4 Things Teachers Shouldn't Be Asking Their Students to Do

This week's article summary is 4 Things Teachers Shouldn't Be Asking Their Students to Do.

It’s an apt reminder that Trinity’s mantra is to cherish childhood as we prepare our students for the future by developing their academic and character foundation.

To me, the essence of childhood is that kids are not mini-versions of adults. They experience the world and learn differently from adults. They need the physical and emotional latitude to explore, discover, and make mistakes.

The four caveats below can re-center teachers about what the norms of a classroom should be. Student engagement—what Trinity is renowned for—involves laughter, noise, physical movement, and student autonomy. 

Yes, there are needed parameters to all of the above, yet a student-centric classroom and school are going to be a little messy and noisy if they are going to optimize student learning!

Joe

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As teachers, we can make kids do almost anything we want. They’re smaller than us. We have all kinds of power over them, from getting them in trouble at home to taking away the things that make school tolerable, like going outside for recess or sitting with their friends in class. But just because we can make our students do what we want doesn’t mean we should.

Children aren’t just smaller versions of adults. They are their own kind of being. They need to move, talk, question, and explore more than we do, because they’re in the midst of that mind-boggling explosion of cognitive, physical, and social-emotional growth that marks childhood in our species. When it comes to behaviors like staying quiet or sitting still, it doesn’t make sense to hold young children to norms better suited to adults, because the way they experience the world is fundamentally different from the way grownups do.

In school, we often ask children to do things that are unreasonable given their developmental level. Worse still, we sometimes ask them to do things we would never expect of adults.

Take these four examples.

Silence: Many schools expect a monastic code of silence while students are traveling the halls. The rationale makes sense at first glance, and it’s one I’ve explained to my class many times: "Other students are working right now, and we don’t want to disturb them." Still, if I were a kid, I’d wonder: "If that’s true, why aren’t teachers silent in the hall?" We should take a close look at the times we expect kids to be silent in school. We need to distinguish between those times it’s truly for the good of the students, and when it has more to do with the appetite for control so deeply inculcated in adults placed in charge of children.

Sitting Still for a Long Time: Teacher Alex Wiggins shadowed high school students for two days, doing whatever the students did, and was shocked at what she experienced. "I literally sat down the entire day, except for walking to and from classes. We forget as teachers, because we are on our feet a lot—circling around the room to check on student work, kneeling down to chat with a student … we move a lot. But students move almost never. And never is exhausting." For young kids, sitting still is even harder. There’s a lot we can do to make it easier on them.

• Build in strategies like Total Physical Response for learning vocabulary, so students are moving while they learn.
• Take brain breaks—including dance parties. There are plenty of great videos on websites like GoNoodle, or you can make up motions to classic children’s songs like Raffi’s "Biscuits in the Oven" and "Tingalayo."
• Let students get up—without raising their hand for permission—whenever they need to get a book from the class library, grab a pencil, or just stretch their legs for a minute.
• Above all, keep the teacher talk time to a minimum. A useful guideline is that students should be able to listen attentively for their age in minutes—five minutes for a kindergartner, 15 for a sophomore in high school. Save most of your words for conversations with students one-on-one or in a small group. Children, like adults, learn the most when they’re engaged in meaningful work—not sitting and listening while the teacher does all the talking and thinking.

Forced Apologies: I have definitely been guilty of this one. I’ll break up a heated argument, then immediately demand that one or both kids apologize to one another, while their faces are still flushed with emotion from their recent conflict. The early-childhood program my daughter attended never made the children tell each other, "I’m sorry," because an apology extracted by an authority figure isn’t a true expression of remorse. Forced apologies don’t seem to offer much satisfaction to the child who receives them, either—seeing the other child mutter "sorry" while glowering at his shoes pretty much never makes the recipient of the apology feel better. Turbulent emotions take a long time to settle. We need to give kids that time.

Zero Tolerance for Forgetfulness: My friend and 1st grade teacher Cameron McCain has a great line when teachers start grumbling about our students: "It’s like we’re dealing with a bunch of 7-year-olds around here!" His point is well taken. I get frustrated when Josh, who has been in my class for 17 months now, still forgets to check out a book or do his lunch choice when he gets to school. But like most adults I know, I’m a lot like Josh. I forget sometimes that not only are my students human, they’re really young humans. When they lose their lunch tag for the third day in a row, or ask the exact same question two other kids asked 30 seconds ago, we need to take a deep breath and offer them a sizeable dollop of grace.

Kids Are Kids. That’s Exactly Who They Should Be: We need to think hard about the demands we place on our students. Just because they obey the strictures we lay down doesn’t mean those edicts are fair. We can’t expect the children in our care to behave like miniature adults. They need to move around more than we do. They need to make more noise than we do. They need to experience new concepts with their fingers, senses, and imaginative ability to consider not just the world as it is, but as it could be. Their curiosity, enthusiasm, and sense of wonder will never lend itself to straight lines and silent deskwork. We spend so much time bending them to our way of doing things. We should pay more attention to theirs.

Teaching Kids the Right Way to Say 'I'm Sorry'

This week's article summary is Teaching Kids the Right Way to Say 'I'm Sorry.'

As we move into the second month of school, disagreements and misbehavior between and among students in the classroom, in the hallways, and at recess will inevitably arise.

This article focuses on the importance of sincerity in an apology.

Too often through the years as a teacher and school administrator, I’ve required kids to apologize to one another for some transgression: they robotically said “I’m sorry” followed by an indifferent handshake. I knew these apologies were hollow, yet I felt I needed to manufacture some sort of closure so all of us could just move on to more important matters. In those situations it was the outcome not the process that was important.

But just like last week’s article summary on short and long term lessons, process is critical to learning and understanding. It takes a lot of time, discussion, and even role playing for kids to be truly be sorry and then to express it sincerely.

The fifth grade teacher referenced in the article spends much time during morning meeting/community-building time in developing her students’ understanding and the steps of an apology. Authentically thinking and acting with empathy, her students are more able to see the perspectives and feelings of others.

As the honeymoon period of the school year wanes, we need to take even more teaching opportunities when kids start to misbehave--and a sincere apology helps in both the short and long term.

 Joe

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It’s a common scenario – one that plays out in schools and homes all the time. A child hurts another child, physically or emotionally. Grownups are called in to arbitrate. The adult tells one – or perhaps all – of the kids to say, “I’m sorry.” Those two words are uttered, and all is supposed to be well. 

But the resolution is often lopsided. “When you just do that quick apology, you feel better, you move on,” said fifth grade teacher Rayna Freedman. “But oftentimes the other person is still left with a bucket of feelings.” She sees it all the time in her classroom in Mansfield, Massachusetts. 

That’s why, for the last few years, she’s been teaching her students how to give more meaningful apologies. During these lessons, the fifth graders practice not only saying “I’m sorry,” but acknowledging why their actions were wrong, offering to repair harm, and promising not to repeat the behavior.

Effective apologies require empathy, perspective-taking, honesty and courage – all qualities that schools and parents try to cultivate in children. Freedman has seen that teaching how to apologize well changes her students’ interactions with each other and with her for the better. “These types of lessons really build empathy in kids because now they’re able to clearly understand that even though I don’t or might not realize I did something wrong, I still hurt this other human being somehow,” she said. 

Explicit lessons on giving good apologies are rare for kids, and they live in a world full of adults who aren’t great at the task, either. “I think there are lots of people who just think of an apology as something that mean people force you to do,” said Susan McCarthy, co-author of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies. 

McCarthy also pens SorryWatch, a website that analyzes apologies in the news, pop culture and history. SorryWatch is full of examples of bad apologies, such as actors who tweet ‘I’m sorry if.’ Good apologies are rare, but they don’t have to be. “The nice thing about good apologies is that the form is actually really simple. It’s the doing it that is hard, not the steps themselves.”

Like most hard things, apologizing is easier when you’ve had practice. In Freedman’s fifth grade class, she teaches seven steps to a meaningful apology.

Freedman teaches the lessons during morning meetings, a period when her class does community-building activities. She covers one step per day, and students role-play with made-up scenarios, such as tripping a classmate at recess or plagiarizing their homework.

For most students, steps like saying why their behavior was wrong and asking “How can I make this better?” are new terrain. “Just getting them to talk and have a conversation about it and be in that driver’s seat to practice is huge because you can’t just teach them a step and then not actually have them practice it and use it,” Freedman said.

In addition to role-playing, students discuss why the steps matter, what bad apologies sound like, and how it feels to receive good and bad apologies. They also talk about the difference between when they want to apologize and when they’re told to apologize. For Freedman, that’s important because there’s no point in apologizing if they haven’t truly accepted responsibility. It’s also important because not every instance someone demands or expects an apology from another person is valid.

McCarthy said that not listening to kids is one of several common mistakes adults make when teaching kids to say “I’m sorry.” Others include:

• Not modeling good apologies. This can mean giving bad apologies or just doing their apologies in private where kids don’t get to see and hear them.
• Scolding children after they’ve apologized. This creates an association in the child’s memory between apologizing and being reprimanded, making them less inclined to apologize in the future.
• Requiring kids to kiss or hug after an apology. “Apologies are with words, not with touching.”

Throughout her lessons, Freedman shares apology examples from her own life. She said that hearing her stories and each others’ experiences is validating for students. It also normalizes screwing up sometimes while building skills to move forward from those mistakes.

“I think the whole thing with going through this is that it’s humbling, right?” she said. “It’s teaching people to accept responsibility for something they’ve done. And not everybody can do that.” After these lessons, her fifth graders can. Freedman has seen students put the steps into practice in her classroom and on the playground.

“I feel that I am teaching kids life skills beyond how to solve a math problem or how to read and decode a text,” she said. “Those are the things that – state standards, Common Core – that we have to teach. But I teach humans.”

Humans make mistakes. And to make things better, humans apologize.

Classroom Management for the Short and Long Term

This week's article summary is Winning the Long Game in Parenting. While the article is specifically for parents, there’s much applicability for teachers as well.

During preplanning meetings, I spoke about the interrelation and symbiosis of what are often viewed as competing goals: academic/character development, cherishing childhood/high academic standards and expectations.

The same holds true for classroom management/discipline: teachers can correct the immediate misbehavior (the short term need) while simultaneously setting up their students for the long term (development of internal motivation and habits of respect and responsibility).

Most of us began the school year by establishing classroom norms that center around respect (for self, others, and the environment) and responsibility. We often include students in the development of these rules so they have better buy in and ideally begin to internalize how their behavior (or misbehavior) impacts others.

Typically classrooms enjoy the honeymoon period for the first weeks of school. Then, after about six weeks, when we’ve all settled in, kids inevitably begin to act out and push limits.

This is when short-term classroom management take precedent, as teachers need to correct the behavior of the few wayward students whose self-regulation clearly isn’t habitual yet.

As you’ll see in the article, it’s okay to employ short-term techniques while still keeping an eye on the longer term goal. 

It’s clear, i.e., research supported, from all the classroom discipline and parenting books and articles I’ve read that misbehavior must be corrected without shunning or humiliating the child. I generally was a good kid who rarely got in trouble at home or at school, but I did get into some power struggles with my parents. When I received a harsh punishment like no TV for a week, I learned no lessons; rather, I blamed my parents for being too strict and for not understanding me. Other times, my parents and I had a calm, rational conversation about how my actions affected others and were contrary to our family values. In those times I often reflected on my actions, accepted responsibility for my misdeeds, and then tried to do better the next time. Their respect of me was rewarded by my respect for them.

On MyTrinity’s Social Emotional tile is brief summary of our social emotional learning tenets. Especially as we settle into the routines of school and start-of-school honeymoon is ending, taking some time to review how to support our students can be proactively helpful.

Joe  

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We want to be in our children’s lives for the long haul. As parents, we want to be there for their victories and inevitable miseries.

