“Didn’t we just buy a college rule composition notebook?” I asked my high schooler.
“I think so, but I can’t find it,” he replied.
The same conversation ensued about mechanical pencils and then again about folders. It seems that every school supply item had somehow vanished the night before school began.
Rest assured, we eventually located the missing items (all together, in a pile). These preparations, whether it is a high schooler looking for notebooks or a kindergartener looking for their cubby, are a natural focus during the first weeks of school.
Once we get settled into routines though, these logistical details fade quickly to the background. We can then turn our attention toward the intangibles that don’t fit inside kids’ backpacks but form a powerful foundation for learning and growing. Here are five things on my list this year:
Friction
Being a human is not always easy. Being a kid or a teen? Even harder. The good news is that the friction zone is often where learning happens. Whether it is the “productive struggle” of solving a hard math problem, navigating peer conflict, or wrestling with nerves before an audition, working through challenge is one of the primary ways that we build the skills we need to handle them.
While too much stress can be toxic to our health and wellbeing, friction and struggle (the right dosage and with the right supports) builds our capacity to move toward our goals. To be clear, this is not meant to be an individual or isolated enterprise. Researcher David Yeager outlines the benefits of a “mentor mindset,” an approach that combines exceptionally high standards with high levels of supportive empathy. Angela Duckworth, the nation’s leading researcher on grit, understands the importance of support. She just wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about the protective power of asking for help.
The kind of support children receive, however, matters. We now have access to endless assistance from AI systems, most of which are designed to create “frictionless” experiences. Polished solutions and endless affirmations are right at our fingertips, bringing up important and currently unresolved questions. What kind of struggles are worth outsourcing to AI and which are well worth hanging on to? At what ages? How does this impact learning and social development? Young people are already grappling with these contradictions and tradeoffs. Our ultimate answers to these questions are likely to be more nuanced than, “AI is all good or all bad at all times for all ages.” But in the meantime, it is well worth slowing down and leaning into the struggle that comes with learning something new.
Two things to try right now:
- Nurture a “synergistic mindset” that emphasizes growth and the idea that struggle is a normal and desirable part of moving toward our goals.
- Kids need more than just warnings about cheating with AI; they need open and non-judgmental conversations about mixed messages, ethical dilemmas, and motivations for use.
Belonging
A new report from our friends at the California Partners Project upends the idea that young people prefer scrolling to socializing. In a survey of over a thousand California teens, they found that young people do want in-person connection. But they want more than buildings and programs; they want places to belong. When belonging feels out of reach, many youth turn to tech or AI to fill the gap. This reinforces research from the Rithm Project earlier this year, which found that the biggest protective factor against high-risk AI use was authentic relationships that make youth feel like they matter.
A sense of belonging during school and after school is like the glue that holds everything together. When kids feel connected and valued, they are more likely to show up, engage, and grow. Parents often worry that their kids won’t “fit in” at school, but fitting in can backfire if kids are concealing or diminishing important parts of themselves to do so. Belonging happens when young people connect with others while staying true to themselves.
Two things to try right now:
- Have conversations about the difference between belonging and fitting in.
- Check in with kids about how they feel with friends, at clubs, or in sports – not just about schedules, safety, and supervision.
Developmental Opportunities
Kids are going back to school amidst a wave of new device policies and global experiments in social media bans and age-restrictions. Adults seem desperate to get kids off screens. But as teens in the California report noted, “Where are we supposed to go?”
In their most recent policy statement on children and media, the American Academy of Pediatrics was already looking at this big picture. The statement recognized that children grow up in nested circles of influence and advocated for investments in libraries, community centers, and paid parental leave. These are “screen time issues” just as much as tech policies or parental controls are. Let’s invest in and connect kids to an ecosystem of developmental opportunities that include high quality afterschool programming and robust and affordable third spaces.
Two things to try right now:
- Work with your child to identify low-cost or accessible ways to connect with peers and explore interests after school or in the community.
- Consider saying yes to “safe enough” requests for freedom to play or hang out with friends after school.
Digital Agency
Just as offline experiences shape wellbeing, activating awareness and critical literacy about online activities is important too. In the wake of the Meta settlement and growing public outcry for tech accountability, we have the opportunity to deliver an important dual message to young people:
- Exploitative tech design isn’t fair and companies profit from our time and attention online (systems and design matter).
- Technology brings both benefits and risks, and there are things we can do for our own digital wellbeing (you matter too).
Why is the second message so important? Too much emphasis on individual habits obscures the design choices and policies that shape our digital lives. Too much emphasis on “addictive design” can lead people to believe they have no control over their use. Alongside purposeful boundaries around tech, we still want kids to step into the driver’s seat of their digital lives. Katie Davis of the University of Washington’s Digital Youth Lab notes that “self-directed, community-supported” media use is linked to a range of healthy outcomes from early childhood through adolescence. Similarly, Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Center for Digital Thriving argues that digital agency, or reclaiming power when it comes to tech, is fundamental to digital wellbeing.
Two things to try right now:
- Watch Design Tricks from Common Sense Media and PBS Digital Studios and talk about tech design and business models.
- Root conversations about tech use in values. What does your child care about? When does tech help? When does it get in the way? What is within your power to change?
Curiosity
Many people think of curiosity as a strictly intellectual pursuit. But curiosity isn’t just about getting correct answers on a quiz or committing information to memory. Curiosity is key to our individual and collective wellbeing. It is a taproot of motivation, strengthens our relationships, increases collaboration, and improves our wellbeing. The absence of curiosity shuts us off from the stories, experiences, and perspectives of others.
One group of researchers outlined a multiple dimensions of curiosity. Deprivation curiosity is about finding answers to “information gaps.” In addition, they outlined the benefits of things like joyous exploration and social curiosity. In other words, we aren’t just drawn to our learning edges to find knowable facts. We are drawn by the birds, the trees, the delight of uncertainty, the excitement of more questions, and, importantly, the complexity and beauty of other humans. We need this now more than ever.
Two things to try right now:
- Model it. Practice saying, “I wonder…” instead of, “Let me tell you.”
- Encourage exploration. You might say, “That’s a great question. Keep following that – what are you going to do next?”
What would you add to this list?