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Funding is not keeping up with the cost of expenditures, said Ellensburg School District's finance director Kim Snider, and the district is facing a few big challenges as it builds its 2024-25 budget.

Starting next year Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding will no longer be available, Snider noted during a board study session Wednesday evening. This funding was intended to support school districts through the pandemic.

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Ellensburg School District loses temporary state funding, struggles to fill gaps in budget

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Funding is not keeping up with the cost of expenditures, said Ellensburg School District's finance director Kim Snider, and the district is facing a few big challenges as it builds

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The Toppenish School District plans to cut 48 positions through layoffs or attrition to address a more-than-$8-million budget shortfall for the 2024-25 school year.

Toppenish is the second school district in the county to announce staff reductions due partly to declining student enrollment. In a letter to district staff, Interim Superintendent John Schieche said the loss of 200 students and nearly 250 alternative learning education students cost the district $2.8 million in state funding.

Schieche added in his letter that $5 million worth of grant funding for a new preschool did not materialize and that a lack of levy equalization from the state paired with rising property values resulted in a further $1.2 million loss.

In total, 24 staff positions made up of seven classified positions, four administrators, two graduation specialists and 10 teachers will be cut. The remaining 24 positions will go unfilled following retirements and resignations.

According to the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 3,888 students enrolled in the district this school year. During the 2022-23 school year, that number was 4,396.

Other districts

The Yakima School District is planning 138 staff members next year because of budget shortfalls and enrollment declines. It has about four times the enrollment, with 14,770 students.

West Valley, a similarly sized district to Toppenish, has reported a much smaller impact from the loss of COVID-19 relief funds and levy-related Local Effort Assistance funds from the state.

An April 9 budget update from Peter Finch, West Valley's superintendent, said the district's enrollment has returned to pre-pandemic levels. According to the district's OSPI report card, the district had 5,616 students enrolled in October 2019 and 5,610 students enrolled in October 2023.

"Any overall staffing reductions will be made by attrition through resignation or retirement," Finch said in a recent budget update.

The Yakima Herald-Republic has reached out to other school districts in Yakima County about staffing and finances next year.

Santiago Ochoa's reporting for the Yakima Herald-Republic is possible with support from Report for America and community members through the Yakima Valley Community Fund. For information on republishing, email news@yakimaherald.com.

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Toppenish School District announces 48 staff reductions amid budget shortfall

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The Toppenish School District plans to cut 48 positions through layoffs or attrition to address a more-than-$8-million budget shortfall for the 2024-25 school year.

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Updates: zoning for early learning facilities (Ellensburg)

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Updates: zoning for early learning facilities (Ellensburg)

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ELLENSBURG, Wash. - The City of Ellensburg is looking for alternative locations for a proposed year-round overnight sleep center that would house persons experiencing homelessness. Sites must meet the following criteria:

1. Located within Ellensburg City Limits

2. Availability - property must be available for lease or purchase by May 1, 2024

3. Zoning - property must be appropriately zoned for Indoor Emergency Shelters

4. Parcel Size (minimum of 1.25 acres)

5. Identify adjacent uses

6. Must be accessible by public transit and pedestrian access

If you have a viable suggestion for a location for a Sleep Center, please visit the City website and complete the Sleep Center Site Recommendation form at: www.ci.ellensburg.wa.us/sleepcentersite.

On March 4, the Ellensburg City Council heard a report from consultant ECONorthwest, which identified the former Nites Inn property (now Pathways Project owned by HopeSource) as a proposed location for the future Sleep Center. In 2022, HopeSource acquired the property utilizing City and Kittitas County affordable housing funds and has begun work converting it into apartments for affordable housing and those transitioning out of homelessness. That work is scheduled for completion by the end of 2024. The parcel is located at 1200 South Ruby Street and sits on a 4.8-acre site and zoned Neighborhood Commercial-Mixed Use (NC-MU). Given the size and location of the former motel on the site, there is additional space available for the Sleep Center. Indoor emergency shelters are a permitted use in the NC-MU zone.

After receiving public comments on the proposed location at its March 4, 2024 meeting, the City Council approved delaying action on a Letter of Understanding with HopeSource to allow for research of alternative locations to be evaluated. The Council asked the public to help search for a suitable property in the City that could accommodate the Center and be close enough to necessary resources.
About the Sleep Center Concept
The City of Ellensburg proposes a year-round operation that would be open overnight daily. Paid staff, as well as security personnel, would be onsite during operating hours, estimated to be 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily. In addition, access to service opportunities for clients by hosting providers from other community services organizations on-site during designated hours each week. The analysis assumes the shelter would begin with up to 25 individual shelters (some of which could accommodate couples) and includes an analysis of costs associated with adding two shelter units per year. These shelters may have heating and cooling to protect guests from extreme temperatures experienced in Ellensburg during the winter and summer months.

The operation would also require a larger unit or trailer to be used as staff offices and check-in area for guests. On-site bathroom and shower units will also be provided. Ideally, the operation would provide dinner and breakfast to guests, provide secure areas for overnight storage, and have community areas. Learn more at www.beheardeburg.com/sleep-center.
Background
Homelessness is an issue that most communities, regardless of size, have been attempting to address for many years. The federal courts have decided that cities and counties cannot remove homeless persons from camping on public property unless there is adequate overnight shelter space for those individuals. In 2022, both Ellensburg (Ord. 4895, ECC 5.70) and Kittitas County (Ord. 2022-015) adopted new policies regulating public camping, which are dependent on having available shelter space.

A Joint City and County Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness was established in January 2022 to explore services and needs to ensure the growing concerns around the increase in people experiencing homelessness in our community were addressed. An important gap identified was a lack of year-round overnight shelter facilities to allow enforcement of public camping regulations and provide better access to services. Both the Kittitas County Board of County Commissioners and the Ellensburg City Council approved the concept of an overnight sleep center at their respective meetings in July 2022.

The Kittitas Valley Ministerial Association has been operating an overnight Cold Weather Shelter in Ellensburg for the past nine years, open from November to March rotating between several local churches and managed by various non-profit agencies over the years. However, this model is not adequate to accommodate the needs of a year-round sleep center.

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Ellensburg Looking For Alternative Sleep Center Site Locations

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The City is looking for alternative locations for a proposed year-round overnight sleep center that would house persons experiencing homelessness.

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Newly Released! The Breakthrough Years: Ellen Galinsky

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Newly Released! The Breakthrough Years: Ellen Galinsky

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Blending cutting-edge research with engaging storytelling, The Breakthrough Years offers readers a paradigm-shifting comprehensive understanding of adolescen…

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Ellen Galinsky, co-founder of Families and Work Institute (FWI) in 1989, serves as its President. Additionally, she is the elected President of the Work and Family Researchers Network and holds advisory roles with various organizations including AASA and the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to her current positions, she served as the Chief Science Officer of the Bezos Family Foundation and spent over two decades at the Bank Street College of Education. Galinsky's lifelong pursuit involves identifying societal questions, conducting research, and translating findings into actionable insights, focusing on work-life, children's development, and parental relationships. She is the author of numerous publications, including the best-selling book "Mind in the Making," and her forthcoming book on adolescence, "The Breakthrough Years," has received acclaim from notable figures in psychology and education.

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Inspiring Families to a Breakthrough Future Order Ellen's New Book Ellen's New Book The Breakthrough Years This book challenges assumptions about teenagers, offering new ways for parents to understand and interact with them. Galinsky's framework and mindset turn conflicts into problem-solving opportunities, encourage positive risk-taking, and promote essential skills for success.

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Just as Early Learning Nation showcases the ways families, researchers and grassroots nonprofits and organizations are building an early learning nation-one community at a time-our Community Cultivators series highlights how innovators across all sectors build and sustain global communities from the ground up. We hope the series inspires your own early childhood work.
Ellen Galinsky's The Breakthrough Years is the product of nearly a decade of exploration into the adolescent mind. A companion piece to Galinsky's previous landmark book, Mind in the Making, which addresses early childhood development, it reaches a surprising conclusion about adolescence. Rather than an ordeal of sullenness and rule-breaking, it is a process of exploration necessary for human development.

In other words, don't fear the teens in your life. Instead, prepare to be dazzled by their developing, adaptive, creative minds.

Subtitled "A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens," the book draws upon extensive research, including a nationally representative survey of 1666 adolescents , interviews with 56 parents and 52 of their adolescents from that sample (many of whom articulate variations on the theme Don't label us as a whole generation-we're not as lazy, media-addicted, risk-taking or selfish as adults think), a follow-up survey of this group during the pandemic, a study of executive function skills in 22 schools, interviews with 45 researchers and review of hundreds of papers.

Early Learning Nation magazine spoke to Galinsky about her book and the findings relevant to researchers, educators and parents-no matter the age of the child in question. Here are some highlights:

* Lived experience informs research, which in turn affects practice. Galinsky, co-founder of the Families and Work Institute, conducts a type of research called civic science. "The beauty of it," she says "is that you're putting together what research says and what people say who have experienced the issues you're studying. So, you're putting together two-or actually or three different worlds-because I'm in there too, making sense of it all."

But conducting research isn't enough. Researchers need to communicate the findings so that they can be understood and put into practice. That's why The Breakthrough Years initiative doesn't end with the publication of the book. In fact, the team will bring together cohorts of superintendents, principals, teachers and learning specialists from all over the country. Galinsky says, "We're going to ask them, 'Given what we know, what training and tools do you need?' and then we'll develop new training and tools together."

* How we as adults see an age or stage affects how we respond to it. If you think in terms of the terrible two's, you will respond one way, and if you see this as a time of beginning to develop autonomy, you'll respond another way. The same is true of adolescence. Galinsky writes, "Expecting a difficult time... is linked with actual difficult times later on"; additionally, "Providing feedback that includes expectations of success... can spur students to put more time and thought into their schoolwork."

Asked how adults can overcome negative expectations, Galinsky points to an episode in the book concerning an adolescent who cut a hole in the backyard trampoline. "This child had ADHD, was struggling in school and needed help," she summarizes. "Her mom was great in joining her world to inform how she helped her." Galinsky refers to this as the skill of Perspective-Taking, saying, "If we can understand their perspective and ours, we're going to do so much better."

👉New Science on Navigating the Breakthrough Teen Years (The Raising Good Humans Podcast)

* It's all about autonomy-support. Studies show that if adults help children (from toddlers to teens) take an active role in solving the problems they face, rather than fixing them for them, children will be more likely to develop executive function skills (see sidebar).

Galinsky cites the wisdom of a 14-year-old who said, "If the leash is too tight, we won't know what to do when that leash is gone." Another teen she spoke to was not doing his schoolwork. When he got home from school, he went right for the video games. After the usual yelling and punishments failed, Galinsky reports, the family tried a method she developed called Shared Solutions, which involves the family problem-solving together. The teen came up with the idea of entering the house through a different door. He changed the environment, and that changed his behavior, but the decisive factor was that he took ownership of the situation.

"If we can help them learn to solve the problems they face," Galinsky says, "then we are giving our children a huge gift."

