Category: Uncategorized

70% of teens say anxiety is a major problem among people their age in the community where they live. An additional 26% say it’s a minor problem, and available data show that COVID has only exacerbated this problem.  More specifically,  Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies show that the majority of adolescents worldwide report… Continue reading Why Emotion Has to be a Part of Excellent Educational Support

If you follow our blog, you know that one of the core tenants of our framework is that students need to see their unique pathway to success. Evaluation is the first step that allows us to make that pathway visible for them. We can’t know how to get students where they want to go until… Continue reading How to Make Getting Your Child’s Evaluation Results a Positive Experience

After writing last week’s piece on negativity bias, I felt it important to address this question. While kids need to put energy and intention into focusing on the positive to perform their best in school, I want to be clear that I am not advocating for toxic positivity. Toxic positivity believes that people should maintain… Continue reading Is a Positive or Realistic Perspective More Helpful for Kids in School?

Just as your body is built from the foods you eat, your mind is built from the experiences you have. As you have more and more experiences, those experiences slowly shape how your brain works and how you think and act. But the problem is that to protect us, our brains naturally pay more attention… Continue reading How Negativity Bias Can Get In The Way Of Your Child’s Success

Many parents contact us after years of having hired tutor after tutor without seeing their child find success. When this is the case, they’re frustrated, the child is defeated, and no one is excited about starting another relationship with yet another tutor with little hope of seeing a different result. In all cases, but these… Continue reading 3 Revealing Questions You’ll Want to Ask Before You Hire Another Tutor

Before I founded School Without Suffering, I worked with two students who deeply impacted who I am as an educator and what would become SWS’s philosophy. I was trained as a traditional public school teacher in the philosophy of high expectations and rigorous standards. Those principles, along with urgency, were to be pillars of our… Continue reading Traditional VS Nontraditional Schools: How to Know Which is Right for Your Child

Your child has been progressing through school, homework assignments have been getting tougher, and workloads getting bigger. You notice your child starting to struggle in ways they never had before, so you signed them up for a study skills course. Which is fantastic! All students need to learn how to learn, and study skills are… Continue reading 3 Reasons Why Your Child Isn’t Really Getting Help from That Study Skills Course

Marion Marshall is an Emerita Professor of Educational Therapy, the principles of which academic coaching at School Without Suffering is based on. In her book Assessment in Educational Therapy, she tells the story of asking her class to list the reasons that one might evaluate a student.    When a list of the class responses… Continue reading Why Getting Your Child Evaluated for Learning Issues Can Spur On Their Success

Often when folks think about evaluation, they’re thinking about in the context of determining eligibility for special education services. While extremely common, this idea of evaluation is not only incomplete, it obscures the vast power that evaluation can actually provide. When public schools assess students for learning and attention issues, they are doing it to… Continue reading What no one is telling you about having your child evaluated for learning and attention issues — Part 3

When I set out to write this series, I knew the first thing I wanted to address was the anxiety involved in the evaluation journey. Almost every resource I’ve seen advising parents on this journey acknowledges the fear and worry that they’re experiencing. The message in these resources is, “Your anxiety is normal; everyone experiences… Continue reading What no one is telling you about having your child evaluated for learning and attention issues — Part 2