Traffic Light Highlighting

 

Highlighting texts that we read is a commonplace strategy utilised by many people especially when working with more complex/academic texts that are generally more difficult to understand, and are often being read with a specific focus in mind usually one that will result in some sort of academic reflection in the form of a written report of some kind. Unfortunately the research on this is less than favourable to put it mildly.... specifically that highlighting as a strategy is extremely ineffective despite its popularity...

Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. (2013)

“Students already are familiar with and spontaneously adopt the technique of highlighting; the problem is that the way the technique is typically implemented is not effective.
...
Given students’ enthusiasm for highlighting and underlining (or perhaps over-enthusiasm, given that students do not always use the technique correctly), discovering fail-proof ways to ensure that this technique is used effectively might be easier than convincing students to abandon it entirely in favor of other techniques.” p21, Donesky et al (2013) 

This of course begs the question as to exactly what an effective technique for highlighting could look like, fortunately the authors of the study are happy to help (emphasis mine):

“Marked text draws the reader’s attention, but additional processing should be required if the reader has to decide which material is most important. Such decisions require the reader to think about the meaning of the text and how its different pieces relate to one another (i.e., organisational processing; Hunt & Worthen, 2006)
...
More generally, the quality of the highlighting is likely crucial to whether it helps students to learn, but unfortunately, many studies have not contained any measure of the amount or the appropriateness of students’ highlighting. Those studies that have examined the amount of marked text have found great variability in what students actually mark, with some students marking almost nothing and others marking almost everything.” (Ibid)

 

So the key here is “discrimination between important and trivial information” and to highlight as little as possible, as it’s the criticality of the selections that facilitate effective engagement with the text. An effective strategy will “improve student retention of knowledge as essential for reaching other instructional objectives; if one does not remember core ideas, facts, or concepts, applying them may prove difficult, if not impossible.” ... “the important interplay between memory for a concept on one hand and the ability to comprehend and apply it on the other.” (Ibid)

 

Experience

When I first encountered this research I was somewhat taken aback as this didn’t jibe with my own experience, anyone who knows me knows that I have a reputation for remembering what I read, and I read a great deal, particularly academic articles, but the reason I remember what I read it because I am an avid notetaker, but those notes are very much structured around a highlighting strategy.  But when I read into the research it is apparent that what I’m doing isn’t what they are criticising... The strategies are use when highlighting very much represent the types of efficacy outlined above, so please allow me to introduce to ... (drum roll please) Traffic Light Highlighting.

 

 

Traffic Light Highlighting

As you read, make critical selections of text using either yellow, green, or red highlighter. *

Green for content you strongly agree/resonate with, red for the opposite of that, and yellow for content which is interesting/useful/informative. 

 

In terms of engagement combining this highlighting with note taking is essential, this is particularly true of text highlighted in green or red.  

Stanford professor Candace Thille has some very helpful advice in this CNBC article,

“Just highlighting something doesn’t commit it better somehow to your memory.”

Instead of mindlessly underlining something you want to learn, Thille suggests finding important information and paraphrasing it in language that makes sense to you.

"If you thought that point was important, try and restate it in your own words," she says. "Try and make sense of out it because you're not really trying to commit it to memory, you're trying to extract meaning out of it."

So where there is green text I am summarising what it is about that text that I find to be so important. But it’s the red text that causes my students the most confusion—they just cannot understand why I would want to focus so closely on information that I don’t agree with; but as I explain to them, that kind of content is arguably the most useful, particularly when you’re expected to demonstrate critical thought about the text. 

For critical thinking it’s important to seek out information that is not in alignment with your current views, this is where the questions lie, where the opportunities for learning are the richest. At the very least it ensures that you’re not just constructing and maintaining your own 'filter bubble'. The red text assists with embracing uncertainty, seeking out the complexity of disparate perspectives.
 

Depending on the nature of the paper that you’re reading you should find that red highlights should be relatively rare—few and far between. The example I have included below is from a paper that I found to be particularly contentious, but as a general rule I would expect  many papers not have any red text at all and where there is red text, it’s probably only one or two sentences in the entire paper. Notes that accompany the red text will expand on what it is about this point that I find problematic.

Notice the notes.... that's engagement.

Green - Judgement: agreement  endorsement
Yellow - Factual/informative/interesting/noteworthy
Red - Judgement: disagreement/contention

Blue?

Some of my students have adapted this highlighting strategy for their own purposes, something I enthusiastically encourage. One student in particular uses blue text; they use this to highlight text which they personally find difficult to understand—primarily because of their lack of familiarity with the content. This is an interesting perspective, and one I think still lends itself to the kind of critical engagement that the experts encourages in order for a highlighting strategy to be truly useful. 

 

References

Dunlosky J, Rawson KA, Marsh, EJ, Nathan MJ, & Willingham DT. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. 

Hess A. (2017). These 5 hacks can help you learn anything, according to a Stanford professor. CNBC. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/5-hacks-to-help-you-learn-anything-from-a-stanford-professor.html

 

* I personally prefer to use a digital tool for this as it avoids printing  (especially for the paper I cited to support this post which was in excess of 50 pages), and affords me the range of colours I require, but also allows me to easily clarify the meaning of certain terms which especially with academic papers is quite common. An added bonus is that it’s also very easy to view a synopsis of all the content in the paper that has been highlighted or annotated at a glance, and the search function is particularly powerful when referring back to research that you may not have read recently and need to review.

Five Filters of Failure & a Scale of Scepticism

It's not the unrelenting torrent of information that I find troubling, after all, how many books are out there, never mind films and TV shows? How many articles, journals, newspapers, magazines? How many hard copies are holed up in folders, files, cabinets, archives and dusty basements all over the planet? Many I am sure, and yet no one ever complains about this sheer weight of data, I've never heard anyone complain,

"Dude, I just don't want read another book, there are just way too many out there, like, y'know? Like, if I read one a week for the rest of my life, I still wouldn't come even close, y'know?"

And yet, so often I hear this pointless observation made about the web, so yeah there's a lot of data, that's nothing new, the 'information revolution' proceeded the 'digital revolution' by at least a half a century—World Wide Web 1989, Libraries have been around for a lot longer... But even in 1945 library expansion was calculated to double in capacity every 16 years*, if sufficient space were made available... so there's been a lot of data for a long time; all we need to do is learn to deal with it. Literally.