* Our mindsets matter. In interviewing parents about a time when they "lost it" with their children-when they weren't the parents they wanted to be- Galinsky found two mindsets of importance. Those with an Adversity Mindset see the situation as a threat, believing that things won't change and they can't figure out how to handle it. "You can know great strategies, like Shared Solutions," says Galinsky, "but if you see a conflict with a child as a threat, you are less likely be open to using them." The more productive alternative is the Possibilities Mindset-the belief that:

1. Things can change

2. This problem is a challenge, not a threat

3. I can figure out how to respond

* Childhood development is a continuum. Experts tend to slice up childhood into early years (which typically go up to eight years old) and adolescent years (which can start as early as nine or ten into the twenties, since adolescence begins at puberty and ends when young people assume adult responsibilities).

Six Principles for Promoting Executive Function Skills In Early Childhood and Adolescent Programs

1. A goal-directed, whole-person approach

2. Steadfast, well-founded belief in the program

3. Genuine commitment to creating a community of learners

4. Intentionality in meeting the needs of all

5. A relevant, challenging and reflective learning environment

6. Prioritizing well-being

From The Breakthrough Years, drawing upon the research of Adele Diamond and Daphne Ling, University of British Columbia

The early years are foundational but starting early won't yield the intended effects unless good programs continue into adolescence. After all, Galinsky notes, the early and the adolescent years are both sensitive periods of development, times of rapid brain change when children are especially receptive to learning from experience. Both are also times when the skills that are so linked to success now and in the future-executive function skills-are being developed and strengthened.

👉10 Years of Keeping the Fire Burning in Children's Eyes

* Development is multifaceted. Naturally, writing this book brought Galinsky back to her own teenage years at home in West Virginia and at the National Cathedral School, in Washington, D.C. "I'm grateful for my adolescence," she says. "I had an incredible mother. It didn't occur to me that our family was so different until I started spending the night with friends and realized she really listened to us. She was interested in our world and what we were thinking and learning. She was not saying, 'Only grades are important.'"

In The Breakthrough Years, Galinsky amplifies the lament of Beth Bye, commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, that adults often "forget about the salience of child development knowledge when we're hyper focused on academic performance."

The teenage mind and the toddler mind are both works in progress. Learning by trial and error is integral to the process. As Galinsky explains, "Toddlers need to say, 'No, no, no.' They need to stand up for themselves. They need to try things, even if we as the adults know they won't work. They need to figure out what their competencies are and who they are at this stage. And the same for teenagers."

👉Sign up for Galinsky's newsletter, Research for Families to Thrive By

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Of Toddlers and Teenagers: Ellen Galinsky Breaks Through Adolescence with Brain Science and New Book - Early Learning Nation

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Ellen Galinsky's The Breakthrough Years is the product of nearly a decade of exploration into the adolescent mind.

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Ellen Galinsky Op-Ed in LA Times, Feb. 16, 2024

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Ellen Galinsky Op-Ed in LA Times, Feb. 16, 2024

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(Mark the Cobrasnake / For The Times)

Recent surveys underscoring the prevalence of mental health challenges among young people leave me very concerned - not just about the findings but also about counterproductive perceptions of younger generations.

A Common Sense Media poll found that 53% of the country's 12- to 17-year-olds see mental health challenges as a major problem in their schools. And a Gallup-Walton Family Foundation study reported a significant decline in the proportion of Gen Z youths who consider their mental health excellent since 2013. These findings echo a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey indicating 42% of high school students had experienced such persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year that they couldn't participate in regular activities, up from 28% in 2011.

I've already heard adults labeling today's young people the Hopeless Generation, the Anxious Generation, the Depressed Generation, the COVID Generation and the Troubled Generation. The latest surveys threaten to reinforce such stereotypes.

Don't get me wrong: Given my years of work on youth mental health, I understand that it's imperative to address this challenge. But while we're doing that, we can't forget that many young people aren't struggling.

While only 20% of those surveyed by Gallup-Walton reported that their mental health was "excellent," for example, 44% said it was "good," along with 26% reporting "only fair" and 10% "poor." We need to address these mental health challenges without labeling an entire generation as troubled.

I have spent the last nine years listening to what adolescents think and feel in focus groups, two nationally representative studies of 9- through 19-year-olds, in-depth interviews with young people from these studies and a school behavioral study. One of the questions I asked is what they want the adults of America to know about people their age.

Thirty-eight percent answered "don't stereotype us" or "don't label us," an overwhelming number for an open-ended question. They emphasized that not all young people share the same challenges.

In their words: "Not all of us fall under the umbrella of being problematic drug addicts"; "All kids aren't troublemakers or irresponsible"; and "We aren't social-media-obsessed, we aren't extremely self-involved, our phones don't define us, and the internet is not going to be the end of us."

These responses show that we adults have to try harder to hold two ideas in our minds as we parent, teach and raise the next generation. We need to address the real challenges that some young people face without subjecting all of them to unhelpful generalizations.

Yes, adults have long been too ready to attach negative labels to teenagers. This has been true since the dawn of the study of adolescent development in the early 20th century. It was regarded as a time of "storm and stress" then as it is today.

In one of my studies, we asked the parents of 9- through 19-year-olds to describe the typical adolescent brain in one word. Fifty-nine percent used negative words, while 27% used neutral words and only 14% used positive words. But when I asked parents to select from a list of positive and negative words to describe children their child's age as well as to describe their own child, they were much more likely to be negative about other people's children than their own.

We also found that parents who used negative words to describe the teen brain were more likely to have children who reported more negative feelings, including anger, sadness, loneliness and worry.

What comes first, young people's negative feelings or parents' negative views? We couldn't fully answer that question, but we could control for factors that might affect how adults see teenagers, such as demographics, the level of conflict between parents and children, and the negative words parents use to describe their children. Our finding of a correlation between views and feelings held up.

The relationship also persisted when we surveyed the same parents and adolescents again nine months later, during the pandemic. To put it another way, the parents who held more positive views of teenagers in general had kids who were doing better during a very rough period in our nation's history.

Parents in my studies told me again and again that kids live up or down to the views we have of them. Seeing this generation as a troubled or anxious generation could therefore lead adults to act in ways that exacerbate the mental health challenges that some but not all adolescents face.

So what can we do? We as a society certainly need a mental health system that provides access to affordable, high-quality, consistent care more reliably that it does now. We need the education provided by our schools to be more engaging, relevant and meaningful. And we need to mitigate the risks of social media to young people.

Beyond these monumental undertakings, however, all of us can help in smaller, everyday ways. We can work to improve young people's relationships with the people in their lives, especially the older people - a point that the surgeon general's 2021 report on youth mental health emphasizes. Our own study found that when adolescents reported that that they were treated with respect, made to feel as if they belong, and helped to grow and learn, they fared well during the pandemic. They got better grades, had a more hopeful view of their futures and were less stressed.

It's similarly important that we refrain from the age-old pastime of deriding and dismissing teenagers. Let's remember that while adolescence can be a time of great vulnerability, it can also be one of huge possibility.
Ellen Galinsky is the president of the Families and Work Institute and author of the forthcoming "The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens."

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Opinion: Troubled youth? Contrary to stereotypes, much of Gen Z is doing just fine

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Perceptions of younger generations as broadly suffering from mental health problems are exaggerated and potentially harmful.

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Update: Early Learning Facilities Inquiries

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Update: Early Learning Facilities Inquiries

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Trissa Schiffner, Catholic Charities Serving Central WA

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Trissa Schiffner, Catholic Charities Serving Central WA

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Keeping the fire for learning burning in all our eyes.

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Why Early Learning is Important:

Research has shown that children who are able to participate in early learning programs perform better throughout their years of schooling. Early learning programs focus on six areas of kindergarten readiness:

Social-Emotional - Children do better in school when they can regulate their emotions, establish positive relationships with others, and constructively participate in group settings.

Physical - The early years are important for the development of fundamental gross-motor and fine-motor skills needed to be active learners.

Language - Children need to understand increasingly complex language and use language to express their thoughts, ideas, needs, and feelings.

Cognitive - Children are more successful in school when they have positive approaches to learning, and are able to attend, engage, and persist to solve problems.

Literacy - A child's progress in reading and writing is one of the best predictors of whether the child will function competently in school and in life.

Math - Research shows that math is the number one predictor of future success in reading and math.*

*Duncan, Greg. University of California, 2007. Early Childhood Longitudinal studies. "The strongest predictors of later achievement are school-entry math, reading, and attention skills. Early math skills have the greatest predictive power."

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Research has shown that children who are able to participate in early learning programs perform better throughout their years of schooling. Early learning programs focus on six areas of kindergarten readiness: Social-Emotional - Children do better in school when they can regulate their emotions, establish positive relationships with others, and constructively participate in group settings.

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The Early Learning Advisory Council (ELAC) was created by the Legislature in 2007.

ELAC representatives from around the state meet regularly to provide input and recommendations to the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) so our strategies and actions are well informed and broadly supported by parents, child care providers, health and safety experts and interested members of the public.

Governor Jay Inslee holds final authority for policy decisions.

The council has adopted a Racial Equity Framework through which it conducts its business as an advisory board to the Department of Children, Youth, and Families.

Members

The Early Learning Advisory Council (ELAC) members are a diverse group of people whose role is to provide DCYF with input and recommendations to inform DCYF's work.

ELAC includes parents, child care providers, health and safety experts, legislators, representatives of Tribal Nations, independent schools, K-12 and higher education, and others who are interested in creating a statewide early learning system that helps all children realize their full potential.

Some ELAC members are appointed by the Governor. Others are appointed by various entities as required in the legislation that created ELAC.

Meetings

The Early Learning Advisory Council has six regular meetings each year, held on the first Tuesday of odd months. At each meeting, ELAC members get updates on DCYF's work and provide input and recommendations to DCYF.

Members of the public are welcome to attend ELAC meetings. Public comment periods are offered throughout each meeting. The locations and times vary for each meeting.

2022
December 6, 2022 August 2, 2022 October 4, 2022 June 7, 2022 April 12, 2022 February 1, 2022
At the time of the meeting, please join the Zoom meeting via the link below.

9:00am-3:00pm

Meeting number (access code): 824 9183 1069
Meeting password: 904723

Join by phone: 1 253 215 8782 US Toll
Passcode: 904723

2021
December 7, 2021 October 5, 2021 - Joint Early Learning Advisory Council, Provider Supports Subcommittee, and Parent Advisory Group Meeting August 3, 2021 June 1, 2021 - Joint Provider Supports Subcommittee Meeting March 30, 2021 - Joint PAG Meeting February 2, 2021

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Department of Children, Youth & Families

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The Early Learning Advisory Council (ELAC) was created by the Legislature in 2007. Read the statutory language ELAC representatives from around the state meet regularly to provide input and recommendations to the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) so our strategies and actions are well informed and broadly supported by parents, child care providers, health and safety experts and interested members of the public.