In order to achieve these goals, our relationship with our children must feel pleasurable and valuable, and be one in which they feel safe, seen, and cherished. Childhood is when we lay the groundwork for the rest of our lives together.

So, how can parents create a strong foundation for this long-term relationship? Well, like all relationships, showing respect for the other, listening when they speak, taking their opinions and feelings into account, being reliable, seeing the best in them, and having fun together. For many parents, it is second nature to be warm, supportive, and playful with children, and in these ways they are champs at creating a durable relationship. But there is an important parenting job that can be less intuitive, and that is discipline and limit-setting.

Setting boundaries is a high-risk moment that can potentially damage the valuable connection we are creating with our children. Yet, limit-setting cannot be skipped over. We need to somehow set clear and firm limits with our children, and hold those limits, without damaging the child or our relationship with the child. Easier said than done. However, is it important because it is during times of conflict that our relationship will either be imperiled or strengthened.

In moments of discipline, it is useful to think about balancing the short game with the long game. The short game is dealing with behavior in the moment, influencing the child to stop hitting or to do her homework. The long game is the maintenance of a healthy, positive parent-child relationship, gradually building self-control, self-worth, and positive behavior.

Keeping the long game in mind, we can adjust our approach to behavior issues by providing discipline without severing the relationship. In doing so, we acknowledge that teaching a child to stop hitting might take many repetitions of a lesson that will only gradually take hold. As we consistently enforce the rule, and the child steadily builds maturity, self-control, and motivation to cooperate, we move toward our goal. And yes, this means we will sometimes lose the short game. But we are sometimes losing it anyway.

This plays out via parents setting a limit every single time a rule is broken, but never doing so in a damaging way: no scolding, no yelling, no insulting, no hitting. Punitive parental behaviors come at a high cost to the relationship, and they don’t work for durably changing behavior. Harsh interventions may influence a child to comply in the moment, but they do so by inspiring fear, which leads to compliance if the child thinks they’ll be caught. Momentary compliance is far different from learning and from building a child’s internal motivation to behave.

Discipline, in its ideal form, is teaching and motivating a child to make their life decisions based on their virtues, not on their impulses. All children are capable, and sometimes choose, to follow rules and show restraint, kindness, and respect. However, in order for this to carry over into adulthood and become their predominant way of conducting themselves, they need to feel such self-discipline is a part of who they are. Once a child takes ownership of that lesson, they will act from it naturally and feel driven to be their best self. Fostering this positive identity is best accomplished not through domination, but through consistently seeing the best in the child, pointing out their successes to them, and calmly, firmly, repeatedly saying no to any rule-breaking.

While this might sound permissive to some, the key to its success is that limit-setting and consequences are never omitted. They are consistently and reliably applied, with no drama. In this model, the limit-setting is matter-of-fact and consequences are not harsh. And limits are not driven by parents’ intense emotions or set with the toxin of adult negativity.

Punitive responses to children’s behavioral missteps are part of many parenting approaches, and parents often incorrectly believe that the more substantial and aversive the consequence, the more effective it will be. The problem with this strategy is that excessive focus on consequences can overtake parenting, placing undue attention and passion on punishment. This negativity can ultimately damage the parent-child relationship, alienate children, and lead children to feel negatively about themselves.

Of course, parent-child rifts will inevitably occur. No one is perfect, not parents and not children. There is necessarily tension that occurs when limits are being set. If an altercation escalates, the key is to calm yourself as soon as you notice you are escalated. Only once you are regulated can you return to interaction with the child and repair the breach. No holding a grudge and no skipping over reconnecting with the child, apologize if necessary, and resume warm, appreciative interaction.

Winning the long game is about building connection when things are going right, and carefully minding your choices when things are going wrong. By prioritizing the health of the long-term relationship over the immediate gratification of getting what you want from the child, you are demonstrating you can be trusted not only to be kind, but also to handle problems and conflict in a way that feels safe. If you commit to always winning the short game you are at high risk of sacrificing the long game, but if you commit to winning the long game you can often win both.