So, the fire hydrant image below, while clever, I relate to more on the level of tech tool overload. Seriously, every gathering of tech types I ever attend is dominated by tech tool talk, new Web 2.0 tools, new gadgets, widgets, scripts, plugins, apps, features, software suite, usually accompanied by a lot of references to them being AWESOME.

Larry Cuban uses a list to help articulate this tension in his seminal publication 'Oversold and Underused' (2001) which reads as follows:

• Is the machine or software program simple enough for me to learn quickly?
• Is it versatile, that is, can it be used in more than one situation?
• Will the program motivate my students?
• Does the program contain skills that are connected to what I am expected to teach?
• Are the machine and software reliable?
• If the system breaks down, is there someone else who will fix it?
• Will the amount of time I have to invest in learning to use the system yield a comparable return in student learning? (p170)

Cuban L (2001). Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

So imagine my delight when I stumbled up on the most magnificent scepticism dial, or what I prefer to call... the Scale of Scepticism.

In order for me to assimilate a new digital tool to the point of actually recommending it to teachers to use with students, it has to have passed through my own series of stages, along the lines of:

Stage 1 – utter scepticism (yeah, whatever)

Stage 2 – cool reticence (arms folded)

Stage 3 – emerging realisation that, actually, this might be worth a closer look (sitting up)

Stage 4 – mild interest, even emerging (muted) enthusiasm (leaning forward)

Stage 5 – semi-excitement (standing up)

Stage 6 – fervoured, obsessive exploration (squeezing through to the front)

Stage 7 – passionate commitment and desire to talk to everyone about it, to the marked irritation of, well, everyone (evangelistic zeal)

The only problem is I needed something more succinct, more ... manageable, I could feel the threads of my sanity slipping, and I needed something simpler to accompany my next foray into techdom.

And thus emerged ... 5 Filters of Failure, now these were mainly conceived in the context of iOS devices, due to their increasing presence in my school, these have somewhat preoccupied my mind of late, but I do believe these 5 filters can be applied more generally:

1. Do this require me to do the same thing more than 5 times? Like tedious account creation for each student? Do kids have to sign in/create an account to use it?
2. Is it transformational? Yeah, it's cool, but does it radically change what I can do? Is it too similar to something I already use?
3. Does it have pedigree? Reputation. How long has it been around? Is it tried and tested? How are they making money? If it is 'free' then how likely is that is will be here in 4 weeks? 4 months? 4 years? Or even if it is, will it still be free (unlikely)? Often the pricing from free to paid (once they think you are committed) is ridiculous, ie from 0 to $10 USD per student. 
4. Is it well designed, simple to use? Can kids use this independently? Can Teachers work it out on their own? Is it intuitive?
5. Can the content be exported/shared easily? Can the App save to camera roll? Export to a universal format? Does it require web access to function, so if WiFi is sketchy the activity fails?

Dealing with the Deluge

This set of filters is essential in the management a phenomenal proliferation of digital tools. On, literally, a daily basis, more tools with funky and not so funky names emerge into a market place already filled to overflowing with a veritable cornucopia of competitors. If you're fortunate, your school hopefully already has a dedicated tech integrator to stand between the teacher and the tsunami wave of digital applications, utilities and all sorts of 'Apps' boasting their pixelated promises to 'save you time' etc.

And if you don't? Then by all means ignore these 'wonders of the web' until you do. Yes, sometimes lurking in the sludge of similarity (and revolutionary? not really...) is the odd golden nugget of greatness, but it's not going to terribly affect your teaching to miss out on those. If that is not an option for you, then arm yourself with these filters and, like the prospector who wades through the mediocre, seeking to route out all except the most worthy, you can then bring the odd truly terrific tool triumphantly back to your team. Not that they will be as excited about as you will be. Yet.

Now it doesn't have to fail all 5 filters to fail, but the more filters it fails, the less interest I have in taking it seriously, I can honestly say that all of the tools I rely on currently all pass at least 4 of the 5 filters. Will these filters change? Absolutely, I'm constantly reconsidering/tweaking/adjusting them—like the cornucopia of competing tools they are designed to filter they need to be flexible; after all there were four filters of failure only a year ago.

1. Setup requirements
2. Similarity
3. Reputation/pedigree/funding
4. Simplicity
5. Ease of Export 

These are my filters

There may be many like them, but these are mine.

The question is... What are yours?

 *Rider (1944). The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library. New York City: Hadham Press.

Digital Wellbeing

@simonrae

Talking with a colleague about some of the common behaviours that we witness in terms of the working habits employed by students throughout the school when they need to work on a screen.  Interestingly, completely separate from each other, and working in very different areas, we had similar concerns. I’ve always approached this from the point of view of inefficiency and a general lack of organisation, but she had the clever insight that maybe what we should really be concerned about is their well-being. 

With that I set off on a literature review to find out what I could, and sure enough there is a considerable amount of material that has been written in this area, generally organised under the category of ‘clutter”.  

Obviously, as is usually the case with these things, clutter is a problem whether it is digital or non-digital. But what I am noticing is that effectively the clutter that is commonplace in students' laptops  is a big issue, because while this clutter it is largely effectively invisible to the teachers and parents, but

...the negative impact in terms of stress as noted by the research is the same, regardless or not whether clutter is in a physical work environment or a digital work environment.

I regularly encounter many (if not most) students (and adults!) who have normalised a cluttered digital work environment; their norm is to work in a browser with far too many tabs open, lots of different applications open at the same time, work scattered all over the desktop, with files very poorly organised and therefore very difficult to find whatever they need to work on, especially when they have opened the same file multiple times without being aware of it...

These key areas are encompassed by what I call the 'Fundamental 4" four simple areas to review regularly—ideally once a week. Check you are signed in properly, clear your desktop, close all/most of your tabs (bookmark the ones that are important to return to), and tidy up your drive, move loose files into folders.

Ignoring all of this is easy, and understandable, but as we all know, clutter accumulates without requiring any assistance at all. The longer you leave it, the worse it gets, combining to create a lose-lose scenario: an ineffective work flow, that undermines wellbeing. But don't take my word for it, I've collated the essential arguments below (my emphasis in bold): 

Clutter’s Impact on Your Brain

Whether it be your closet or office desk, excess things in your surroundings can have a negative impact on your ability to focus and process information. That’s exactly what neuroscientists at Princeton University* found when they looked at people’s task performance in an organized versus disorganized environment. The results of the study showed that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.