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Webinar opportunity: Celebrating Fatherhood-Empowering Dads for Positive Impact

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Webinar opportunity: Celebrating Fatherhood-Empowering Dads for Positive Impact

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Celebrating Fatherhood: Empowering Dads for Positive Impact Webinar - 1663771

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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Please follow this link to sign in for today's meeting!

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Please follow this link to sign in for today's meeting!

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April 2024Investing in Children Coalition Meeting

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Calm the Static: Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health

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Calm the Static: Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health

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Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health

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And, we have insights for this current disruption.

Families and Work Institute's research takes on emerging issues before they crest and includes some of the most comprehensive research on the U.S. workforce available. The Institute's work has changed the language of debates, moving from discussion to action by creating effective and data-driven solutions.

In today's pandemic, we have created a report on flexibility and a blog that shares stories from people who are thinking intentionally about the kind of memories they want to create for themselves and their children

Watch this video about how Families and Work Institute gave voice and research to a movement.

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We've been studying the changing workplace for several decades.

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@forthekidswa

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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YVCF Fiscal Sponsorship: Victor, Marilyn, Dieter

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YVCF Fiscal Sponsorship: Victor, Marilyn, Dieter

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Preamble: Cecilia, Lowell, Andrea, Stacey D. 

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Preamble: Cecilia, Lowell, Andrea, Stacey D. 

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Among Dolly's most cherished childhood memories are the many magical moments spent on the front porch of the Parton Family's Tennessee Mountain Home. Whether in the warmth of the afternoon sun or in the soft evening breeze, the stage was set on that cherished porch. It was where Dolly, with a tin can as a microphone and the light of a million dancing fireflies, could sing to her heart's content and dream of taking her music to the stages of the world. The Front Porch page here at DollyParton.com is a place where you will find the stories that are a part of the fabric of one little girl's big dreams, woven into the legacy that is Dolly Parton. There's a warm welcome waiting on the Front Porch, where family and friends alike are invited to join Dolly inside.

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Welcome to the official, historical archive of Dolly Parton

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Among Dolly's most cherished childhood memories are the many magical moments spent on the front porch of the Parton Family's Tennessee Mountain Home. Whether in the warmth of the afternoon sun or in the soft evening breeze, the stage was set on that cherished porch.

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Commitments: Michele, Carina, Trissa, Rebecca

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Commitments: Michele, Carina, Trissa, Rebecca

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borrowed from ESD 105

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The Teen Brain is a 10-min film that explores what’s happening in the teenage brain, illuminating that teenagers are emotionally brilliant super-learners with brains that are undergoing rapid and significant remodeling and development. Based on the latest research on adolescence, and showcasing both teens and doctors and psychologists, The Teen Brain offers tools to stay balanced and navigate the powerful adolescent years.

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What happens inside the brains of teenagers? New documentary seeks to answer

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“The Teen Brain” documentary premieres amid an ongoing mental health crisis for teens.

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More than 100 Yakima School District staff members could lose their jobs in the wake of student enrollment declines and budget shortfalls.

Dozens of educators and other staff members packed tightly into the district's central offices Monday night as the school board reviewed and approved the plan. Some of them left the meeting with the knowledge they would not have a job in the future.

Jacob Kuper, the district's assistant superintendent of finance, said a 9% reduction in enrollment - 1,463 students - since the 2017-18 school year, would put the district at risk of insolvency unless program and service reductions were made. With enrollment projected to decline by a further 391 students for the 2024-25 school year, Kuper said the district was left with no other options.

Paraeducators, academic specialists, counselors and English Language Development teachers will see the greatest reductions. Other layoffs include 10 assistant principals, one interpreter, two child care coordinators, five health assistants and multiple migrant student advocates.

The layoffs will take effect for the 2024-25 school year.

The layoffs and program reductions totaled $14,669,456. Combined with reductions to materials, supply and service purchases, which total $1.5 million and other cuts made via attrition totaling close to $2.9 million, the sum of the district's reduction is $18,978,004.

Kuper said an additional reduction to contract services from Educational Service Districts 105 and 112, Kinderhafen (contracted pediatric care) and Educlimber, among others, adds up to an additional $1,247,362, making the cuts about $20 million.

According to Kuper's presentation, from this academic year to the next, certificated full time equivalents will be reduced by 93.6 and classified FTEs will be reduced by 86.1. Total staff per 1,000 student FTEs will drop from 134 to 125.

Enrollment is projected to be 14,379 students next year, down from 16,223 at peak in 2017-18. The district currently has 1,172 certificated full-time equivalent staff, and 809 classified FTEs. The plan will take it to 1,078 and 723 respectively.

In fall 2023 the school board decided to use about half of its reserve funds, $14.4 million, to avoid starting the 2024-25 school year in deficit.

Budget realities

Board members Graciela Villanueva, Norm Walker, Martha Rice and Ryan Beckett voted in support of the reductions. Raymond Navarro Jr. abstained from voting because his wife works for the district.

In addition to the drop in enrollment, Trevor Greene, the district's superintendent, said an increase in the hiring of educators and support staff with COVID relief funding after the pandemic further drained the district's funds.

Greene pointed to two major influences on district finances in recent years - the settlement of the McCleary lawsuit, which led to higher staff salaries, and $86 million worth of elementary and secondary emergency relief funds from the federal government to address COVID-related learning loss in students.

Greene said the district used the funds to hire the equivalent of nearly 200 full-time employees with the expectation that enrollment would rise in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I think what was maybe overlooked was that there has been such a decline in enrollment across the state that we collectively as a system in education, believed that students that left for private education or online education would come back after the pandemic," Greene said.

Greene said the district held on to those staff in anticipation of students returning, and to address pandemic-related learning gaps.

"We need to recalibrate and adjust our staffing levels as dictated by the funding we receive through the state, federally and through the local levy," he said.

Greene thanked Yakima voters for passing the replacement levy and noted without it, the district would have faced a $58 million reduction plan, more than double the $20 million reduction plan it now faces.

Process

Though the board approved a specific number of layoffs, Greene said to take on an employee reduction, the district plan needs to over-reduce.

"We have to reduce by seniority first and then we have to look at the certification of the individual to bring them back," he said.

Continuing with his example, Greene said reductions can include high demand positions that are not easy to fill like physics teacher, special education teachers and dual language teachers. In those cases, the district would call those laid off educators back and instead reduce lower demand positions.

"So we might not actually reduce those positions, they would be called back because of their certification, which means you then have to go to number 11, 12 and 13 to get to to the reduction of 10," Greene said "The frustration across the board is that we have to reduce more than what we actually know will be reduced in the final count."

Greene said the process of laying off employees only to call them back can be an emotional roller coaster, but one that's necessary to align with the different collective bargaining agreements the district has.

Affected administrators and certificated and classified staff members will receive notice over the next four days, said district spokesperson Kirsten Fitterer. Non-administrative staff will have meetings with the district to discuss their contracts and options. Their work will end on the last day of class, June 18. Depending on the staff member, contracts will end on June 30 or July 31.

Union reaction

During the meeting, Yakima Education Association President John Cavanaugh criticized the district's accelerated post-pandemic spending.

He acknowledged the positive effects some of the spending had on the district, students, staff and facilities. He also called for the board to hold itself accountable for the spending and for its enrollment predictions that in part, led to that night's layoffs.

After the meeting ended, Cavanaugh spoke to the Yakima Herald-Republic.

"That was our main theme, there was no accountability," Cavanaugh said. "They took no accountability for it, did you hear an apology to the staff members in there from any board members, from the superintendent?"

During the meeting, board member Ryan Beckett acknowledged the situation could have been handled differently.

"I appreciate... the concept that there are so many many different ways to approach budgeting," Beckett said. "Looking at the trending decline since I joined the board, I think it's very safe to say we that we should have been out in front of this earlier. That is not a critique, it is truly meant as an observation ... We have some serious introspection to do as a district."

Beckett mentioned the nation's declining birth rate, a factor that has brought down enrollment in school districts nationwide. He also acknowledged Yakima's growing population and encouraged the board to take a closer look into why students who left for home or private schooling during the pandemic did not return to public education.
Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional information throughout.

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Yakima school board approves plan to lay off more than 100 staff

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More than 100 Yakima School District staff members could lose their jobs in the wake of student enrollment declines and budget shortfalls.

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Key Leaders Luncheon- Sunnyside, Granger, Mabton

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Key Leaders Luncheon- Sunnyside, Granger, Mabton

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Luncheon on May 31st

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Early Learning Facilities (ELF) Grantees 2023-25

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Early Learning Facilities (ELF) Grantees 2023-25

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Early Learning Facilities Awarded Projects.pdf | Powered by Box

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What song is your "turn it up" favorite?

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What song is your "turn it up" favorite?

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What book are you reading OR what podcast are you listening to right now?

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What book are you reading OR what podcast are you listening to right now?

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The Breakthrough Years: Ellen Galinsky and Matthew Montgomery, Ph.D.

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05.04.2024 LA CASA HOGAR CLINIC (english)

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05.04.2024 LA CASA HOGAR CLINIC (spanish) (1)

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I was at a neuroscience conference in 2019 when a tense disagreement erupted over what parents of teens understand about their children's development. Because the field of adolescent studies had been laser-focused on risky behavior, some argued that researchers were conveying negative images to parents about their kids. They began to call each other out about the way they talked about teens to the media.

Just at that moment, we were finalizing the survey we would give to a nationally representative group of adolescents, 9 through 19-years old and their parents, I thought to myself, I don't have to wonder. I can find out. What's more, finding out may help us better understand what young people mean when they tell us, "You don't understand me" -something most of us have heard from years. At the conference, I wrote down the following question to use in our survey.

When you hear the phrase "the teen brain," or "the adolescent brain," what one word comes to mind?

We weren't asking about their own child's brain, but about the generic adolescent brain. You've also probably noticed that I have defined adolescence as most researchers do, beginning when children begin puberty, which is as early as 9- or 10-year-old. So, we're looking at tweens and teens.

We administered the survey-The Breakthrough Years survey-to 1666 parents and their children.

If I asked you to guess, what percentage of parents used positive words, what would you guess? I would have guessed that it was low, but not as low as it actually was...

27% used neutral terms, like "growing" or "changing."

And 59% used negative terms, like "forgetful," "stupid," "clueless," "distracted," "know-it-all," or "bratty."

Further insight came when we looked at the actual words that parents used to describe the adolescent/teen brain. The most frequent word? "Immature." It was used 11% of the time. That's a remarkable convergence for an open-ended question. Another 8% wrote down "un-", "in-", or "not" words, including:
These words indicate that many adults are using an adult yardstick to assess adolescents and are finding them lacking.
Perhaps this conception hearkens back to an earlier time in history when young people moved straight from childhood into adulthood. Or perhaps it's because young people can look adult-like, so we assess them based on appearances. There are many reasons.

But young people aren't adults. We wouldn't say that infants are immature toddlers when they experience stranger anxiety in learning whom to trust or that toddlers are immature preschoolers when they say "no, no, no" in learning what they can and can't control. Children at these younger ages are doing exactly what they are developmentally primed to do-what they need to do for their brains to develop.