 

How America Got So Mean and How Elementary Schools Can Save The Day

 This week's article summary is How America Got Mean and it continues the theme of many of my summaries at the beginning of this school year: the importance of character development in schools.

This article from New York Times op-ed writer David Brooks doesn’t focus specifically on schools, although he does reference them a few times. Rather he looks at the bigger trend in America (and throughout the rest of the world) of how and why people have become more selfish, intolerant, polarized, and tribal.

Our current political climate encapsulates the new world order where hate, anger, and zero-sum standoffs proliferate.

Brooks provides a number of reasons why we as a society have become so selfish and devoid of compassion for others, especially those different from us. But his principal reason is the loss of ‘institutional support’ in modeling and guiding citizens to be polite, courteous, respectful, and responsible, i.e., agree and live by a common ethical foundation. Rather, we now live in a relativistic world where all opinions and feelings seem equally valid.

Much like last week’s summary on the importance of interdependence, this summary wants us to be more open to others and to support the common good.

Perhaps because I am an educator of young children, I remain optimistic that the world will extricate itself from the current downward spiral of distrust, polarization, and enmity. 

Trinity has always taught its students to be kind, helpful, and caring. Most of your classrooms are now replete with rules and norms about respect, responsibility, and interdependence. A school climate and culture of heightened care, courtesy, and respect for all is apparent. 

The way for our country to become less fixated on individualism and selfishness is through education, and schools are perhaps the lone institution that people still trust and value.

 Joe

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I am obsessed with two questions: 

• Why have Americans become so sad – increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and suicide? 
• Why have Americans become so mean – polarization, conspiracy theories, mass shootings? 

Several explanations have been offered:

• Technology – social media are driving us crazy
• Sociology – people participate less in community organizations and are isolated
• Demography – white Americans are in a panic about increasing racial diversity
• Economy – high levels of inequality and insecurity make people feel afraid, alienated, and pessimistic

These are all real but they don’t fully explain why Americans have become so sad and so mean.

I think the most important reason is that we now inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein. That’s happened because a web of institutions – families, schools, religious groups, community organizations, and workplaces – are not doing the job they used to do: forming people into kind and responsible citizens who show up for one another.

For a large part of its history, America was awash in morally formative institutions that taught people three things:

• How to restrain their selfishness – keeping their evolutionarily conferred egotism under control
• Basic social and ethical skills – how to welcome  neighbor into the community, how to disagree constructively
• Finding a purpose in life – practical pathways toward a meaningful existence

For 150 years after the nation’s founding, leaders focused on perfecting what they acknowledged were flawed human beings. Moral education was a centerpiece in schools and universities; the McGuffey Readers and other textbooks were full of tales of right and wrong. Churches, Sunday schools, the YMCA, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, settlement houses, professional organizations, unions had similar themes. One 19th-century headmaster said the purpose of his school was to turn out young men who were “acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.” 

The two premises of this moral drive were (a) training the heart and body is more important than training the reasoning brain (accomplished through the repetition of many small habits and practices, all within a coherent moral culture) and (b) right and wrong are not matters of personal taste; an objective moral order exists.

The old push for morality was egalitarian, at least in theory. If your status in the community was based on character and reputation, then a farmer could earn dignity as readily as a banker. This ethos came down hard on self-centeredness and narcissistic display. It offered practical guidance on how to be a good neighbor, a good friend. 

And then, just after World War II, it mostly went away. A series of phenomenally successful books – Peace of Mind, The Power of Positive Thinking, Dr. Spock’s child-rearing manual, and others – preached a new gospel of self-actualization. According to this ethos, morality is not something we develop in communities. It’s nurtured by connecting with our authentic self and finding our true inner voice. If people are naturally good, we don’t need moral formation; we just need to let people get in touch with themselves.

People raised in a culture without ethical structure become internally fragile, without a moral compass and permanent ideals, with no personal why. Expecting people to build a satisfying moral life on their own by looking within themselves is asking too much.

