of starting their homework. They go out and play with their friends instead of doing...
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The Doors of Opportunity Are Not Closing
Do you worry that your teenager is throwing their future away by making bad choices? That, by doing poorly in high school, they’ll be unable to attend college, greatly limiting their career...
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Build Up Your Calluses
“You’ll have far better luck toughening yourself up than you ever will trying to take the teeth out of a world that is – at best – indifferent to your existence.” –Ryan Holiday1 Here’s a metaphor for...
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Start With Whatever You Have
You’re uncertain. Your idea is incomplete. You don’t know all the steps. You’re not sure how to say what you want to say. No problem. You can begin anyway. Too often, students let these be reasons to...
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Finish Strong
You’ve been running for miles. You’re exhausted. You can’t wait to be done. You turn the corner and finally see the finish line. What do you do? Slow down and walk the rest of the way? Or sprint to...
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8 Reasons We Still Need to Know Things
When I was in elementary school, if you wanted to know something, you looked it up in an encyclopedia. Well, you first determined which volume of the encyclopedia you needed because attempting to...
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What Happens When You Stop Micromanaging?
Note: This child should be wearing a helmet. Enforcing basic safety rules is not micromanaging. No child can truly learn how to ride a bike with training wheels on. But of course, when you remove the...
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The Surprising Value Of Taking Turns Reading
It has long been the accepted wisdom that reading to your child is beneficial. And, of course, having the children read is also beneficial. It turns out that when these two activities are combined,...
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Defaulting to Distraction
The school year is just starting, so millions of students are now receiving their school-issued laptops. Nearly all such laptops will be Windows devices, with the default web browser of Microsoft...
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The Secret to Better Test Performance
Doing better on tests isn’t about employing clever multiple choice strategies or managing anxiety with deep breathing. Those things can help, but they don’t have nearly as much impact as the one thing...
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4 Ways to Overcome Your Excuses
Procrastination usually goes hand-in-hand with excuses – you know, those good-sounding “reasons” you come up with to avoid doing your work. Don’t feel bad. We all do it. But if you want to overcome...
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A Counterintuitive Way to Reduce Teenage Screen Time
Does your kid spend too much time playing video games? Watching TikTok? Scrolling through Instagram? One approach we regularly advocate for is leading by example and modeling less tech use, so what...
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How to Take a Break from Studying
Is it okay to take breaks when I’m doing homework? How often should I take study breaks? What’s the best kind of study break? Why is it so hard to get started again after a break? These are the most...
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You Can Change Faster Than the System
Reading Time: 3 minutes Our educational system has no shortage of flaws. Class sizes are too large. Teachers don’t have enough resources. Textbooks are digital (read: awful) or nonexistent. The science...
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How to Grow Your Child’s Intrinsic Motivation
Reading Time: 5 minutes Most parents know that intrinsic motivation is better than extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation inspires greater long-term effort,1 leads to higher-quality work,2 and is...
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How to Ask Questions During a Test
Reading Time: 2 minutes You’re in the middle of a test, staring at a question. The way it’s phrased is confusing; the wording seems ambiguous. So you’re not sure how to answer – not because you don’t...
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How to Parent Patiently
Reading Time: 6 minutes One of the core messages of our parenting classes is patience. Effective parenting is patient parenting. Now, it’s natural to hope for a quick fix, to look for a shortcut. And I...
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