Yet, I found that too many of us seem to think about our teens as immature adults, even though they, too, are doing exactly what their brains are priming them to do (and by the way, this was true in earlier eras when there was little societal demarcation of adolescence):

They are moving further out into the world, so they need to be highly sensitive to social and emotional situations.

They need to become environmental detectors to determine what's okay and what's worrisome and to react strongly because their parents aren't necessarily there to help them.

They need to explore their identities and what it means to be and become them. So, they're highly sensitive to what matters to them, and to experiences where they can begin to figure this out.

As I read hundreds of studies about adolescence, I found that our lack of understanding can affect how we handle everyday situations with adolescents and can have longer-term repercussions. For example, studies show that expecting the worst from adolescents-expecting storm and stress-can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to more turmoil. []

Our study found that when parents have negative views of the teen/adolescent brain, those adolescents weren't doing as well nine months later-during the pandemic when we administered another survey to the same people-as those young people whose parents have positive or neutral views.

The next time we're motivated to say to a teenager, "Stop being such a teenager," or we use negative words about them-"you're a hormonal minefield"- we might be the ones who need to stop.

We need to pause and remember that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing-exploring the world to find their place in it, having quick reactions so they can determine who or what is safe, and being highly sensitive to what matters to them. Just as we wouldn't criticize a baby for stranger anxiety or a toddler for saying "no, no, no," we need to say, "I understand that you feel this way", then we can begin to help them.

And we help them best by not fixing things for them, but helping them gain the skills to fix things for themselves.

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If you're like me, you've probably heard a teenager say, "You just don't understand me." It's a question that teenagers wonder about, too. Ayana, a sixteen-year-old living in Connecticut, told me that it's something she's thought about for such a long time:
That's always been my main question. How can adults forget what it's like being a teenager when they were once a teenager and had this same exact thing happen to them?
We'd talk about her experiences with school, friends, and boyfriends, and then she'd return to her question:
I just don't understand how they can look at me and say, "I understand what you're going through," when they don't.
There are many reasons why it can be difficult to understand what adolescents are going through, including the fact that they look and sometimes act like adults, making it easy to judge them by an adult yardstick and see their some of their behavior as "immature."

There are other reasons too, including a cognitive bias we all have called "the curse of knowledge." Researchers define this as a tendency to be biased by what we NOW know when we are trying to understand a less experienced perceptive-whether that's what we used to think or feel (hindsight bias) or what someone else thinks or feels-like a young person. Think of a doctor trying to explain a medical condition and it gets more and more confusing-because this doctor is assuming we know what they know. That's the curse of knowledge in action.

It also happens in parenting. Among the parents I interviewed for the Breakthrough Years study, Luke, the father of a 16-year-old in California, was unique in realizing that he actually didn't understand his daughter's point of view-her perspective. He'd called something she wanted to do "not smart," and she "flew off the handle." That blow-up caused him to rethink how he was seeing and talking with her:
Because of my experience and my age, it affords me a lot more experience to be able to look at the situation from a higher elevation.
But he felt he needed to change :
I can't dismiss it. My thought is if she feels that way, then it's relevant. I have to address it. It opened my eyes to see that I needed to look at things from her standpoint also.
A lot of us must say, "that's not smart:" Overall, 37 percent of adolescents in the survey of 1666 adolescents conducted for the Breakthrough Years reported that people had acted as if they weren't smart in the past year.

They also wrote about this in response to an open-ended question in the survey asking, "what would you like to tell the adults of America about people your age?" One in five said, "understand our development"-"we are smarter than you think." Another one in twelve asked adults to listen with understanding, "to talk with us, not at us."

We have new ideas and we are important, we need more attention and inclusion.
-Sixteen-year-old girl

Don't ignore kids our age just because we are young. Sometimes we have very important things to say.
-Fifteen-year-old boy

This theme surfaced in still another open-ended question in the survey-for one wish that could improve the lives of people their age. The response by a 16-year-old, says what I heard again and again: "I wish my concerns, my friends' concerns, and my classmates' concerns could be taken seriously."

This sixteen-year-old continued with what adults say that makes her feel misunderstood:

"Everybody goes through it, you'll be fine." I feel this is an improper, disrespectful, trust-destroying phrase to use. Telling me my problems aren't problematic solely because somebody else has experienced the same thing is wrong.

"That's just your hormones! You'll get over it." But even if everybody goes through it, nobody should face the problem alone. Why isolate a struggling person?

"At least you don't have [fill in the blank]." Invalidating somebody's feelings because their pain isn't critical is the most selfish thing I see in the lives of the people around me. Empathy, sympathy, and love is the proper response.

"This is a rebellious phase all teenagers go through." If "rebellious" means standing up for myself, then I will be rebellious.

Half a decade of being told " You're fine"-half a decade of having my feelings disregarded-has taken a toll.

A lifetime of "It'll be better tomorrow" has lied time and time again.

Does this remind you of the words we sometimes use to comfort a grieving person after a death of a loved one-words like "this will pass." Those words are well-intentioned when we say them, but can feel terrible when we are the grieving person and hear those words from someone else.

Adolescents are primed to be like emotional detectors. As they move out into the world, they are primed to react strongly to experiences so they can learn when they are safe or not, belong or not, can be themselves or not. I think of these big feelings as developmentally necessary. Young people are asking us to understand, to listen and respond with respect.

While we do so, we need to remember that they are their feelings, not ours. One friend remembers that when she told her mother about being excluded by other kids, her mother cried. That's stopped her in her tracks. Maybe this rejection was worse than she thought. She'd wanted her mother to comfort her, but ended up comforting her mother.

I understand why her mother did this. It's easy to be swept away by their feelings because they are intense, because they may remind us of similar experiences as adults, because they may transport us right back to our teenage selves, because we may want to protect our children from harm.

In the interviews I conducted with about close to 60 parents and their children from the survey sample, I asked both about the most effective parenting skills and strategies. Joshua a twelve-year old from California, has a unique way of putting two of the skills that emerged frequently:

"Listen before you talk" (the skill of pausing and reflecting before responding).

Listen with Your "When-I-Was-a-Child" Mind, Not Just Your "Now-I'm-an-Adult" Mind (the skill of perspective taking).

Lucy, the mother of a sixteen- year-old from Michigan, describes this as listening "with your heart-to be able to understand your child's true wants, desires, and needs." It means understanding each child as a unique individual and understanding their stage of development.

How we apply our "now-I'm-an-adult" mind is critical. We need to provide guidance and rules, of course, but to do so with insight into what adolescents are like. This is essential because no one-an adult or child-wants to be demeaned, observes Lisette, a soon-to-be sixteen-year-old in Arizona.

She's right. When we feel understood-sensing that we're appreciated, accepted, belong and being heard-can we open up, learn, and change. Lisette continues:

Maybe you didn't do something that was really good, but if you have a sense that parents are on your side and understand, then they can counter that with wisdom and love.

Fourteen-year-old Robert says being listened to in an accepting way "is very motivating"-a stepping-stone to wanting to "do good."

Let's use rejection as an example of responding to their big feelings when you use the skills of pausing, reflecting and of perspective taking.

Let's say that your child is upset by being left out. We might be tempted to say, "You'll get over it," but instead we can say, "Of course, you are upset about this. This is the time in life when you are moving out further into the world and your brain primes you to be on the lookout for where you belong. Someday in the future you might feel differently about this. Now let's talk about your ideas for why you think this happened and what you might do about it."

Let's say it's more than being left out. The other kids are mean. We can be tempted to say, "Don't put any energy into what this person thinks or does. It should mean nothing to you. You are better than this!" Instead, we can say "I know you care a lot. That's what being a teenager is all about. Right now, you are supposed to be figuring out what kind of friends you want, so naturally you care. Let's talk about what you value in friends and how you can find friends who share those values."

Understanding their development and taking with them, not at them can make a world of difference.

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If you're like me, you've probably heard a teenager say, "You just don't understand me." It's a question that teenagers wonder about, too. Ayana, a sixteen-year-old living in Connecticut, told me that it's something she's thought about for such a long time:

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Last week was Mister Rogers' birthday.

Today is the publication of my ninth book, The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens.

I've been thinking a lot about my friend and colleague Fred Rogers (I had the honor of serving as a parenting expert on his shows for parents) because he got so many things right.

Fred wrote, "Listening is where love begins."

My book began by listening to teenagers. It began by asking young people in focus groups and interviews, What do they want adults to know about people their age?"

And they responded-again and again-"Why don't people like teenagers?"

This book will be published into a world where there is a lot conversation in the media about teenagers, much of stoking adults' fears about this age group: how their mental health is in free-fall, how social media and screens are sucking away their zest for life, how the pandemic has diminished their social, academic and economic capital, and how they live in an era of loneliness. A headline I just read said "kids are dying inside."

To adolescents, our fears for them feel like labeling all of them-as a depressed generation, as not smart, lazy, media-addicted, entitled or snowflakes. I dare say it seems unlikely that we would label any other group in America with such sweeping negatives. And this group represents one quarter of the American population.

When asked what they want to tell the adults of America in my nationally representative study of 9-19-year-olds, 38 percent- a huge number for an open-ended question-wrote to stop looking at them so negatively, to stop generalizing, to stop labeling them.

This is not to say that adults' concerns about teenagers' mental and academic health aren't valid-many of them are, but so are teens' concerns about being seen just for their weaknesses, not for their strengths as well.

So that's why I have been thinking of Fred and his wisdom- "listening is where love begins."

Listening can be hard. Fred knew that. During one of my visits with him, it was the height of a series of parodies on Saturday Night Live where Eddie Murphy played him on Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood.

Fred asked me if I had seen these skits. I had.

He asked me if I would watch them with him and his team and we did.

He then turned to me and asked, "Why would they do this?"

We talked about why people diminish other people. Fred was hurt but he was able to listen to himself, striving to understand why what felt cruel to him felt funny to others.

But he didn't stop there. He wanted to listen to Eddie Murphy so went to NBC to meet him. And then, as he always did, he listened to the science of adults' and children's development.

We are not going to change things for teenagers unless we listen to them-and listen to their families and listen to the science.

That's what these nine years of writing The Breakthrough Years have been all about-moving beyond the culture of fear and sensationalism about teenagers to bring together the voices of teens, their parents, and rigorous science. We especially need to reframe how we talk about teenagers because that affects how we behave toward them. Then, and only then, can we address the real challenges they face growing up and the challenges we face as their parents and teachers. And, as I found, in my nine years of research, there are numerous effective credible initiatives that help teens thrive.

Happy Birthday Fred!! And happy publication day to The Breakthrough Years. Listening is where love-and I would add, societal change-truly begin!!

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Thinking of Mister Rogers on Publication Day

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We've probably all been there-something a young person does or says sets us off.

Jasmin, the mother of soon-to-be-eleven-year-old Sophia, describes it as feeling so frustrated that everything else fades, spiraling, almost losing control-like the time Sophia lied to her.