The result is vulnerable narcissists, people who are addicted to thinking about themselves, but who often feel anxious, insecure, avoidant. Intensely sensitive to rejection, they scan for hints of disrespect. Their self-esteem is wildly in flux. Their uncertainty about their inner worth triggers cycles of distrust, shame, and hostility. The pandemic made things worse, but the underlying conditions were there before and remain in full force today. 

Over the past several years, people have sought to fill the moral vacuum with politics and tribalism. American society has become hyper-politicized. For people who feel disrespected, unseen, and alone, politics is a seductive form of social therapy. The culture war is a struggle that gives life meaning. One study found that young people who are lonely are seven times more likely to get involved in polarized politics than non-lonely youth. Politics gives them a sense of righteousness, purpose, and identity. 

There are some glimmers of hope: people openly weeping in theaters as they watched Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the film about Mister Rogers in all his simple goodness – his small acts of generosity; his displays of vulnerability; his respect, even reverence, for each child he encountered. And Ted Lasso, the series about an American coach transplanted to U.K. soccer, who said his goal was not the championship but “helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.” 

That is a description of moral formation. Ted Lasso is about an earnest, cheerful, and transparently kind man who entered a world that has grown cynical, amoral, and manipulative, and, episode by episode, even through his own troubles, he offers people around him opportunities to grow more gracious, to confront their vulnerabilities and fears, and to treat one another more gently and wisely. 

The question before us is how to build a culture that helps people be better versions of themselves.

Some suggestions:

• A modern version of how to build character –Treating people considerately in the complex situations of daily existence. I become a better person as I become more curious about those around me, as I become more skilled in seeing from their point of view.
• Social-skills courses – Some possible components: how to listen well, be a good conversationalist, disagree with respect, ask for and offer forgiveness, patiently cultivate a friendship, sit with someone who is grieving or depressed. Schools should require students to take courses that teach these specific social skills, and thus prepare them for life with one another.
• Politics as a moral enterprise – “Statecraft is soulcraft. We can either elect people who try to embody the highest standards of honesty, kindness, and integrity, or elect people who shred those standards. Yes, of course people are selfish and life can be harsh. But over the centuries, civilizations have established rules and codes to nurture cooperation, to build trust and sweeten our condition. These include personal moral codes so we know how to treat one another well, ethical codes to help prevent corruption on the job and in public life, and the rules of the liberal world order so that nations can live in peace, secure within their borders. 

Healthy moral ecologies don’t just happen. They have to be seeded and tended by people who think and talk in moral terms, who try to model and inculcate moral behavior, who understand that we have to build moral communities because on our own, we are all selfish and flawed. Moral formation is best when it’s humble. It means giving people the skills and habits that will help them be considerate to others in the complex situations of life. It means helping people behave in ways that make other people feel included, seen, and respected.

Interdependence

This week's article summary is Forget Independence. Teach your Child This Instead.

The value/habit/virtue the author wants us to teach, model, and practice with our children is interdependence. 

American society stresses the importance of being independent. We want our kids to grow up self-reliant and confident in their uniqueness and individuality. At Trinity, we proudly say we develop in our students a strong sense of self. 

Yet, as we discussed over preplanning meetings, to truly thrive and be happy, humans need strong, trusting relationships.

Hence, while independence is certainly a part of who we are, it’s interdependence with others that makes us feel valued and fulfilled—the need to belong and the conscious effort to accept others (again what I talked about during preplanning).

At Trinity, we balance the development of sense of self with care and concern for others, yet I usually lead with self. Lately, I’ve wondered if I should switch the order and lead with care, kindness, and compassion for others, so it doesn’t seem I think development of self is more important than caring for and workong with others.

Rather than view independence and interdependence as two separate needs, the article interlocks them: we find fulfillment ‘from knowing one’s place in a community…that others value you and that you add value to others.’ I like how a fellow SAIS school, Duke School, finds the connection: ‘our children learn about self within the context of others.’

I know I’ve been redundant in these opening summaries by emphasizing relationships, togetherness, and community. Yet it’s these opening weeks that set the tone for the school and classroom climates we need and expect for a truly great school year!

