Parents are much more likely to be attuned to what they don't like than they are to the expectations that the kid is having difficulty meeting.

No kid should be getting three or four hours of homework a night. There's no breathing time, there's no family time, there are just extracurriculars and homework and then go to bed.

We have forgotten that those skills on the more positive side of human nature have to be taught, have to be modeled, have to be practiced.

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.

The idea that we can take this lump of clay and mold it into a form of our choosing is absolutely ludicrous.

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.

If we're being unilateral, then communication does not happen, the relationship does not happen.