Before coming home from work, she called Sophia:

She had a writing assignment. I asked if she needed help with it. She told me she didn't. I asked her if it was done. She told me it was.

Then she got a text from Sophia's teacher stating the assignment was missing. Jasmin says:

I got home very upset, with one mission, and that was to yell at her!

There are many reasons, Jasmin says, that incidents like this can be so emotionally fraught. It's a time of developmental transition:

The one word that comes to mind when I think of teens is transition-just going from having mom and dad helping them every step of the way versus now they're learning to become independent. They want your help, but then they kind of don't.

In the Breakthrough Years study, we asked a nationally representative group of parents whether they had difficulty accepting their child's growing independence: 12 percent reported "always" or "often;" while 33 percent said "sometimes."

Sophia "has a lot of emotions happening all at once" and the end of the work day Jasmin does too:

We come home stressed from work [and] we have the stress of our duties as parents. So, it was like all of that just building up inside of me. I don't like to be lied to, especially with her!

There are a series of studies on autonomy support that are very helpful in dealing with situations like this. Importantly, the researchers didn't set out to discover the best ways to handle conflict.

The researchers studying younger children have been asking what helps children learn; specifically, learning executive function skills that are foundational to academic and life success.

The researchers studying older children have been asking what helps children thrive?

In other words, these studies are focused on life outcomes.

Second, the researchers didn't start out trying to prove pre-established notions of adult guidance-instead they observed and listened. In studies of preschool children led by Stephanie Carlson of the University of Minnesota, for example, the researchers brought children into the lab with a parent and watched how they interacted when the children were given a puzzle that was slightly too hard for kids this age to do by themselves. Studies led by Wendy Grolnick at Clark University of older children observed and interviewed parents and children about how they handled issues like homework, studying, and unsupervised time.

In both sets of studies, the researchers found that parents who supported children's autonomy-that is helped them feel "choiceful and the owners of their actions" -had children who were more likely to learn AND thrive. In the puzzle studies, these children developed better executive function skills and in the studies about homework and unsupervised time, these children were more motivated, did better at school, and had better wellbeing.

Despite the way the word "autonomy" can sound, there was no lack of adult structure. In one of Grolnick's studies that followed 160 students from sixth into seventh grade, the researchers found that when parents provided structure (clear expectations, rules and consistency) in autonomy-supportive ways, their children were more motivated in school, felt more competent, and had better English grades, even when their prior feelings of competence, motivation, and grades were controlled for statistically.

Underlying these approaches is a key principle- adults don't fix things for kids-they build on their need for autonomy and help them learn how to fix things for themselves.

Ashley, a 14-year-old who is close to Jasmin's family, told us why autonomy matters in her own life:

My parents sometimes hold the leash too much. Eventually I'm going to grow. So maybe not just let go of the leash, but like, WALK WITH THE LEASH. Kids suffer-like when they're older-since they've been holding the leash for so long, they're used to it and they're not able to expand and build upon other things.

Ashley knows that young people her age need structure and guidance but done in ways that build their competence vs. controlling them, which researchers define as behavior that "places pressure on children, solves problems for them, and disregards their perspectives and opinions."

Four strategies comprise an autonomy-supportive, skill-building approach:
Pause before responding. Try to figure out why you are reacting to this situation as you are. Your response will set the tone.
Though she'd come home ready to yell, Jasmin paused and took the time to decompress:

What I did was I went to the bathroom, put a washcloth over my face, washed my face.
Try to understand why your child might be behaving this way, what their goals are.
When she was ready to deal with the situation, she told her daughter:

Sophia, the teacher texted me, sent me a message about a missing assignment that you told me was done. What's going on?

" Mom, I'm having trouble with this girl at school," Sophia responded. "It's been affecting me. I just said that just so you can kind of get off my back so I can deal with the situation."

Sophia was being bullied.
Explain your point of view-what is expected and why. You are predictable and share reasons and limits in ways that help your adolescent take an active role.
Jasmin says:

She's a really good kid, overall wholesome. So, when I see her doing things out of the ordinary, I should always stop-What's going on? Investigate a little further.

Her expectations were very clear. No lying. Homework needs to get done.
Invite your child to play an active role by engaging in joint problem-solving versus fixing things for them.
Sophia and Jasmin decided on two courses of action. They would go to the school together to request that Sophia and this girl not sit at the same table in English class. Additionally, Sophia would reach out to a school counselor who deals with bullying:

The counselor works together in a group that includes the children who are bullying and being bullied to solve the problem.

From this experience, Sophia learned that it is okay to have boundaries-"no bad words. No touching me. There is a safe space around my body."

I got more confident that I could stand up for myself and how to stand up for myself.

That's why it's called a skill-building approach!

The Breakthrough Years study found that when parents are autonomy-supportive, defined as using these four strategies, their children are less likely to feel stressed and even depressed.

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A Skill-Building Approach: Don't Hold the Leash Too Tight

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We've probably all been there-something a young person does or says sets us off. Jasmin, the mother of soon-to-be-eleven-year-old Sophia, describes it as feeling so frustrated that everything else fades, spiraling, almost losing control-like the time Sophia lied to her.

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Grace's 12-year-old son came home from school, dumping his backpack on the floor, then his coat, then his homework, littering the path along the way to his iPad on the couch, where he escaped into games.

Been there? I sure have.

So has Grace and she knows what can happens next. She was tempted to let it go because he'd be occupied for hours and she had a lot to do. On the other hand, she also knew that he'd have trouble giving up the games and putting his stuff away. In addition, he'd be too tired to do his homework. Resistance-even a battle-would likely ensue.

Who would have thought that researchers studying preschool children and their parents doing puzzles at the University of Minnesota-more than a thousand miles from Grace's Connecticut home-would have anything to say about this? But they do. Led by Stephanie Carlson, these researchers bring young children with their parents in their research lab, give them puzzles that are slightly too difficult for them and watch how their parents deal with it.

Stephanie Carlson's research has been centered on executive function (EF) skills-the attention regulation skills that help us use what we know, think flexibly, reflect, and use self-control to achieve our goals-because, as she says:
There's quite a bit of evidence now that executive function skills in early childhood predict academic achievement later on as well as school attendance, and graduation from college. There are longitudinal studies showing that early executive function skills predict physical health and even financial well-being later in life.
Given the importance of EF skills, Carlson wondered, "Exactly what helps children learn these skills?" She, Annie Bernier of the University of Montréal, and others began looking for answers by observing how parents managed their children's behavior, including during the challenging puzzle task.

Over the years, they have observed three parenting styles, which Carlson
summarizes :

I've watched parents with the puzzles and they step in and take over.

Here the parent sits by and doesn't do much.

With the third style, the parent might suggest that the child look for a puzzle piece with blue on it or give the child a choice: "Do you think this piece or that piece might fit? It's this third style- autonomy-supportive caregiving -that studies find is a positive force in children's lives and a precursor to developing EF skills.

But doesn't this approach make children so used to doing things their own way that they won't listen to their parents?

Just the opposite, actually. Autonomy-supportive caregiving is really about the child or adolescent learning skills to manage their own behavior with the adult giving guidance and setting rules. And parents do have expectations, have rules and are consistent. Being autonomy supportive and providing structure go together. And, in fact, studies show that children who receive autonomy-supportive caregiving are more likely to follow the parents' rules, even without being told.

Wendy Grolnick of Clark University is also a pioneer in studying autonomy- supportive caregiving with children and adolescents. In one study, Grolnick and her colleagues even took on the issue of homework. The researchers gave homework assignments to a group of third graders and their parents, telling half of the parents that it was their responsibility to make sure their children learned this information and that the children would be tested on it later. The other half were simply told that this was a task to do together.

Then the researchers compared how the two groups of parents behaved, and it was like day and night. The parents who felt pressure for their child to perform tended to solve the problems for their child and to be more directive; in fact, they were pretty stern compared with the parents who didn't feel pressured to perform.

The researchers also found that the children with more controlling parents were less able to perform the tasks on their own. Being autonomy-supportive doesn't just help young people to feel choiceful and accomplished-it actually improves their learning.

Grace had just read The Breakthrough Years, and decided to experiment with an autonomy-supportive approach I write about called Shared Solutions with her son. Here's how it works.

To begin, everyone agrees to:

1. Speak for themselves, not others.

2. Treat others with respect and compassion.

3. Listen to each other's perspectives and ideas without criticism or judgment.

4. Join forces to come up with and experiment with solutions that work for them and others.

After agreeing to these ground rules, you can begin the Shared Solutions process, which consists of five steps:
Step 1: State the Problem and Determine the Goal.

State the problem in the way that you as a parent own. This is not being permissive in any way. The adult is responsible for setting family rules. In Grace's case, the issue is that there was conflict about doing homework and her son was not putting his things away when he got home from school. Both are rules in her family.

Describe your goal-sharing how resolving this problem could benefit everyone involved. Grace said that evenings would be much more pleasant if there was less tension over homework and clean-up time.

Step 2: Generate as Many Solutions as Possible.

Have your child or children think of as many ideas as possible. Grace told me that she had trouble letting go but her husband prompted her to let her son make suggestions.

Write down every solution without commenting.

Continue this process until there are multiple solutions-the more solutions, the better. Even silly suggestions are fine.

Step 3: Consider the Pluses and Minuses of Each Solution.

Talk about how each solution would work for the child and the parents. This involves practicing the skill of perspective-taking.

You can write down these plusses and minuses.

It's important to abstain from criticism and continue to express confidence that you can resolve the problem.

Step 4: Select a Shared Solution as an Experiment

Select a solution as a change-experiment-a solution that comes the closest to working for all involved.

Determine the timeframe for experimenting with this solution.

Determine the criteria you are going to use to judge whether it is a success.

If consequences are needed for not following through, set them together. The goal is to try to ensure that consequences will be fair, consistent, and followed.

Set a time for reconvening to discuss how the solution is working or not.

Step 5: Evaluate the Solution as Necessary, and if It Isn't Working, Repeat the Process and Arrive at a New Shared Solution.
It's essential to see Shared Solutions as a process-as iterative, not punitive. If it doesn't work or if you are at an impasse, have another meeting to begin the process again. Using Shared Solutions takes practice, but it's worth it because it will help your child gain the skills they need for life.

The solution Grace's son suggested was coming in through a different door. Literally-a different door! That's something Grace never would have thought of. This door is right beside the shelf where he can put his stuff away so he will do that as soon as he comes in. Then he wants a choice-playing games first so he can relax before homework or doing homework first so he can fully enjoy the games when homework is done. They decided on a time limit of 45 minutes for games. He sets the timer when he sits down to play.

A few days into the change-experiment-it's working. But if not, they'll go back and begin again. Taking the sting out of homework and home chores is a better start to evenings together than resistance and battles plus Grace's son is learning problem-solving skills in the process. Shared solutions helps to turn discipline challenges into skill-building moments.

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Shared Solutions: An Autonomy Supportive Approach

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Grace's 12-year-old son came home from school, dumping his backpack on the floor, then his coat, then his homework, littering the path along the way to his iPad on the couch, where he escaped into games. Been there? I sure have. So has Grace and she knows what can happens next.