... Similar to what multitasking does to your brain, physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively.

Clutter Isn’t Just Physical

Files on your computer, notifications from your Twitter and Facebook accounts, and anything that goes “ping” in the night competes for your attention. This creates a digital form of clutter that erodes your ability to focus and perform creative tasks. Mark Hurst, author of Bit Literacy, a New York Times best seller on controlling the flow of information in the digital age, put it best when he said:

"Bits are a new material."

When you have to-do items constantly floating around in your head or you hear a ping or vibrate every few minutes from your phone, your brain doesn’t get a chance to fully enter creative flow or process experiences. When your brain has too much on its plate, it splits its power up. The result? You become awful at:

• filtering information
• switching quickly between tasks
• keeping a strong working memory

The overconsumption of digital stuff has the same effect on your brain as physical clutter.

If you work on a computer, having a cluttered desktop every time you turn on your computer can give you a constant uneasy feeling. At the end of each day, remove every file from your desktop.

Clutter, whether physical or digital, is something you’ll always have to deal with but it can be controlled. Finding ways to steer the streams of consumption in your favour will give you a sense of power and a freed mind… 

When your environment is cluttered, the chaos restricts your ability to focus. The clutter also limits your brain’s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to process information as well as you do in an uncluttered, organized, and serene environment.

…

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other physiological measurement tools to map the brain’s responses to organized and disorganized stimuli and to monitor task performance. The conclusions were strong — if you want to focus to the best of your ability and process information as effectively as possible, you need to clear the clutter from your home and work environment. This research shows that you will be less irritable, more productive, distracted less often, and able to process information better with an uncluttered and organized home and office.

The science of focus


From our computer desktop, to our car, to our kitchen counter and fridge—clutter is clutter, and it affects us whether we think so or not.

In a study by the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute*, researchers monitored task performance when an individual was surrounded by organized versus disorganized environments.

Overall, subjects were more productive, less irritable and distracted in the clutter-free environment versus the disorganized environment where their stress increased.

The brain has a limited capacity to process information. To filter out extra stimuli and focus on what we are trying to achieve at any given moment, the top-down and bottom-up attention mechanisms compete. By mutually suppressing each other, brain power is exhausted, and ultimately we lose focus. 

Cognitive Clutter

Humans are bad at multitasking. It’s a hard fact to come to grips with, especially in a society that values professional productivity so highly. We’re encouraged to work on multiple projects at once so that we can get them all done faster, but science has shown us that this actually slows us down — working on a single task is much more efficient than trying to direct our attention in multiple directions.

This is related to why clutter has such a negative effect on our mental capacities. Just seeing a cluttered desk or home adds to the number of things that we have to expend mental resources on to process, both visually and cognitively. This adds to the load placed on your brain. Using more mental power requires more energy, which is why clutter can make you feel more fatigued.

Think about your digital workspace. Decluttering your Windows or Mac desktop, clearing your inbox, and even your declutter browser tabs can make you feel a lot better. It encourages you to back up your old files, and cleans up your workspace. It may even help you find things that you’ve lost — old notes in Evernote or old articles in Pocket that are really useful or more applicable now than when you saved them.

Digital decluttering is a great way to bring new energy to your life.

Digital clutter is a real thing. Keep your digital life organized by using the same principles as you would with physical clutter.

Managing disorderliness is good for health. It reduces your stress, prevents feeling guilty about your cleanliness, and keeps your brain from getting overloaded by unhelpful things.

Clutter robs you of mental energy, leaving you feeling anxious, tired, and overwhelmed.

• It frustrates you.
• It makes you lose things and waste time.
• It ruins your focus and concentration, drawing attention away from what’s important.

Why Your Brain Loves Order

The human brain is wired to respond positively to order.

Psychotherapist and professional organizer Cindy Glovinsky says that order feels good, in part because it’s easier for our brains to deal with.

In an organized space, your brain doesn’t have to work so hard.

This leaves you feeling calm and energized.

When you enter a pleasing, uncluttered space, you can more readily concentrate and focus.

Why Clutter Is Killing Your Focus (and How to Fix It)

What should you hope to improve by decluttering in your personal or professional life?

Better focus.

Evidence* suggests that when multiple visual stimuli are competing for your attention, you have a harder time narrowing your focus to only one of them. That means the clutter in your life is making you unfocused. You’ll have a harder time staying on task at work, and you won’t be as “present” in your home life, either. Decluttering brings better focus back to your world.

Academic Note for Boffins

*The study (McMains & Kastner, 2011) referenced by many of these articles is one of the most flagrant examples of academic gibberish I have ever encountered. Here's a taste:

"Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited processing capacity of the visual system."

Huh?

I have read the article, it wasn't easy, and it took a lot of determination—but I can confirm that it largely supports the claims made above. In fact I would argue it goes further than they do, in that it finds that stimuli in the environment (bottom-up) compete with whatever we are trying to focus on (top-down), but what is more of concern is that they find the environmental stimuli ‘win’ as these are subconsciously prioritised by our brain, regardless of whatever the work is that we are trying to “spotlight“. 

Image by Mikhail Grachikov and Gst via Shutterstock.

McMains, S., & Kastner, S. (2011). Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(2), 587-597. 

Internet Filtering & Parental Controls

I am regularly contacted by parents for advice about software they can install on the devices their children use at home that will enable them to filter out or block inappropriate content, usually based on the assumption that we must use some sort of monitoring software on campus. Often these parents are surprised to discover that while we do have filters to block the most egregious of content, it is fair to say that our college filters are not as strict as many might expect. We do use a commercial filter on our internet traffic to block inappropriate sites, however, such filters work on the basis of keywords and blacklists and neither of these methods are foolproof. So why do we take the risk?

Our college policy regarding parental controls goes a long way to explaining this:

In general the College has an ethos of developing personal responsibility in students and ultimately we believe that it is essential for students to develop the skills and attitudes necessary to survive and then thrive in a digitally connected world.