Joe

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Early in the semester, Mike McLaughlin, a teacher in Cleveland, conducts a simple exercise with his sophomores. Take out a piece of paper, he’ll say, and make two lists: one with everything they’ve done over the past 24 hours that has contributed to their well-being and the other with everything others have done for them.

At first, most lists show a 50-50 split: They’ve studied hard, but their parents have fed and clothed them. Then McLaughlin presses them. Who teaches and coaches you? Who encourages you through setbacks? The students gradually revise their lists. By the end of the exercise, they realize that only about 5 percent of their well-being is because of their actions and 95 percent is because of the actions of others.

“The point is to plant this idea that they need people,” McLaughlin said, “and that there are people in this world who are going to need them, too.”

Many parents tend to focus on what we’re told is the ultimate goal of parenting: to raise independent, self-reliant adults. Independence is undoubtedly valuable. It helps our children think for themselves, develop and pursue their passions, and become self-sufficient and capable. 

But a growing group of parents are starting to realize that for our children to be healthy, happy and successful, we need to teach them a more profound lesson: interdependence,  that is, how to rely on others and how to be a person whom others can rely on, too.

What McLaughlin knows and what research suggests is that lasting self-worth cannot come from approval based solely on external rewards, such as trophies, college acceptance letters,  and fancy job offers. Rather, an understanding of one’s inherent value comes from knowing one’s place in a community — from the sense that others value you and that you add value to others. Researchers call this feeling “mattering”: Only by building interdependence can kids gain social proof that they do indeed matter.

Too often, in competitive environments, students believe that admitting they need support means they’re inadequate. It’s why so many adolescents suffer in silence until they implode. One student described the stress as feeling as though you’re “stranded on an island” — and yet, regardless of how high the water rose, she would “rather drown than ask for help.”

By contrast, I have found in my research that children trained in the skills of interdependence better handle setbacks or the uncertainties of the future because they are grounded in their communities.

The parents of these healthy achievers openly acknowledged the courage it takes to ask for and accept support. They taught their kids to “never to worry alone”, as psychiatrist Edward Hallowell has put it.

Parents of healthy achievers also taught their children the importance of offering help. They insisted on chores--not so much for the work ethic but because chores helped their children see that their contributions were needed within their household. These parents prized volunteer opportunities over good grades because helping others showed their kids how to bring themselves to the world.

But perhaps the most important thing parents can do to instill the mindset of interdependence is to model it themselves:

Show your children the nitty-gritty of times you’ve leaned on others. For instance, when my daughter struggled with a paper, I showed her the first edit of an article I’d written for this very newspaper’s science section: red marks everywhere. Initially, I felt embarrassed to need so much help. But quickly, I told her, I came to see it another way. I realized that my seasoned editor was investing in me, helping me become a better writer. I felt grateful for this show of support.

Name what often gets in the way of building interdependent relationships: envy and the shame it elicits when we think we don’t measure up. Social comparison is a natural part of being human, but, left unchecked, it can leave us deeply lonely. Instead, parents can normalize this universal feeling by admitting they feel envy from time to time, too, such as when they log on to social media and see an acquaintance’s fabulous vacation or when a colleague gets the promotion they were hoping for.

Talk through how you manage those uncomfortable feelings in healthy ways. We don’t have to judge ourselves for having these feelings, I’ve explained to my own kids, but we do have to hold ourselves accountable for how we act on them. Without awareness, our envy can drive us to gossip about or undermine the target of our envy, so that we look better by comparison. Envy poisons connection.

To model healthy competition, celebrate out loud the strengths you see in your children’s friends. What do their classmates or competitors do well, and what can your child learn from them? Highlight their shared goals — whether it’s becoming a better tennis player or navigating the same fraught college admissions process. Competition can be mutually beneficial when we encourage children to appreciate and learn from others.

As for the adults? When we’re tempted to go at life alone — to be the parent who does it all, to resist burdening others with our needs, to outcompete the Joneses — we can remind ourselves that independence isn’t the secret to success for us any more than it is for our kids.

We should teach interdependence because it helps our children thrive. But we should also practice interdependence because it helps us thrive, too.