By Dr. John Stegeman, Head of Upper School

As I complete my seventh year as Upper School Head at Eastside Prep, I’m also finishing a 16-year run as an independent school parent. This combined perspective, as both educator and parent, enables me to see just how difficult the work we do together can be. Parenting is hard. Teaching is hard. Being a teenager and growing up in the world today is hard. And few things are harder than watching a child struggle in school.

We want school to be a place where our children find academic success, deep friendships, and meaningful connections with teachers and mentors. We hope those things will help them develop a positive self-image and a lifelong love of learning. And yet, many of us fall into parenting patterns we experienced as children in our own families of origin; patterns that were, understandably, less informed by contemporary scientific findings on child development. To support you in supporting your child, I offer ten parenting tips that align with my own experience, EPS values and practices, and the science of learning, well-being, and human flourishing.

10/ Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome

We all want results, and the results will come. But we have little control over outcomes and much greater control over inputs. I try to focus my energy, and my child’s energy, on the actions that lead to results. This makes us partners in the process and the wins that inevitably come feel like true celebrations.

9/ Earned Rewards

It is way more fun to give your kid a reward than to take one away. Too often, this leads parents to offer major rewards for minor accomplishments, hoping to inspire continued motivation. But we really want our students to develop the skill of delaying gratification, which takes time. In addition, taking things away demotivates a child and produces conflict within the family. I try to distinguish between needs and wants, and choose rewards from the wants category. If a smartphone also serves as a planner, research tool, and primary communication device, its withdrawal would represent a major disruption to your child, your relationship, and perhaps the entire family. I find that experiences make better rewards than material things because they are, by nature, impermanent and easier to repeat or discontinue.

8/ Praise, Praise, Praise

The human brain evolved for survival, not optimal performance or happiness. For this reason, our attention gravitates toward what is wrong much more readily than toward what is right. When we watch our children play, practice, and grow, we tend to correct and redirect much more than praise. I try to offer five forms of praise for every criticism. This one takes some practice because I am retraining my brain while training my child. To make praise authentic and meaningful, we can praise actions rather than outcomes or inherent qualities.

7/ Students Set Their Own Goals

We all have lots of ideas about what other people should do. When it comes to our children, we have many fixed notions of what will make them safe, happy, and successful in the future. I hate to be the bearer of this unsettling news, but none of that matters when it comes to motivating your child. Especially in later adolescence, our children are actually programmed to sense what we want for them and do the opposite. Teenage rebellion is an evolutionary fact. I’ve learned to loosen my grip on the goals I set for my children, and instead support them in pursuing the goals they set for themselves. I’ve found that I have more influence by phrasing everything as a question. And I try to make them honest questions rather than leading ones.

6/ Support = Structure, Accountability, and Flexibility

In…this…order. Too often, we don’t talk or think about supporting students until they start to struggle, and then the conversation begins by focusing on flexibility. It is totally appropriate to shift or realign expectations if a child can’t meet them. However, holistic support should layer flexibility on top of preexisting structures and systems of accountability. The good news is that these can be backfilled during or after a moment of crisis, and students are often more willing to accept structure and accountability when paired with a solution to a challenging situation. I’m willing to do household chores for my child when they have eighteen outstanding homework assignments. But I require that they do their homework at the kitchen table and hand over their phone after dinner in exchange. I’m not above bartering.

5/ Schedule Includes Time, Space, and Task

As adults, we recognize that busy people need to schedule their time. Many of us have probably had to schedule important tasks in front of urgent ones occasionally. This awareness is sometimes lost on adolescents. Similarly, after years of experience scheduling ourselves or having our adult lives scheduled for us, we often associate location with productivity. When I help my child plan their day, their week, or their evening, I ask them where they will work, what it feels like in that space, and what distractions they might remove to make it more productive. Visualization is a highly effective strategy to prepare, rehearse, and maximize performance.

4/ Reflection and Metacognition

We ask students to do a lot of reflection here at EPS, including at the end of each trimester on their report cards and in most individual classes. There is a lot of research that supports the value of “thinking about your thinking,” or to say it a little fancier, metacognition. At home, I reinforce this mental habit by asking my child to think about decisions they’ve made, the impact of their actions on other people, what was going through their mind when they made a bad choice, etc. I channel that famous Greek thinker, Socrates, and lead with a question.

3/ Foundation of a Healthy Lifestyle: Diet, Rest, and Exercise

The mind, including its rational and emotional capacities, is part of the body. Western philosophy (including much foundational science) has created a culture that tends to separate mind from matter in ways that many of us take for granted but that are being disproven by research into the science of emotion and cognition. Healthy thoughts and feelings are produced by healthy brains, which require well-balanced nutrition, abundant rest to knit neural networks together, and exercise to balance hormones and neurochemicals. We are embodied creatures and we only get one body. Learning to care for it is a lifelong skill and very much connected to human performance and sustainability.

2/ Teach Emotional Intelligence

There was very little discussion about emotions in my household after kindergarten. Emotions were something I was expected to master and move beyond as I grew older. It was not until I became an educator that I really learned how fundamental emotional intelligence was to my success as a teacher, or for that matter my life as an adult. There is also now a lot of research that provides parents and educators with methods for cultivating emotional intelligence, which includes things like Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotions, to use a popular acronym (RULER). As a parent, I start by simply talking about feelings more often to build a larger emotional vocabulary. Those words layer nicely into the questioning strategy previously mentioned.

1/ Unconditional Love

As parents, it may seem so obvious that we will love our children forever and no matter what. But through the eyes of a child, it often looks like we love them a little more or a little less based on whether we display or withhold affection, approve or disapprove, applaud or critique. These subliminal messages start early in life, even before children develop the capacity for language. As our children enter adolescence and then adulthood, the stakes go up and the world’s approval becomes harder and harder to attain. With just a few months left as the parent of a high school senior, I’m looking for every opportunity I can find to reinforce my undying admiration, affection, and love for my child. No matter how high that pile of laundry or dishes grows. I’ll never run out of time for chores, but my kid is all grown up, and I just can’t give enough hugs in these last few months.

IN CONCLUSION

By this point, the reader may recognize that this “top ten list” is presented in descending order, highlighting the foundational nature of the later suggestions. The structure makes less apparent that this grounding begins with self-worth, proceeds to physical and emotional health, then to the cognitive functions of the brain, and finally a set of factors associated with motivation. As you try to implement these strategies in your parenting or the coaching of a student, any individual strategy should be considered based on the one below it. If the preconditions aren’t present, take a step back and reinforce the more foundational element.

Speaking of foundations, it is important to note that we rarely make changes to our parenting approach until something seems like it’s not working. Once that is the case, it’s usually true that the challenges our children face result from a combination of factors, two of which may relate to neurodivergence or mental health pathology. Every student has a learning profile, and neuropsychological testing can provide valuable insight into the contours of your child’s brain. Likewise, it’s healthy to talk about feelings, so every human being can benefit from mental healthcare, including medicinal treatments if or when the brain’s chemicals become imbalanced. I believe all of the suggestions are compatible with those kinds of professional support, although the balance and emphasis may vary with individual circumstances.

Finally, if you’re like me (and most students) you learn by first doing things wrong and then trying to fix them. It’s ok to mess this up. Many of us are working with patterns we learned growing up, and it’s likely that you and your child will need to unlearn some patterns in your intrapersonal, relational, and family dynamics. Give yourself some grace and remember that you’re not a bad parent for falling into these traps. Modeling this “learner’s mindset” is a great place to start. I tell my kids over and over that I had never been a parent before they came along, and I ask them to bear with me. I mess up a lot.