The sentiment behind this policy statement is very similar to the description of 'e-safety' as defined by Becta:

The term e-safety covers a broad range of issues around the need to ensure that children's and young people's experience and engagement with technologies is a safe and positive one. While parents, educators, government and industry all have a role to play in keeping children and young people safe, supporting them to become independent in online environments is critical to nationwide, effective e-safety. ‘Independence' does not mean here that they are expected to deal with every incident themselves: it means that they develop social skills (including resilience); that they know how to identify and manage risk; that they understand their rights and responsibilities and know how to access help and advice if needed. (Becta's Contribution to the Rose Review, 2009)

When we teach our kids how to use the internet, we do so from a position of preparing them for the 'real world' of internet access that most will encounter at home. While there are a minority of families who use some form of filtering software, the reality is that few families have internet filters of any kind on their home connections. This is not a criticism, I have not installed any filtering software at home either. This situation reflects the norm in my experience, a norm that we need to be teaching our students to operate effectively and responsibly within.  For example, you cannot guarantee that even walking down Orchard Road you are not going to see images or overhear a conversation that you feel is inappropriate for your children. So in addition to the filters, arguably, more important than filters is the need to teach our children the skills they need to navigate the internet safely, and how to react appropriately if, or should I say, when something occurs.

This policy very much underpins our approach and throughout the Primary School, where, even from K2 (in K1 teachers use Guided Access), all students are effectively 'administrators' of their devices. This applies all the way through the iPad grades (K1-G3), and then on through from Grade 4-5. All students receive their own laptop in G6, where we leave the decision about admin controls up to parents, although we encourage parents to make their child admin if at all possible—or at least to try it. From G7—all the way through to grade 12 we expect all students to have admin rights on their laptop. This means that for most of their school years our students are already accustomed to using and managing their laptops as an 'administrator' whether or not they were even aware of this, which is possible, as we treat this as a 'normal' operating environment. This is an arrangement we encourage all parents to maintain, unless of course a situation arises where you feel that you need to withdraw the privilege of an admin account, in this (hopefully rare) situation, we encourage parents to ensure that this is a temporary arrangement.

"Nearly half of 10 year olds say they have the skills to hide what they're doing online from their parents." (Sky News, Swipe, 2017)

It's worth noting as a practical point, that the process of imposing parental controls is not a simple one, this is mainly because the process of setting the 'tightness' and 'looseness' of controls is a tricky balance to find. If your main concern is distraction rather than access to inappropriate content, there are a range of strategies we encourage at school that you can also model at home, and encourage your children to practise as well. The other critical consideration is that if you are not very careful, you could end up effectively creating an unhelpful dynamic where you effectively teach your child that they are not trusted, at which point you may well be encouraging them to find ways to subvert your attempts at policing their online activity, then when they do encounter problems they are unlikely to come to you for help as they will have to confess their nefarious scheme... For more see this short video on the 'the secret cyber life of young people'...

Road Safe, Web Safe

This is where the analogy of road safety that we use with students comes in. Roads in every country are commonplace, and at some point everyone of our children will need to learn how to navigate them safely and independently. The same can be said of the 'wild wild web'; like roads they are a modern and essential reality, and while they can be dangerous, they shouldn't be treated is if they are inherently dangerous places—although they can be very dangerous places. The solution to both is very similar: education and supervision. Like roads, we expect kids to be able to navigate the web from an early age, but never alone; although any wise parent should be modelling for their kids how they navigate the web, when they are using it together. Just like road safety, there are some basic rules we expect all young children to follow, to make these effective we've kept them simple:

1. Only search the internet with a responsible adult present.
2. If you see something that makes you uncomfortable, show the responsible adult.
3. If you need to search online unsupervised, use a search engine designed for kids like Kiddle or Safe Search Kids.

About point 3, we liken these 'child safe' search engines to playgrounds, spaces that are designed especially for children, this doesn't make them harmless, after all, kids in playgrounds can still get hurt, but it does make the likelihood of this less likely. In the same way we liken searching using Google as tantamount to walking down Orchard Road, not an inherently dangerous space per se, especially in Singapore; but clearly the possibility of encountering something or someone inappropriate is more likely. As children we did not grow up with the dangers of the internet, but we did grow up with dangers, and our parents, in my experience were quite comfortable with allowing us some controlled exposure to risk situations, precisely so we could learn from them. I fell out of several trees, and off several bicycles during my childhood, not to mention the stairs I fell down. Stairs, now those are really dangerous, but I doubt anyone is seriously considering preventing children from using those... So we're not looking to create a zero risk environment for our students, but a managed risk environment, this distinction is essential. This last point is one I've written about before, but a recent article from the Washington Post, entitled, 'Why I don't monitor my kids' texts anymore' does an excellent job of articulating this tension, along with some practical parenting advice.

"As a young and socially inexperienced person, I was sometimes mean, sometimes gross, and sometimes way out of line. Every kid tests his or her own boundaries. That’s how they start to grow up. The queasiness in my stomach or the ache in my heart when I crossed that line is what helped me learn from those mistakes. 

When we hover over our kids’ social interactions, on high alert to catch each mistake and steer them back on course, we squelch their internal barometer for embarrassment and guilt. Had my mom listened to all my conversations and called my behavior out into the light, I might not have learned to read my moral compass."

This does beg the question, "at what age is it okay for my child to browse the internet unsupervised?', and the answer is very similar to "at what age is it okay for my child to cross the road unsupervised?", which is, when you have taught them how to navigate it safely, and what to do if things go wrong. In my experience this is unlikely to be until grade 4 or 5, which is, incidentally, when students are allowed to make their own way home (with parental permission, of course).

Not all families or children are the same, and the home environment is not one that is necessarily conducive to ensuring that young children are never able to go online unsupervised. Given that our policy is to teach responsibility, we'd like to think that even if unsupervised, our students would still make the 'right choice' and either stay offline (working within an app for example) or use one of the child safe search engines that they are encouraged to use in school.  However there are clearly scenarios where this is not a realistic option, in which case you may want to consider some digital tools that can assist with this, but bear in mind these are unlikely to be free if they're any good, for example a one year family subscription to Azoomee costs £40, " No ads, no in-app purchases. And a PIN lock to keep kids inside the app and take away the worries."

As of iOS 12, all iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) now have built in options for parents to monitor/restrict screen time.

When you open Screen Time for the first time, you can specify if you are a parent setting up an account for a child. Then you set a parent passcode that will be required to alter the Screen Time settings. From your device, you can also select “Set Up Screen Time for Family” to set up Screen Time with Family Sharing. You’ll be able to access your child’s Screen Time reports and set controls from your own device. When a child reaches the end of a time limit on the app, they can request more time; the request pops up as a notification on the parent’s device. 

