Kids are overprogrammed these days.

We never get to see that our kid is capable of solving problems on her own. We never start to build up the faith that they can actually do it.

You want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.

You're your kid's partner, not the person who's pulling all the strings.

A lot of parents aren't exactly sure how to go about solving a problem with a kid in a way that's mutually satisfactory - doing that with their child feels very foreign to a lot of people. It probably explains why so many parents tell me their kids don't listen to them and why so many kids tell me that they don't feel heard.

It's so crucial to really get a good handle on what's getting in the way of the kid completing a homework assignment. It can be so many things.

Everybody is talking about the behavior. Behaviors float downstream to us. We need to paddle upstream. The problems that are causing the behaviors, that's what's waiting for us. It's a crucial paradigm shift.