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If you've been a parent, think of a moment when you "lost it"-a moment when you didn't act the way you wanted to deep down; a moment when you weren't your best parenting self.

That was a question that I asked in the in-person phone interviews I conducted with parents as one part of the Breakthrough Years studies-I wanted to better understand the thinking process we go through when we have a conflict with a child. By losing it, I told parents, I didn't mean falling apart, fighting, yelling, becoming sad, or refusing to talk, though these things can happen. I meant the moments when we become reactive, not proactive, when we are not the parents we expect or want to be.

For Shannon, it was that her son was resisting school. He initially switched high schools from the local public school to a Catholic School, but when he turned eighteen, he figured out that school administrators weren't going to call his parents if he didn't show up, so he quit going to school altogether. Every morning was a battle. Shannon would yell at him to get up and go to school. Brendan would stand his ground: "I am not going."

I'd say, "Brendan, you have to get up. You have to go to school." He was totally defiant. He ignored me. I'd get more demanding, but it was crazy for me to think that yelling at him was going to help.

Shannon searched for causes to explain his behavior. Perhaps it was because of an old football injury. She didn't expect to discover that her mindset mattered, but it did.

Like Shannon, I didn't expect to find a different mindset when I interviewed parents-I just wanted to better understand parents' experiences-but that's what I discovered. In listening to parents' stories, I could see there were three sets of beliefs that shape how we, as adults, respond to conflict with our children.
A Growth Mindset
The first part of the Possibilities Mindset-the belief that things can or can't change-may sound familiar and it is. It is based on the ground-breaking research of Carol Dweck of Stanford University and her colleagues where they have identified and studied the power of a growth mindset-the belief that things can change and people are capable of improving, versus a fixed mindset where people believe that their abilities are inborn, set in stone, and thus can't be changed.
Stress-Can-Be-Enhancing Mindset
I am going to focus a bit more on the second aspect of the Possibilities Mindset- whether we see stress as a challenge or a threat-because it is less well known.

To do so, I will share some new research on adolescents by Jeremy Jamieson of the University of Rochester and his colleagues. They make the crucial point that we don't come up with mindsets in a vacuum-how others see an issue can affect our own views. In general, they find stress is seen as a bad thing to be avoided or kept at bay. In other words, we tend to have a "stress-avoidance" mentality, which "ignores the reality that elevated levels of stress are a normal and, in many ways, even a desirable feature of adolescence.

Over the past years, this research team has been experimenting with an approach they call stress optimization. This approach helps people reframe stress not as distress-not as a threat-but as a challenge. In a series of six ingenious experiments, David Yeager of the University of Texas at Austin, Jamieson, and their team created a thirty-minute online intervention that is anchored in changing the way we think about stressful situations by targeting two related set of beliefs.

Like I do, they tie together a growth mindset with a stress-can-be-enhancing mindset. For the growth mindset, which they call a growth mindset about stress, they present normal but challenging stressors (taking a test, giving a speech, keeping up with coursework) not as dangers to be avoided but as opportunities for learning and self-improvement.

The second is a " stress-can-be-enhancing" mindset, which focuses on learning that the physical symptoms of stress (racing heart, being out of breath, feeling anxious) can be positive because they are our body's way of mobilizing energy to reach a goal.

These two mindsets go together-both are necessary to equip adolescents (and all of us) to take on challenges in a lasting way.

With more than four thousand high school and college-age students across the six experiments, the research team tested their approach, comparing those who received the intervention with control groups. In one experiment, for instance, eighth-through-twelfth-grade students were asked to imagine that the instructor of their most stressful class had assigned a very demanding assignment but they had only two days to complete it before presenting their work to their classmates. In another, students actually took a timed quiz. In still another, students participated in the Trier Social Stress Test, where college students were asked to give a speech about their personal strengths and weaknesses in front of two peer evaluators who were trained to provide negative nonverbal feedback (such as frowning, sighing, and crossing their arms) and no positive verbal or nonverbal feedback. Afterward, the students were asked to do mental math (counting backward from 996 by sevens).

The outcomes the researchers assessed included cardiovascular reactivity, daily cortisol levels, academic success, anxiety during the pandemic lockdowns, and self-regard-how good or bad the students felt about themselves, which is a precursor of anxiety and depression.

The study results indicate that this thirty-minute self-administered online training helping adolescents see that they can grow and learn from stress and that they can reframe their physical stress reactions from a threat into a challenge is effective. They write:
Our studies suggest that we might not teach adolescents that they are too fragile to overcome difficult struggles, but that we might, instead, provide them with the resources and guidance that they need to unleash their skills and creativity in addressing big problems.
I love the way that well-known author and psychiatrist Daniel Siegel of UCLA writes about the differences between threats and challenges. He says that threats create a "no brain-state" that activates a protective response of fighting or fleeing, while challenges activate a "yes brain-state, when ideal learning can take place."
Self-Efficacy Mindset
A number of these parents I interviewed knew "change was possible"; they just didn't believe that they could change, echoing the research of the late Albert Bandura on self-efficacy. The belief I can make a change is the third part of the Possibilities Mindset.

Shannon told me that for weeks, she and Brendan continued to have pitched battles and they tried different solutions. For example, they sat down as a family and decided Brendon could drop out of school if he got a GED and went to community college. He followed through with a GED, but devolved back into doing nothing. Since he'd been a lifeguard, Shannon suggested becoming a paramedic, but after some community college classes, he told her, "No way am I going to be seeing kids hurt like that in accidents." She recalls:

At that point, he was still respectful and cared about what my husband and I think. I realized that if we kept going the way we were going, we might alienate him completely. To me, that was the worst thing that could happen.
I knew someone growing up who was oppositional, a partier. His family alienated him and he's been living on the streets for twenty years. I thought, "You know, Brendan could walk away."
It was an internal mindset shift, she says. She had been on a dark path of feeling angry and scared. It broke her heart that one of her kids wasn't going to graduate from high school and college. She was afraid that this was going to be forever, that there was nothing they could do to change him. But she learned to let go of thinking that she knew what his path should be.

Shannon was in an Adversity Mindset and was feeling threatened: Nothing works. Things won't be any different. My child won't or can't change. I won't or can't change. I can't make a difference. She felt very threatened.

Shannon's impetus for change was figuring out what she as a parent wanted to be. She couldn't change Brendan; she could only change herself- but, in response, things might be different:

I ask ed myself, what's my point as a parent? I saw that my parenting was not about Brendan's accomplishments so that I could feel good about myself. It was about my relationship with him-not what he was doing, but how we were together.

There were still expectations: that he should be able to turn unconditionally to his family, no matter what; that he should be able to go out, sustain himself, care about his work, and care about his contribution.

I had to pause, and let it go, and begin asking questions. I had to think of "new possibilities," rather than "He's not doing what I think he should be doing. He has a life of doom." I had to meet him where he was rather than assuming he would have the life I had mapped out for him .

Over the years, Shannon could see that switching to a Possibilities Mindset is working. Brendan got his own apartment, found a job, and joined a union. Recently, Shannon saw something she'd never expected to see: her son was studying for a test that could lead to a promotion at work:

Brendan was motivated to study! It was a moment of joy-a reminder that I had handled things well, that challenging times pass, and to enjoy the good times.
Testing A Possibilities Versus an Adversity Mindset
In our nationally representative Breakthrough Years study of 16666 children nine-though nineteen-years old and their parents, we assessed parents' mindsets and then looked to see how these were linked with how adolescents reported they were doing. We found:

A Possibilities Mindset in parents is associated with their adolescents being more hopeful about their futures, while an Adversity Mindset in parents is associated with their adolescents reporting lower positive moods, more negative moods, less hopefulness about their futures, more stress, and more conflict with their parents.

In addition, we found that an Adversity Mindset in parents shows a somewhat stronger relation to adolescent outcomes than a Possibilities Mindset, suggesting that negative perceptions might have more sway.

Finally, we found that Possibilities and Adversity Mindsets are not strongly related and they both exist in varying degrees in us. One way to think of this is that each mindset has its own dial, rather than one dial with Adversity at one end and Possibilities at the other.

The bottom line: We can shift the way we see challenges with our children either by dialing up Possibilities or by dialing down Adversity. Like Shannon discovered, this can affect our children now and in the future.

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If you've been a parent, think of a moment when you "lost it"-a moment when you didn't act the way you wanted to deep down; a moment when you weren't your best parenting self.

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Ingrid and a group of her friends were playing tetherball on a school camping trip, when her best friend came out of the cabin they were sharing with the popular girls and said, " Come on, we're going to the boys' side of camp."

I'm like, "What?" She's like, "Come on, they're all doing it."

Ingrid had moments to decide and her best friend kept pushing, "Live a little."

This may not sound like a big risk, as risks go, but the students had been warned that it carried the possibility of expulsion. As parents know, small things can become big things.

She began to ask herself, "Why do they have this reward sensitivity when only a small percentage engages in excessive negative risk-taking?"

This is also a question that Ron Dahl of the University of California, Berkeley has asked. Since adolescents like thrills more than younger children or older adults, maybe adolescents believe they're more immune to danger. Why else would they want to drive fast or go on terrifying amusement park rides?

But that explanation turned out to be untrue. Dahl has found that the hormones of puberty, including testosterone, appear to increase the activation of fear circuits in the brain, making them more reactive to threat, not less.

And in fact, Dahl and his colleagues have noted that this has been an enduring paradox in the research. Studies show that adolescents are typically quite aware of the consequences of doing dangerous things, such as jumping off a high place, though they may take longer to consider these consequences than adults.

So, if adolescents know (or are told) better, why do they still take risks? In a study of hormonal changes and brain development over time, Dahl and his colleagues realized that this paradox makes perfect sense:

As these hormones-testosterone and the other hormones of puberty-go up, the capacity to activate reward and excitement goes up, too.

Kids want the feeling of thrills. You can't have a thrill without fear. They don't go on roller coasters and watch horror movies because they're fearless. They do it because they like thrills.

I now think that it helps you to be explorative, to look at different options and seek out different alternatives, to find your way in new social worlds.

Dahl expand on this notion, saying that sensation seeking during adolescence enables young people to learn to face fear. In essence, they learn to be brave:

This idea of overcoming our fears is something that's admired across all cultures. Heroes are basically people who can be brave in important circumstances-whether it's a firefighter or a soldier or an everyday hero helping others. Being brave is a valued quality. How do you learn to be brave? Not by being fearless, but by learning to do the right thing even when you're afraid [emphasis mine]. How do you do that if you don't practice?

Ingrid was able to make a quick decision not to go to the boys' side of the camp because her father had talked with her before the class trip. She could reel off the repercussions of doing something negative and risky because she'd thought them through in advance. If she was expelled, she might have to switch schools, lose her close friendships, and carry an expulsion on her school record. She said to herself,

"Why would I risk everything just to go to the other side of camp?"