Finally, Screen Time allows parents to set restrictions on downloads, privacy, and other settings. By default, Apple won't set these restrictions, even if it knows it's a kid's phone. Parents will have to manually make these adjustments in Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions. (Wired Magazine) 

This article contains some very practical advice, over and above the 'unplug the router' (one I have to say I like; simple but effective!) strategy, along with some wise caveats,

"While we can certainly recommend a bunch of apps and devices for you, this is more about your approach than the tools you’re going to use. Kids generally don’t like being spied on and dislike being spied on without their knowledge even more. While a number of monitoring tools can run without children knowing about them, we strongly recommend being transparent with your kids about when and how you’re tracking them. 

You know your kids better than we do, and we can’t prescribe the right approach for every type of child, but whatever your situation it pays to be open and honest about the dangers out there on the web and in the real world."  (David Nield)

The Fundamental Four!

The Fundamental 4

The Essential Tech Slide Deck: bit.ly/uwctechdeck

There are lots of aspects to digital organisation, but the four that are most essential, and that also happen to be synergetic, ie all four are codependent, are:

1. Get Connected

Open up the Chrome Browser, then click in the little icon in the top right corner and sign in to Chrome. Sign in with your account details and agree to Link data when prompted. 

This means that everything you do with account is continually synchronised with your Google 'cloud' online, so if you lose your laptop, and have to either use a loaner or start with a new one, as soon as you sign in a sync—voila—everything in your Google life will reappear in seconds. Note, this just synchronises your browser content, files on your hard drive will not be backed up, to do this you'll need Backup & Sync*.

2. Organise your Drive

Open up the Chrome Browser, and go to your Google Drive online. Make sure you have folders created for all subject areas. You might want to add a folder for your own personal files, but remember, your drive is a school space, not your personal space.

There should only be folders in your drive, no loose files. If you have files from previous years that are making a mess, just create a folder called Archive (if you haven't already) and drop them in.

3. Desktop (almost) Zero: Drive it or Dump it. 

Your desktop is not a good place to keep your files—it makes them handy, but once they build up it comes very difficult to find anything. Worse, if you have any problems, none of those files are safe, so make sure any files you do have their a strictly temporary. Like the desk in your classroom, at the end of the lesson, make a decision; drive it (move it to your drive) or dump it (move it to the bin). Now you have your Drive synchronized this is as easy as a drag and drop, or within the Finder. 

4. Bookmarks on the Browser Bar, Trim your Tabs

All of the websites you rely on to function effectively from day to day should be organised along the bookmark bar. Make sure you are signed in so these are all synchronised to your cloud account. That means that those bookmarks, stored in folders, are backed up, and accessible on any other device that you sign in to.

Too many Tabs 

Too many open tabs is a symptom of poor bookmark organisation, if you know you can easily find any page you need in you bookmarks, you don't need to have 50 tabs open 'just in case'. If the site matters, then bookmark it, if not then close it if you don't need it now; an easy to do this is just use command+w to close any tab you have open.

To quickly close loads of tabs, just control click on a tab and choose one of the options, like Close Other Tabs!

Less than 10 tabs is ideal

This many tabs is unmanageable, and bad for you! 

(While you're there why not quit the apps you're not using and close any open windows as well?)

bit.ly/fundamental4

There are more than four?

Yes, but don't panic, one a week will see you reach organisational nirvana within a few months, with fabulous habits for life! 

What kinds of things? Well simple but powerful tips like this one for example:

Using the slide deck below, all you need to do is commit 10 minutes a week, until you have the fundamental four covered.

Here's the tech slide deck, open it, drop it on your (nice and tidy) bookmark bar and check it out once a week!

Digital Disorganisation & Parenting: Part 2

Digital Organisation Essentials

As explained in Part 1, parents generally struggle to model effective practices when it comes to the organisation of their digital devices, but it's not all doom and gloom. When it comes to the use of digital tools for organisation, many—if not most parents—embraced these with enthusiasm some time ago, and are now generally proficient in their use. What they don't often realise is that they could and should encourage their children to use similar tools, in the same way, and for the same reasons they do. 

Where there can be confusion, is which tools to use; as there are a plethora of them out there. So in this post I will outline the organisational tools we encourage our students to use. While these may not be the same as the tools parents use, they will be very similar, and the ways to use them will be identical. So whether they're using Apple Reminders, or Evernote, or Google Keep is not the focus; it's not about the nouns, it's about the verbs, or to put it another way, it's not what you use, it's how you use it.

As our students progress through the college in Primary and Middle School they are expected to use a paper organiser. At the end of Grade 8, in preparation for High School where they have the freedom to choose whatever system they like, we formally introduce them to digital organisation tools at the start of term 3. What follows summarises our plans for our Middle School students as they prepare to make the leap from paper and pencil, to pixels and dings.

Google tools

As a school that uses Google Apps it makes sense for us to utlise the apps in this suite, as they are just a click away from the GMail inbox and Google Drive that they've been using for many years. The slide deck shared at the top of this post outlines how to set these tools up, but to summarise, we expect students to use:

1. their Google Calendar to manage their timetable, adding other events from their busy lives, such as sporting events, activities, service, and rehearsals et cetera. 
2. the To-Do panel in our online learning platform (Teamie) to keep track of homework deadlines. 
3. Google Keep (or similar) for everything else, ie reminders, lists, and notes. 

Blended organisation

Many parents, and many of our students may prefer a more 'blended' approach—using a paper organiser for some items and areas, and using digital tools for others. If you do decide to use this approach, an important consideration is that you need to make sure that with one or both of these you are transferring events, otherwise you can end up with clashes between events, because one is recorded on paper and not included on the digital calendar, or vice versa. This does mean a certain amount of duplication, which for me was the reason why I eventually abandoned this approach, and switched to digital tools completely.

Why go digital? 

There are many reasons, but a brief summary follows, focused on the 'transformational' power of digital tools, ie what digital organisational tools can do that traditional tools cannot:

• Situated: unlike a paper organiser, digital organisation tools can be anywhere you are with a digital device, synced across all the devices you have connected, and all kept in sync in real time. 
• Access: an idea, an image, a quote, a website, a video, a document, a reminder, a list, all a click or two away, and a copy/paste makes it easy to locate later, or/and to annotate with some simple notes. Best of all, it's searchable, no more flicking through pages desperately skimming for that snippet of information. 
• Multimodal: Now you are not limited to text or to a hastily scribbled scrawl on the back of a proverbial envelope—notes can be a quick picture, or short video, or an audio recording. You can even dictate straight into your notes (just pretend you're on the phone 😉) Best of all are the audio notifications; that 'ding!' is incredibly useful. 
• Mutable: Need to change that date, that time, that place? Update/edit that note? Changed your mind? Need to add clarification? No problem,  and no crossed out entries in your planner. 
• Social: with a few clicks, notes, and calendar events can be shared with one or many. For parents in particular, if you can persuade your child to share their calendar with you, you will find much easier to keep track of what they're doing, and where they are, or where they should be...

