If a person doesn’t go to school, how will future employers know that he or she is capable of the work at hand?
Not Your Typical Article on Childhood Play
We value play for the experiential learning…learning about the external world and how to interact with others. This is true and noteworthy, but I wonder about the value of play as a form of self expression and self-discovery.
The Myth of Teenage Rebellion
One hundred years ago, teenagers didn’t exist. There wasn’t a dearth of thirteen- to nineteen-year-olds of course, but, generally, they were called “children” or “adults.” Today, “adolescence” is its own animal.
Failure to Launch: The Story of a Caterpillar
The number of young Americans ages 25-34 who live with their parents has increased more than 10% since 2000.
A Question of Motivation
The Story In this post, we return to our fabled twin teenagers, Kelly and Collin. These two have much in common—same age, same upbringing, shared friends, shared good looks, even a shared problem: getting their first jobs, a teenage rite of passage. However, in the past few weeks, their parents realized that the teens’ shared problem stems from different roots, … Read More
Just Try Harder Differently
Imagine this. Two teens. A brother and sister, Irish twins (Happy St. Paddy’s Day, by the way), Kelly and Colin, both of whom would benefit from more independence and responsibility. Their parents want them to get part-time jobs, and they do too, at least they say so. But neither one has taken any real steps toward that end. It’s been … Read More
Honing a Hyperfocusing Habit
If you didn’t read my last blog post on hyperfocusing, you’ll want to do that first. There I delved into what hyperfocusing is and is not. Here I would like to address the chaotic nature of hyperfocusing with some practical advice. If you did read that post, you know that the trouble isn’t hyperfocusing per se, but the challenges it … Read More
The Indistractible Child
Schools call it a problem, the flip side of distractibility and an identifying feature of ADD (ironically). Entrepreneurs and some progressive corporations call it a superpower, the heartbeat of “Deep Work”. For good or for bad, ‘’hyperfocus” has our attention, mine included — not as an academic or scholar on the subject, but as someone who has lived with it my … Read More
The Tension between Creativity and Productivity
A quick Google search for “to-do list” pulls 6,430,000,000 results in .45 seconds. I didn’t realize there was so much to say about a concept so simple that it’s literally defined by its title. But I guess gettin‘er done is the name of the game. In contrast, the word “idea” pulls 2,100,000,000 search results in .94 seconds, less than 3 … Read More
Common Sense Standard (CSS) #5
Knowing what is best for kids requires knowing kids, each kid. There are varying opinions about the purpose of education, but simply to set a foundation, let’s go with something along the lines of “to develop thriving human beings in society.” That’s a pretty monumental undertaking–but achievable. Essentially, our hope is to help kids grow up to be the best … Read More