There was another very important reason too. She's had opportunities in her life to do positive things that are equally thrilling, scary, and "risky"-to take a drama class at school. She didn't originally intend to take drama:

I wanted to be in Beginning Art, but there was no space, so they put me in drama. It was a beginning drama class, full of people who didn't really like drama, just in it for the easy A, or maybe, like me, they wanted to do something else. But I walked into class that first day with an open mind, thinking this could be great, life-changing. And it was life-changing.

Performing a monologue-memorizing the words and blocking the movements onstage-was frightening.

It was a big class with kids from older grades. As somebody who'd never performed before, I was terrified of doing anything in front of people.

Ingrid went to her teacher and asked for help and her teacher said yes. She came in early to practice but was shaking, just in front of one person-her teacher. "I had no idea how I'd do it to a class of twenty kids from mostly eighth grade."

Finally, when the day for the performance arrived, she says that she came in extra early and was still shaking and sweating. "There were only three other girls in that class-everyone else was a boy. I don't know why that made me even more nervous, but it did. Then she called my name to go."

When I got up there, I'm like, "Whatever! It's a class full of people you don't know. They're eighth graders. They'll be gone next year. Just do it." Then I did it.

Taking a drama class gave Ingrid a chance to challenge her fear of acting onstage. Because she had taken this positive risk in her life, she had less of a need to take a negative risk by going to the boy's side of the camp.

She had tried to reason with her best friend not to do it, but her friend went anyway, Ingrid thinks, because she wanted to fit in with the popular girls. Ultimately, nothing happened because an adult was standing guard at the boys' side of the camp. When the girls saw him, they ran back, but it could have turned out differently.

When we understand adolescent development, we can see a situation like this and their development in general in a different way- from a fearful, frightening time because kids do stupid risky things to a time when we can be offering them opportunities to take positive risks.

Activities, like taking a class where they know nothing about the subject or it seems challenging, like it was for Ingrid;

Actions, like standing up for what they believe is right even though someone might disagree; and

Relationships, like starting a friendship with someone new when they're not sure how their other friends would react.

They found that both positive and negative risks are associated with higher sensation-seeking, but positive risk-takers aren't likely to be impulsive. and they are more engaged in school.

In 2016, Eva Telzer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill surveyed existing research on the limbic system that underlies reward sensitivity. While the older view is that this system is related to increased risk, Telzer emphasizes that this system can also be related to decreased risk-taking behavior.

This finding promotes a more constructive view of adolescent development:

It challenges the widely supported model of adolescence as a period of heightened vulnerability by suggesting that traditionally negative behaviors like risk-taking could foster positive development if those risks are taken to benefit others!

Sacrificing the teens' own goals to help a friend with their goals

Helping a friend find a solution to their problem

Giving money to a friend or a peer because they really needed it

These too are small, everyday things. Telzer and their team found that underlying both positive and negative risk-taking was a similar behavioral trait-it is not just sensation seeking but also fun-seeking.

Teenager are often drawn to right the wrongs of the world. Just think how wonderful it would be if we rethink risks and then offer more young people opportunities to take positive risks that are challenging, fun and at best make the world a better place.

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Ingrid and a group of her friends were playing tetherball on a school camping trip, when her best friend came out of the cabin they were sharing with the popular girls and said, "Come on, we're going to the boys' side of camp." I'm like, "What?" She's like, "Come on, they're all doing it."

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What happens inside the minds of teenagers?

A new documentary seeks to answer that question to help teens feel more understood by adults, and to help both adults and teens alike understand how the uniqueness of teen brains can actually be a super power.

"We talked to all the top neuroscientists in the space, and then we talked to so many teenagers," Tiffany Shlain, director of the documentary, called "The Teen Brain," told " Good Morning America." "We wanted to hear directly from teens -- what do you want to know about your brain? What do you wish adults knew about you, of what you're feeling?"

Thrilling, scary and stimulating were just some of the adjectives the teens featured in the film used to describe what it feels like inside their minds.

"A lot of it is like a roller coaster," one teen girl says in the documentary.

"Everything is just more extreme," says a teen boy.

"Emotions feel so strong," another teen says. "And it's so like, I'm upset in this moment and it's hard to sort of see the bigger picture."

A new documentary, "The Teen Brain," explores what is happening in the brains of teenagers.

"The Teen Brain"/MindUP/Let It Ripple

Experts in the documentary -- produced by "Mind Up," the mental health-focused nonprofit organization founded by actress Goldie Hawn -- share some of the medical reasons for why teens feel and experience so deeply in their teen years.

In one example, experts said the amygdala, the almond-shaped structure in the temporal lobe that is the processing center for emotions, becomes more sensitive during the adolescent years, and grows in size.

Ellen Galinsky, author of the book "The Breakthrough Years," describes in the documentary the importance of not comparing teens to adults, in part because of the different ways their brains are working and developing.

The Breakthrough Years, by Ellen Galinsky.

"We're using an adult yardstick to understand teenagers," Galinsky says in the documentary. "We wouldn't say that infants are deficit toddlers, but yet we think of teenagers as, you know, not quite adults, and we measure them that way. And that really affects how we talk to them."

The 10-minute documentary will be available to watch for free online beginning April 15. The filmmakers have a website where viewers can find out more information.

Hawn, who founded Mind Up in 2003, said she hopes the documentary gives a new perspective on being a teenager.

"I have wanted to create a film on the adolescent brain because it's important for our teens, parents and educators to understand that being a teen is an extraordinary time to be alive," Hawn told "GMA" in a statement.

"The Teen Brain" documentary comes at a time that teenagers in particular are facing a mental health crisis, data shows, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and amid an onslaught of factors including widespread use of cellphones and social media.

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 1 in 3 high school teens dealt with poor mental health during the pandemic, and 1 in 5 reported considering suicide.

Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy issued an advisory warning of an urgent public health issue regarding social media usage and youth mental health.

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What happens inside the brains of teenagers? New documentary seeks to answer

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"The Teen Brain" documentary premieres amid an ongoing mental health crisis for teens.

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What an Adolescence Expert Wishes for Every Teenager

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In a letter to her grandson, author and parenting expert Ellen Galinsky shares her hopes for his future.

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How to better understand the teenagers in your life

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If you want to get a grip on your adolescent, first get to know their brain.

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Getty Images

The author of The Breakthrough Years shares what adolescents want their parents to know.

Remember what it was like to be a teenager?

Chances are that you've got vivid recollections of the victories and defeats you experienced in this highly formative (and often highly awkward) stage of life, but it goes without saying that parents' memories of being a teen differ significantly from what their children experience today. Adolescents are grappling with the challenges of social media, the pressure to get into the "right" college, and questions about what emerging technologies like AI mean for them - to name a few - and they're doing it all during a time when their minds are deeply impressionable. As Ellen Galinsky puts it, they're experiencing "heightened brain plasticity with extensive neural change."

Galinsky knows what she's talking about. Her book Mind in the Making set a high standard for understanding the brains of children, and now she's turned her attention to the next phase with her latest work, The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens. Working on the book involved a robust study of teenagers and their parents, which offered Galinsky fascinating insights into how teens think - and how their parents' behaviors influence the adults they'll become.

As parents across the country take up increasingly public campaigns to maintain a grasp on their children's development, Katie Couric Media spoke to Galinsky about her most notable findings, the things teens say their parents get wrong about them, and what these breakthrough years should look like in an ideal world.

Ellen Galinsky: Since 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tracked the well-being of nationally representative groups of high school students. Their latest findings show that the mental health of teens has significantly worsened.In 2011, 28 percent of high school students reported experiencing such persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness over the past year that they couldn't participate in their regular activities. By 2021, that figure had jumped to 42 percent.

Data from the nationally representative study we conducted for The Breakthrough Years of 1,666 9- to 19-year-olds and their parents are quite similar: 34 percent of 9- to 19-year-olds reported experiencing depression, as did 39 percent of high school-aged young people.

In the study, we asked those surveyed: What would you like to tell the adults of America about people your age? Thirty-eight percent - quite a large percentage for an open-ended question - asked adults not to label them, not to generalize, not to stereotype them but to recognize their strengths. They wrote, "Some of us, but not all of us" are addicted to technology, are troublemakers, are sad, etc.

When looking at the statistics about mental health, we need to heed their words and remember that it is "some, but not all" teens. We need to refrain from labeling their whole generation as depressed or anxious. In the Breakthrough Years study, I found that relationships are the "swing vote factor" in whether teens felt stressed or hopeful about their futures; in whether they felt engaged in learning in school or turned off; in whether they felt lonely, sad, or happy.

Just as we have basic physical needs for food, water, and shelter, we - children and adults - have basic psychological needs, including the need to belong, be supported, have some autonomy, be treated with respect, feel competent yet challenged, and find ways to contribute to making the world a better place. When teens in my study had these needs met by relationships at home, with their friends, in school, in out-of-school activities, and online, they were much more likely to do well during the pandemic.

I wouldn't say that. Parents are the most influential force in teens' development today.

Parents may not realize how influential they are - our survey found that 37 percent of parents feel they have little influence on their adolescent children - but they are. A review of the literature from a neuroscience perspective by Ahna Suleiman of the University of California, Davis and Ron Dahl of the University of California, Berkeley concludes that parents are "highly influential" in adolescents' development.

The debate about social media is a spirited one. The December 2023 consensus report on " Social Media and Adolescent Health" by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine says that while there's a strong temptation to see a causal link between the declines in adolescents' mental health and the increase in their use of social media, their scientific review led them to "more measured conclusions." They found that "some features of social media can harm some young people's mental health." Again, it's some, but not all.

A recent piece from The Cut argues that to truly address their children's phone addictions, parents must curb their own relationship to their screens. What do you make of that?

This question addresses parents as role models - and yes, that's critically important, too. In its May 2023 consensus advisory on social media use in adolescence, the American Psychological Association states that there's evidence that parents' use of social media (for example, not paying attention to kids because we are using social media) can affect adolescents' usage.

I think, however, that this question is best answered by the words of adolescents writing in response to my question about what they want to tell adults about people their age. Although they were writing about lots of issues, not just social media, their observations are very applicable to social media.

A 13-year-old boy wrote, "We are watching u." Similarly, a 16-year-old girl stated, "We understand what's going on in our parents' lives, even if they don't tell [us]. We're not stupid." And a 14-year-old boy said, "You may think we are young, but we absorb everything that is said to us and that we see." "We need you to be good role models," a 15-year-old girl wrote, because, as another girl that age said, "We do hear what you all are saying, but we also see how you are behaving."

So yes, we need to live how we want our children to live.

How does what you've learned from your research make you feel about proposals to ban TikTok in the United States?

The issue of the impact of social media is much larger than proposals to ban TikTok in the United States, which is about protecting Americans' privacy and security from a Chinese-owned company. Here's the main issue: The digital world, including social media, was not designed with children's development in mind.

Right now, the responsibility for the use of social media is largely left up to parents, but parents can't fix the algorithms that keep kids scrolling; they can't fix the bad actors on media. These are roles for legislators, for tech companies, and for schools. The National Academy of Sciences calls on schools to teach digital literacy using evidence-based programs, and I totally agree.