Digital Disorganisation & Parenting: Part 1

Messy bedroom via zmeed.info

What does a messy bedroom got to do with digital organisation? And well might you wonder, well, more than you might think. I work with students throughout the college, or maybe a more accurate term might be nag, the digital equivalent of:

‘Tidy your room!’

'How do you find anything in here?’ 

‘Pick up after yourself!’ 

You get the idea. 

If you were to follow me around you'd hear exhortations along similar lines, only in relation to the state of student laptops, particularly the dreaded desktop. 

What does this have to do with parents? 

The problem I regularly encounter is that whereas most of our students can rely on their parents to be effective role models—for example in terms of their expectations about the tidiness of their children's bedrooms—this is rarely the case with the organisation of their parent’s computers. And that’s a problem; as parents you are in a much better position to model effective organisation than your children’s teachers. Ultimately what we’re really talking about here, isn't bedrooms or desktops, it's about mindset, just because the context is digital/virtual doesn’t mean it’s not as important.

Now I realise that as parents, if you’re around my age (most of my 40s already in the rear view mirror) and many of you are, you have an excuse; you probably didn’t even use a computer with a desktop operating system until you were in your 20s and 30s, and even then you probably had to figure it out for yourself. Hence the reason for this post, allow me to outline the fundamental expectations we have for all of our students who use a laptop, and by extension the fundamental we have in terms of expectations for teachers and parents as well; every time you open up your laptop you're sending a message to whoever you're with, the question is, are you being a good role model, or do you need to 'tidy your room'?

The Fundamental 4

There are lots of aspects to digital organisation, but the four that are most essential, and that also happen to be synergetic, ie all four are codependent, are:

1. Any browser you use should be connected to an associated cloud service, with Chrome that's Google, but all the main browsers provide this service free of charge. Once connected, all the files you depend on should be not be strewn all over your desktop, but should be stored, and organised online (2. & 3.) or/and in a place where they are constantly and instantly backed up to a secure online storage such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and iCloud to name but a few. 

4. All of the websites you rely on to function effectively from day to day should be organised along the bookmark bar of your preferred browser, one that is also connected and synchronised to a cloud account, so that those bookmarks, stored in folders, are backed up, and accessible in any other device that you use. 

The Essential Tech Slide Deck: bit.ly/uwctechdeck

Be a role model of digital organisation

Using the slide deck above, this is the exact same deck that teachers, and mentors, and advisors across the college show to our students, you can do more to support your child's efficient organisation than we ever can, so what are you waiting for? Go tidy your room!

All you need to do is commit 10 minutes a day, until you have the fundamental four covered, then once you've recovered from the blissful sense of catharsis, move on to the others...

Now you can rest assured that you no longer need to just nag your kids to pick up after themselves, and tidy up their bedroom, but also that they need to clear out their desktops, tidy up their drive and organise their bookmarks as well!  :)

One more thing...

There are two other areas where you can be an effective role model, I've linked to other posts I've written about those as well below. 

Screen time: Studies indicate that working parents spend an average of > 9 hours looking at screens, everyday. So maybe that allowance of 30 minutes a day for your child needs reconsidering? 

Passwords: From what the students tell me on a regularly basis, their parents are generally notoriously poor role models in this area—see this post for some practical advice—but some basics you should ensure you model for your children are:

1. Keep your passwords secret, your children should not know your passwords! 
2. Note passwords are plural, you should have a different password for every account you use. 

Last but not least, see my follow up to this post Digital Disorganisation & Parenting: Part 2 which provided some guidance in helping your child build effective organisational habits that will benefit them for their rest of their digital lives.  When it comes to the use of digital tools for organisation, many—if not most parents—embraced these with enthusiasm some time ago, and are now generally proficient in their use. What they don't often realise is that they could and should encourage their children to use similar tools, in the same way, and for the same reasons they do. 

Where there can be confusion, is which tools to use; as there are a plethora of them out there. So I outline the organisational tools we encourage our students to use. While these may not be the same as the tools parents use, they will be very similar, and the ways to use them will be identical. So whether they're using Apple Reminders, or Evernote, or Google Keep is not the focus; it's not about the nouns, it's about the verbs, or to put it another way, it's not what you use, it's how you use it.

Growing up in a Distracted World - parent workshop slides

Following on from a popular parent workshop earlier this week we are sharing the slides and associated resources for you to explore at your own pace.

The use of digital technologies at UWCSEA is foregrounded in our research on learning, but against this backdrop we see the widespread use of smartphones and devices in nearly all parts of society as being part of growing up as a teenager. The following slides provide some background context and research and then highlight the importance of self-regulation and executive functioning skills for teenagers grappling with digital technologies for the first time.

Slides towards the end of the presentation highlight a range of digital tools which may support students in tracking usage and potentially blocking distractions. The most important ones are listed separately below.

• Focus App for self control - this is available to all students but they need to use the school code to enrol for the paid version of the app. We introduce this app via all Middle School Life Skills classes. 
• Rescue Time for reflection - this piece of software that tracks time spent both on applications and websites on students laptop. Each week students can an email which breaks down use and points to their 'productivity'
• Moment App for tracking smartphone use - a clever, simple and free app which tracks how many times you pick up your phone and time spent on your phone and individual apps. 
• Guide to Qustodio for Parental Controls - this is seen as a last resort or where you might like to filter and track usage of the laptop. Can also be used for smart phones.

Please also see the following links for posts we have written in the past on related topics

• Why Learning and Multitasking Don’t Mix - Andrew McCarthy
• Dealing with Digital Distractions in the classroom - staff workshop and resources
• Dealing with Distraction - Sean McHugh

2FA with Google Apps

2nd Factor Authorisation (2FA) with Google 

Also known as 2-step verification, means making your account more secure by requiring a second device—usually your mobile phone—to authorise your access to your account. If you use online banking you've probably being doing this for years, but the second factor was a dongle, not the most convenient of devices to have on hand, whereas most of us usually have a mobile phone within reach. To learn more about this process from Google, click here.

