As painful as it is to see kids dealing with academic challenges, it’s even more heartbreaking to bear witness to their social difficulties.

In a school setting, it’s very common to see kids who are unable to connect easily with peers begin to act out in unpleasant ways in order to attract negative attention as a substitute for the positive attention they crave.

When even that stops working (if it ever did), you might hear a sad and familiar line: “These kids are stupid! I don’t want to play with them anyway.”

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It’s the moment of truth. We’ve clearly identified a problem, and it’s time to pivot to solutions.

“Now that you see this pattern, what will you do differently?”

“I guess I’ve just got to try harder to stay on top of my work,” she says.

It sounds right. It sounds virtuous. It sounds like a reasonable thing to say to get your teacher/boss/mom/coach off of your back. But of course, nothing really changes as a result of “trying harder.” If the way we’re doing it isn’t working, trying to do more of the same isn’t going to help.

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My husband and I just moved into a new house. Actually, it’s a very old house, built in 1880.

Accordingly, it’s small by modern standards, just under 900 square feet. But it doesn’t feel small. It feels just right.

I’ve lived in places that felt too small. And the logical solution was to move somewhere bigger. But what I now see, after spending some time living miserably in an enormous house, is that bigger isn’t necessarily better. It is more useful to identify and address specific challenges.

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In the wake of the coronavirus, many organizations are moving their services online. My music school is now offering online lessons only, universities and grade schools are pivoting to online classes, and churches and cultural institutions are streaming (or live-streaming) their events.

Some of these organizations are replicating the way classes and events would be held in the physical world, which means that the online version suffers by comparison.

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“You’re going too fast. There are cars parked on both sides of the road.”

“I’m fine, I’m under the speed limit.”

Ugh, backseat drivers are the worst, aren’t they? But when it’s your mom and you are an unlicensed teenage driver, it behooves you to listen. Her feedback is not just pesky, controlling nonsense — it’s exactly what you need.

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