The bottom line is that social media needs to be redesigned with children's development in mind. If this happens, it would be very good news.

Teens who responded to your survey reported feeling misunderstood by the adults in their lives. Why is that, and what can adults do better to meet their children where they are?

From the very first focus groups and interviews I conducted for The Breakthrough Years, teens reported feeling misunderstood. "You were a teen once," they said. "Why don't you understand us?"

I took that question very seriously and used the nationally representative study of adolescents and their parents to try to better understand it. One question we asked was particularly helpful: When you hear the phrase "the teen brain," or "the adolescent brain," what one word comes to mind?

The results were telling. Only 14 percent of parents used positive terms, like "exploring," "creative," "fun," or "the future"; 27 percent used neutral terms, like "growing" or "changing"; and 59 percent used negative terms, like "forgetful," "stupid," "clueless," "distracted," "know-it-all," or "bratty."

Even more telling were the actual words that parents used to describe the adolescent/teen brain. The most frequent word was "immature." It was used 11 percent of the time. That's a remarkable convergence for an open-ended question. Another 8 percent wrote down "un-", "in-", or "not" words, including "undeveloped," "unfinished," and "incomplete."

These words indicate that many adults are using an adult yardstick to understand adolescents and are finding them lacking. Young people aren't adults. We wouldn't say that toddlers are immature preschoolers when they're learning what they can and can't control. Children of this age are doing exactly what they are developmentally primed to do - what they need to do for their brains to develop.

Yet, I found that too many of us seem to think about our teens as immature adults, even though they, too, are doing exactly what their brains are priming them to do. They're moving further out into the world, so they need to be highly sensitive to social and emotional situations. They need to become environmental detectors to determine what's OK and what's worrisome (and to react strongly) because their parents aren't necessarily there to help them. They need to explore their identities and what it means to be and become them. They're highly sensitive to what matters to them and to experiences where they can begin to figure this out.

Our study found that when parents have negative views of the teen/adolescent brain, those adolescents weren't doing as well nine months later as those young people whose parents have positive or neutral views. The next time we're motivated to tell a teen to "stop being such a teenager" or we use negative words about them - "you're a hormonal minefield" - we might be the ones who need to stop.

You write of a friend who asked you two important questions as you were working on this book: "What kind of world will we leave our children?" and "What kind of children will we leave our world?" What is your sense of how our society could change in generations to come if parents, teachers, and caregivers don't take these issues seriously?

It's my fervent hope that we do take these issues seriously, and we know how to do so. Wonderfully, adolescents' insights about the most important parenting and teaching strategies align with the scientific literature on what it takes to bring about change for teens.

The first strategy mentioned frequently by adolescents is to listen, or in the words of a 12-year-old, "listen more than you talk." The second was to understand their development. I especially love the way one adolescent put it: "Listen with your when-I-was-a-child mind, not just your now-I-am-an-adult mind." That means using a child development lens with them, and recognizing how powerful autonomy is to their development. A third strategy from adolescents about parenting and teaching skills was "if we are the problem, we need to be part of the solution."

Thus, our efforts to improve their lives need to strengthen their skills, not just fix problems for them. This has been a main tenet of what's called autonomy-supportive caregiving. Despite what the word "autonomy" may connote, autonomy-supportive adults do have clear expectations and rules consistently applied, but they encourage adolescents to problem-solve about how to make adult expectations work.

One 16-year-old I interviewed is named Hope Shinderman. During the pandemic, when schools went online, she noticed that while her teachers were working hard to keep her and her classmates engaged in digital classes, the teachers' own kids were suffering. She could see that their children were bored and that the teachers were stressed in trying to work and parent at the same time. She had an idea: What if she tutored some of her teachers' children? She invited four other classmates to be tutors with her. Within five days, they had 32 tutors serving 200 children.

That was 2020, and the initiative they created with their parents' help was called Bored of Boredom. Hope has gone on to college, but Bored of Boredom lives on as a constructive way to use the digital world. Today, 800 high-school and college-age tutors reach thousands of students. Hope brought hope during the pandemic.

I wonder how many other Hopes are out there. I wonder: What if we gave them opportunities to make the world a better place for themselves, and what if we helped them do so? Then we could truly make these years the breakthrough years they deserve to be.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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A Researcher Reveals the Biggest Influence on Teens Today - And It's Not Social Media

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Ellen Galinsky shares findings from her research on teens and their development and shares advice for parents who are raising adolescents.

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Ellen Galinsky on The Breakthrough Years | The Puberty Podcast

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Listen to Ellen Galinsky on The Breakthrough Years from The Puberty Podcast. Let go of your assumptions about adolescents - it's time for a reframe! Author and researcher Ellen Galinsky has spent decades studying societal questions - particularly about kids and their families - and offering actionable advice.

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Just as Early Learning Nation showcases the ways families, researchers and grassroots nonprofits and organizations are building an early learning nation-one community at a time-our Community Cultivators series highlights how innovators across all sectors build and sustain global communities from the ground up. We hope the series inspires your own early childhood work.
Ellen Galinsky's The Breakthrough Years is the product of nearly a decade of exploration into the adolescent mind. A companion piece to Galinsky's previous landmark book, Mind in the Making, which addresses early childhood development, it reaches a surprising conclusion about adolescence. Rather than an ordeal of sullenness and rule-breaking, it is a process of exploration necessary for human development.

In other words, don't fear the teens in your life. Instead, prepare to be dazzled by their developing, adaptive, creative minds.

Subtitled "A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens," the book draws upon extensive research, including a nationally representative survey of 1666 adolescents , interviews with 56 parents and 52 of their adolescents from that sample (many of whom articulate variations on the theme Don't label us as a whole generation-we're not as lazy, media-addicted, risk-taking or selfish as adults think), a follow-up survey of this group during the pandemic, a study of executive function skills in 22 schools, interviews with 45 researchers and review of hundreds of papers.

Early Learning Nation magazine spoke to Galinsky about her book and the findings relevant to researchers, educators and parents-no matter the age of the child in question. Here are some highlights:

* Lived experience informs research, which in turn affects practice. Galinsky, co-founder of the Families and Work Institute, conducts a type of research called civic science. "The beauty of it," she says "is that you're putting together what research says and what people say who have experienced the issues you're studying. So, you're putting together two-or actually or three different worlds-because I'm in there too, making sense of it all."

But conducting research isn't enough. Researchers need to communicate the findings so that they can be understood and put into practice. That's why The Breakthrough Years initiative doesn't end with the publication of the book. In fact, the team will bring together cohorts of superintendents, principals, teachers and learning specialists from all over the country. Galinsky says, "We're going to ask them, 'Given what we know, what training and tools do you need?' and then we'll develop new training and tools together."

* How we as adults see an age or stage affects how we respond to it. If you think in terms of the terrible two's, you will respond one way, and if you see this as a time of beginning to develop autonomy, you'll respond another way. The same is true of adolescence. Galinsky writes, "Expecting a difficult time... is linked with actual difficult times later on"; additionally, "Providing feedback that includes expectations of success... can spur students to put more time and thought into their schoolwork."

Asked how adults can overcome negative expectations, Galinsky points to an episode in the book concerning an adolescent who cut a hole in the backyard trampoline. "This child had ADHD, was struggling in school and needed help," she summarizes. "Her mom was great in joining her world to inform how she helped her." Galinsky refers to this as the skill of Perspective-Taking, saying, "If we can understand their perspective and ours, we're going to do so much better."

👉New Science on Navigating the Breakthrough Teen Years (The Raising Good Humans Podcast)

* It's all about autonomy-support. Studies show that if adults help children (from toddlers to teens) take an active role in solving the problems they face, rather than fixing them for them, children will be more likely to develop executive function skills (see sidebar).

Galinsky cites the wisdom of a 14-year-old who said, "If the leash is too tight, we won't know what to do when that leash is gone." Another teen she spoke to was not doing his schoolwork. When he got home from school, he went right for the video games. After the usual yelling and punishments failed, Galinsky reports, the family tried a method she developed called Shared Solutions, which involves the family problem-solving together. The teen came up with the idea of entering the house through a different door. He changed the environment, and that changed his behavior, but the decisive factor was that he took ownership of the situation.

"If we can help them learn to solve the problems they face," Galinsky says, "then we are giving our children a huge gift."

* Our mindsets matter. In interviewing parents about a time when they "lost it" with their children-when they weren't the parents they wanted to be- Galinsky found two mindsets of importance. Those with an Adversity Mindset see the situation as a threat, believing that things won't change and they can't figure out how to handle it. "You can know great strategies, like Shared Solutions," says Galinsky, "but if you see a conflict with a child as a threat, you are less likely be open to using them." The more productive alternative is the Possibilities Mindset-the belief that:

1. Things can change

2. This problem is a challenge, not a threat

3. I can figure out how to respond

* Childhood development is a continuum. Experts tend to slice up childhood into early years (which typically go up to eight years old) and adolescent years (which can start as early as nine or ten into the twenties, since adolescence begins at puberty and ends when young people assume adult responsibilities).

Six Principles for Promoting Executive Function Skills In Early Childhood and Adolescent Programs

1. A goal-directed, whole-person approach

2. Steadfast, well-founded belief in the program

3. Genuine commitment to creating a community of learners

4. Intentionality in meeting the needs of all

5. A relevant, challenging and reflective learning environment

6. Prioritizing well-being

From The Breakthrough Years, drawing upon the research of Adele Diamond and Daphne Ling, University of British Columbia

The early years are foundational but starting early won't yield the intended effects unless good programs continue into adolescence. After all, Galinsky notes, the early and the adolescent years are both sensitive periods of development, times of rapid brain change when children are especially receptive to learning from experience. Both are also times when the skills that are so linked to success now and in the future-executive function skills-are being developed and strengthened.

👉10 Years of Keeping the Fire Burning in Children's Eyes

* Development is multifaceted. Naturally, writing this book brought Galinsky back to her own teenage years at home in West Virginia and at the National Cathedral School, in Washington, D.C. "I'm grateful for my adolescence," she says. "I had an incredible mother. It didn't occur to me that our family was so different until I started spending the night with friends and realized she really listened to us. She was interested in our world and what we were thinking and learning. She was not saying, 'Only grades are important.'"

In The Breakthrough Years, Galinsky amplifies the lament of Beth Bye, commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, that adults often "forget about the salience of child development knowledge when we're hyper focused on academic performance."

The teenage mind and the toddler mind are both works in progress. Learning by trial and error is integral to the process. As Galinsky explains, "Toddlers need to say, 'No, no, no.' They need to stand up for themselves. They need to try things, even if we as the adults know they won't work. They need to figure out what their competencies are and who they are at this stage. And the same for teenagers."

👉Sign up for Galinsky's newsletter, Research for Families to Thrive By

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Of Toddlers and Teenagers: Ellen Galinsky Breaks Through Adolescence with Brain Science and New Book - Early Learning Nation

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Ellen Galinsky's The Breakthrough Years is the product of nearly a decade of exploration into the adolescent mind.