1. Initiate Setup - SMS

You may not wish to use your personal number for this, that's okay, you can just use it to initiate the process, and then choose another method afterwards.

To start the setup process, click here. It's relatively straightforward, but you will (obviously) need access to your mobile phone to complete the set-up.

Once you've complete this step there is no need to continue unless you'd like to add/change your preferred 2FA method, which I would encourage.

Google App

2. Alternative/Additional Access

If find tapping in random codes tedious, or/and you don't always use the same mobile number, then you will want to opt for the ADD GOOGLE PROMPT option, using the Google App, or the GMail App.  You'll need to install the app on your phone and sign into your college account. Then you'll be able to add this option, so instead of typing in a code that's been texted to you, you can just tap YES to a prompt from the app.

3. Google Authenticator App

Google Authenticator App

As a third option, (or as an alternative to using the Google App) you can use the Google Authenticator App this will generate the codes you need.

Once you've installed the Authenticator app on your smartphone, when you log into your college google account providing your user name and password to the site, then you can run the Authenticator app. The app displays a six-digit one-time password.

Shared Accounts

For role-based and departmental accounts the person primarily responsible for checking or using the account should set-up the verification process.  All of the above methods are available, as you can add multiple mobile numbers to one account as back-up options to receive the code. So each person who needs access to that shared account, can add their mobile number to the same account.

If you are using the Authenticator App, then you can have multiple accounts linked to the App on one phone. So again, each person with access can link their Authenticator App to the shared account.

Receiving a voice call to a fixed line or even printing out a set of codes are other possibilities. It is best to set-up at least two of the options to provide alternatives.

Finally, you can generate and save a set of back-ups codes from the alternative second step options. Obviously, do not leave these codes next to a computer!

[Adapted from an original document by Ben Morgan]

Video Games & Playgrounds

One of the most profound shifts in terms of childhood in a digital age, is the rise of online gaming. Once the preserve of teenage and tween geeks and nerds in darkened LAN rooms, now it is a common pastime for younger children, certainly many of our Junior School children regularly engage in these pursuits as a regular pastime. This is not a post about whether or not this kind of activity is one we should encourage, (I think we should) that is a subject I have written about elsewhere, and present a parent workshop about gaming every year. No, this is about providing some advice for the many parents who, for whatever reason, have kids who like to play online.

There is a growing collection of video games that fall into the category of multiplayer online game, from Clash of Clans to Club Penguin, to Minecraft, Roblox and Overwatch, and many more.

21st Century Playgrounds

As is often the case these days/this century, parents and teachers often find themselves faced with trying to relate to a child, whose normative childhood experience bears little resemblance to their own, but let me reassure you—while the medium has changed—the message and the meaning, and the opportunities and obstacles that surround group play have not.

The main place and space you are likely to encounter this is at home, as playing video games in class is generally not something kids will have time to do. There may be exceptions, eg possibly as a one off iTime project, but even then, the objective of creating something that they are accountable for in terms of achievement would need to be paramount. This is the stance we take with these kinds of gaming experiences, like Minecraft and Roblox. That said of course, there may be teachers who find this to be a useful strategy as a reward for hard work for example. If so they will take the necessary precautions, just as they would if sending kids to play on the playground.

Safe Play

When it comes to games for kids, Roblox is a great game, just like its progenitor Minecraft, however—as with all making, creating, playing, social experiences there is always the potential for inappropriate use, and experiences, whether the playground is virtual or actual. The solution, much as we would advocate for any 'multi-player' 'off screen' play—from playing tag or handball, to playing football, to swimming or having a sleepover, is to make sure there a​re​ clear parameters, and appropriate supervision, to ensure that we are minimising the likelihood of potentially harmful or unpleasant encounters.

Online maker spaces like Roblox and Minecraft are unique in terms of the sheer potential they offer in terms of unbridled creativity, and are also very familiar in terms of their potentials and pitfalls.

There are inherent risks with all sorts of forms of play, even childhood games that echo through the ages like 'Hide & Seek' are potentially dangerous, they're certainly not risk free. With all kinds of games the same safeguards we would have applied to playgrounds as children apply, ie be aware of the other people who are playing in this online arena or space, and the extent to which this space is effectively supervised, or moderated. If, as kids, we had been permitted to play unsupervised at nearby playground (I was, in London in the 70s, that seemed to be quite normal). We would have taken appropriate action if, for example, there were bullies in the playground, making life miserable for everyone. The same is true of these online spaces, which are very much similar to playgrounds, only on a screen, instead of in a park.

Safeguards

The developers behind games like Roblox and Minecraft are very aware of this, and design in safeguards for children, but this only works if the child has been honest about their age when creating the account, whether it's a Roblox account, or an Instagram account. Whenever a child creates an online account, like any other internet account, it's important that they set these up with the parent, or with the parents permission, otherwise they can 'accidentally' end up effectively creating an account for adults which could result in their being exposed to content that is inappropriate. Ideally a teacher or parent should be involved in the account setup and in ensuring that the child plays/uses the account responsibly—this is a skill that will serve them w​e​ll for the rest of their lives, in all sorts of online environments.

Roblox, for example, have a very clear commitment to safeguarding children; but it can be all too easy for children to create adult accounts, thereby effectively bypass any and all safeguards that would automatically be applied in the case of younger children. This usually happens if a child 'accidentally' enters the 'wrong' year of birth when registering their account, then the system assumes that are older than 13. In the event that this happens, my advice is for the parent to have a close look at the child's account settings, if Roblox or Minecraft knows that a user is under 13 there are a slew of safeguards that will be applied to the account to ensure the child's welfare, eg:

"For users age 12 and under, however, we take extra precaution to ensure their safety and privacy by automatically enforcing more restricted settings so they can only directly message other users that are accepted as friends on Roblox." 

"Players age 12 and younger have locked privacy settings to prevent contact from people they don't know. These players must first become friends with another user before certain activities are allowed, such as messaging, following into game, and playing in private servers."

Have Fun!

There are advocates in some quarters who encourage parents to join their child and play with them, to be honest, I think you'll find that most kids are less than enthusiastic about this idea.... Would you play tag, or have a sleepover with your kids and their friends? Probably not, so why would online play be any different?

