Whatcha think? Are our kids “unemotionally unprepared?” – SCN Encourager

It’s a good question to mull over as we head into our next school year.

And yeah, as always…

I need to tread lightly whenever I write about emotions.

It creates a strange kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement at home when I do.

If I promise not to ask Cindy to read what I’ve written.

She’ll promise not to roll her eyes and shoot me her amazed gaze of disbelief.

But The New York Times ran this essay on Wednesday and you might want to give it a fair “think.”

Since I didn’t write it (surprise, surprise), it definitely passes the Cindy test.

It’s a short thought-provoking postlude to Kym Reinstadler’s fantastic profile of Jessica Lahey and her best-selling book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed.

I hope you can squeeze out the time to read it.

As more demands and expectations are placed on our schools, I think it’s  advantageous for us to have a few new priorities to push back with.

And this one seems so fundamental.

How nice it would be to have the freedom to move beyond the standard litany of more standardized testing, more transparency, more data, and more “teacher quality” evaluations.

But what are the odds of that ever happening?

Really.

I’m starting to get angry just thinking about it.

Uh, oh…

I guess I’m not as emotionally prepared as I thought.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –