Parenting
What if a high school has no grades? No Advanced Placement (AP) classes. No International Baccalaureate (IB) program. To most parents in Northern Virginia, this is profoundly unsettling information. They ask, “How will my child get into college?”. The current model is not working for many students, but parents are afraid of the unknown. What they don’t know is that a progressive high school like The Sycamore School (TSS) may be precisely what they need to get into college. The college admissions process has changed dramatically since most parents were in high school. More students than ever are applying to college and acceptance rates have dropped considerably. In 1970, 152,000 students were enrolled in college, by 2000, that number had increased to 382,000 students who were enrolled in college in Virginia. [EducationData.org; July 2021] This is a particular challenge in Northern Virginia, where nine out of the top ten top…
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Summer: a time for barbecues, swimming pools, and some much-needed R&R. The weather outside may be slowing everyone down, but here at The Sycamore School (TSS), we’ve hit the ground running. The staff has been hard at work to get set up for the 2021-2022 school year, planning experiences and electives, re-organizing the school, and taking on those projects we didn’t have time for during the school year. Students can expect to see re-organized cabinets, spotless classrooms, and refreshed teachers come August. Teachers have been working with their cohort partners and in content teams to create the trans-disciplinary curriculum that TSS is known for. Starting with the essential question and the final project, teachers reverse engineer an experience that’s designed to be as entertaining as it is instructive. We don’t want to spoil anything just yet, but this year’s showcases are looking to be a lively and entertaining return to…
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Are you excited about the prospect of a more relaxed and carefree summer? Or does the thought of parenting and navigating this new world fill you with anxiety? Maybe it’s my psychologist mind, but I think about, how comfortable are we with “getting back to normal” and what does that even look like? Some of your children (and maybe you) are probably just itching to get outside, connect with friends, and get back to normal. Other children may be fearful and reticent to connect with peers, adults, and even relatives. Many of you are probably somewhere in between – excited but also experiencing some reticence and anxiety over this new world. We need to be mindful that going back to normal may feel and look different depending on the individual and that both parents and children may have strong (and differing) feelings about what that looks like. Post-Covid Guidelines As…
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We strive to do our best as parents and teach our children how to grow up to be self-sufficient adults. We also want them to become kind and generous adults. Good people. I recently read an article titled For Families: 5 Tips for Cultivating Empathy which reminded me that raising kind and generous adults is not an easy task. How do we cultivate empathy in our children? Our children learn from our actions more than our words. They pay attention to what’s important to us, how we spend our time, and how we treat others. If we want to cultivate empathy in our children, we need to model that behavior ourselves. How do we treat others? Not just our friends, co-workers, and family members who we deem to be our peers, but also the many individuals that make up our community, including waiters, cashiers, custodians, solicitors, and mail delivery people?…
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Parents, help mitigate panic and communicate realistic expectations to your children. It feels as if individuals are falling into two camps in response to the Coronavirus outbreak: panicking or dismissive. Neither reaction is helpful. Instead, we need to take preventative measures seriously and think beyond ourselves. Panic: A Selfish Response Panic can bring out the worst in some: people stealing masks from hospitals, hoarding hand sanitizer, and buying caseloads of water. These reactions show a regression to thinking only of ourselves and our own basic needs and not being mindful of the impact these actions have on others in our community. What happens if people don’t have access to basic supplies because other people hoarded? Social Distancing: It’s Not About You Are you in the dismissive camp when it comes to the seriousness of the pandemic and the need for social distancing? This is a little more subtle, but important.…
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More and more frequently, parents of young students are pushing for their child to be identified as “gifted and talented”. Parents might think they are benefitting their children by advocating for that label and, to be honest, parents like the recognition themselves. We must have done all the right things if our child is identified as “gifted and talented” at an early age. But is this what’s best for our children? An article in Time Magazine speaks to our country’s dated and erroneous idea that learning potential is a fixed trait and cannot be cultivated. This results in bright students perpetually striving to prove their worthiness. It also channels educational resources to a small segment of students, failing to challenge and inspire the rest of our youth. At the heart of the article is three decades of research by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck and her work on growth…
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At some point, every parent has nagged their child. It is just in our nature as parents. We nag because we are frustrated and don’t know what else to do. We want to instill some life skills in our kids, but they’re not internalizing them. Nagging puts us in charge of tasks our kids should be responsible for and focuses on what our children are NOT doing. Common tasks parents nag kids about: Homework Chores Cleaning the room Walking the dog Taking out the trash Picking up after themselves Does nagging work for your family? It certainly doesn’t for most families. The result of the constant reminders simply makes our kids feel incompetent with no change in behavior. Nagging is short term and repetitive. It doesn’t lead to a long-term solution, like actually instilling the desired behavior in the child. Nagging instead sends a message to our kids that…
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Late, Lost or Missing Homework? Uncovering and Addressing Executive Functioning Struggles In Students Another week and another missing assignment in the grade book for your student. It seems like all their peers complete and turn assignments in on time, so why is it so hard for your child? Late, lost or forgotten homework can be a sign that your student is struggling with executive functioning skills, which are the building blocks of productivity. Executive functioning allows you to organize your day, plan long and short-term projects, and remember to complete tasks. The National Center for Learning Disabilities defines “Executive Function” as a “set of mental processes that helps us connect past experience with present action.” How do you determine if your student’s struggles are age-appropriate or if they are a symptom of an executive function issue? One option is to ask your school to do an evaluation, or student…
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We have all heard the term “Mean Girl.” According to a recent school study, nearly 1 in 4 girls reported being bullied during the year. This is in sharp contrast to only 17 percent of boys report being bullied. A recent AP article reports girls are 3 times as likely to experience cyber or text bullying than their male counterparts. It is clear that girl-on-girl bullying is on the rise and is impacting students on a daily basis across the country. But does it have to be this way? Recently, The Sycamore School, Arlington Magazine, and Mothers of North Arlington (MONA) co-sponsored a community screening of the documentary Finding Kind. Following the screening, our school counselor facilitated a discussion with the parent and child attendees about the documentary. As the group processed the documentary, there were a few key takeaways. Small Changes Make Big Impacts Change can start small.…
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Recently, the Washington Post featured an article Seven ways parents and educators can improve kids’ middle school experience. This article does a great job describing both actions we as parents can take and highlighting steps schools have successfully taken to improve the middle school experience. As I read the article, it felt as if they were describing The Sycamore School and our core tenants. At The Sycamore School, we integrate academic development, social-emotional growth, and civic engagement. The result is a school environment that is designed to provide the best middle and high school experience for our students. Here are examples of how our school is designed for a positive and rewarding school experience. Trust them with responsibility – Instead of offering whole class instruction, our students work at their own pace and use teachers and classmates as resources and guides to help them problem solve and work through challenging…
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On the first day of school it’s hard to tell who is more nervous, parents or students. You all want the school year to be a success, but there is some doubt and worry that it mightnot go as well as hoped. First day excitement and nervousness is very normal. Some students get excited by a new school year full of old friends and new experiences. Other students worry about new teachers, keeping up with the demand of a new grade, and just the overall unknown, which is also completely normal. Over the course of the first few days to weeks of the school year, most students will start to settle into the rhythm and routine of the new school year. Some students may even take a month or longer to fully settle into the new school year, which can also be completely normal. How do you know your student…
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