Last but not least, the best thing you can do as a parent is be consistent; online and offline play are rich experiences that are enjoyable and highly beneficial provided some basic precautions are followed; for more on the potential benefits of gaming, see the following on video games as 'sandboxes'.

Protection, Paranoia & Parenting

Some articles I read years ago, and this one from Common Sense Media more recently have a habit of continually popping back into my head, every time the inevitable web scare rears its ugly head.

There is a paranoia associated with the web which can easily be exaggerated, for example parents who are profoundly uncomfortable at the thought of a photo of their child being viewable online, even if the image is buried in a website with an extremely obscure URL, a proverbial needle in a digital haystack. Yet this same parent will almost certainly allow their child to walk down Orchard Rd, Fifth Avenue, Oxford Street, knowing that they can be seen (perhaps even photographed unawares) by the general public? Not to mention the ever increasing presence of CCTV cameras watching our every move. Could this same parent be in the habit (as I am) of regularly posting images of their children on social media? ... The fact is that without an associated name and detailed localising data, such as an address, it is almost impossible to track down one child based on the image of their face alone (in the extremely unlikely event that someone wanted to).

So, like the concrete jungles of our cities and towns, the Wild Wonderful Web is an amazing place, but it is a metaphorical jungle, and, as it happens, the wild wild web has a great deal in common with a jungle—not too many leaves—but many wonderful opportunities and yes, many dangers; dangers that, with a few basic precautions, can be avoided.

The first Article makes a few controversial but critical points, which could be broadly summarised as:

Less monitoring more mentoring

The expectation of constantly monitoring children and teenagers on the Internet is an impossible ideal. Who has time to stand over the shoulder of your kids for the entire time they are online? Children’s freedom to roam in the physical world has been radically curtailed. While previous generations could ride bikes or walk to school or play outside unsupervised till dinner time, this generation is watched all the time. They have lost that thrill of being on their own until they are much older, and, for them, the Internet can provide that open space, to test and explore and try out the outside world—while being a lot less painful than ... say ... falling out of a tree, a risk that was commonplace in my childhood. In fact a shiver runs down my spine when I consider some of the risks I routinely took as child, with n'ere a parent, or even an adult in sight or sound. There is educational value in this kind of risk, this exploration even if it is online, perhaps even because it is: a lot of the work kids do is apprehending the social world, and for them, much of this work is done online.

Less restrictions more responsibility 

The important thing is to give kids the ability to handle choices, assess risks, and take strategic, or calculated risks. You want, in other words, to create the kid who can handle the Internet without you. And how can they become that kid if you are watching them all the time, if you are always hovering right there next to them? You don't just throw a 5-year-old out on the streets and tell them to figure it all out. The same is true online. But, accordingly, you can't expect to put them under surveillance and control every action they make until they're 18 and then magically assume they'll be fine at university, and the world 'beyond school' (I dislike the use of 'real world' to describe life outside school—school life is real life too!) when they haven't had any experience managing their own decisions.

Pain is a powerful teacher

Pain is a powerful teacher, sure, it's not kind, but it certainly is effective. Parents need to face up to the idea that they cannot protect their children from every potential negative experience, online, or offline, this is an impossible fantasy; there is no way to seal your children off from awful or painful or frightening things. This is nothing new, think back to your own childhood, bad things happened, you got over it, hopefully you learned something from it.

A caveat...

With great power comes great responsibility, not anonymity

A huge part of responsibility means ceasing the dubious practice by many, well meaning, but poorly informed parents, of allowing their kids to create social networking accounts in anonymity, based on the notion that this somehow protects their child. STOP! All this does is remove all responsibility, and in far too many cases actively encourages irresponsibility, as far too many children wreak havoc online from behind the veneer of a name like Puff the magic Dragon, with an Avatar of an aardvark or ... a pineapple ... or, you get the idea... Like no paedophile has ever thought of doing that? It is important to note here that online predators are far less likely to be paedophiles, and far more likely to be your child's own 'friends' and acquaintances. All you've done is encourage a situation where your anonymous child is forced to socialise with other anonymous people online, strangers, because they are similarly anonymous, oh, but they SAY they are your child's best friend ... . If you're going to let your kid 'play outside'; make sure they are playing as themselves, no disguises, no anonymity, their name, their face, and they should make sure to only socialise with people who do likewise.

The point, is not to create a safe world, but a safer world. 

Tim Elmore wrote an article more recently on this subject,  Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids…and How to Correct Them - a great article, and again, if you will permit me, it can be summed up similarly and thus:

Over-protection is damaging our children—

We Risk Too Little

“If you’re over 30, you probably walked to school, played on the monkey bars, and learned to high-dive at the public pool. If you’re younger, it’s unlikely you did any of these things. Yet, has the world become that much more dangerous? Statistically, no. But our society has created pervasive fears about letting kids be independent—and the consequences for our kids are serious.” (Gever Tully)

The truth is, kids need to fall a few times to learn it is normal; teens likely need to break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend to appreciate the emotional maturity that lasting relationships require. Pain is actually a necessary teacher. Over-protecting our young people has had an adverse effect on them, we are failing miserably at preparing them for a world that will not be risk-free.

We Rescue Too Quickly

This generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did thirty years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. We remove the need for them to navigate hardships. This may sound harsh, but rescuing and over-indulging our children is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse. It’s “parenting for the short-term” and it sorely misses the point of leadership [parenting]—to equip our young people to do it without help. Just like muscles atrophy inside of a cast due to disuse, their social, emotional, spiritual and intellectual muscles can shrink because they’re not exercised.

We Rave too Easily

Praise effort and persistence, not ability. Carol Dweck (Mindset) tells us that our affirmation of kids must target factors in their control. When we say “you must have worked hard,” we are praising effort, which they have full control over. It tends to elicit more effort. When we praise ability 'you're smart/clever/awesome!', it may provide a little confidence at first but ultimately causes a child to work less. They say to themselves, “If it doesn’t come easy, I don’t want to do it.”

A helpful metaphor when considering this challenge is inoculation. Inoculation injects a vaccine, which actually exposes you to a dose of the very disease your body must learn to overcome. It’s a good thing. Only then do we develop an immunity to it. Similarly, our kids must be inoculated with doses of hardship, delay, challenges and inconvenience to build the strength to stand in them.

So let them fail, let them fall, and let them fight for what they really value. If we treat our kids as fragile, they will surely grow up to be fragile adults. We must prepare them for the world that awaits them. Our world needs resilient adults not fragile ones.