Welcome to How to Be Brave

A newsletter for parents who want to help their kids to be better learners.

Ever worry that your kid doesn’t care enough about school? Or perhaps they worry too much, working furiously but with little joy or sense of purpose. Maybe you’ve wondered why so many kids seem to be both  bored and overwhelmed, not by turns but, apparently, at the same time. 

I’ve been knee deep in these questions with hundreds of teens, educators and parents for three years and I am so excited to announce the product of that work: The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better and Live Better, released on Jan 7 2025 by Crown and co-written with my friend and brilliant Brookings scholar, Rebecca Winthrop.

The book is for parents and teachers, coaches and caregivers, and anyone who cares about young people. It offers a simple framework to help you understand how kids learn, what gets in their way and, crucially, how we can help motivate them to learn well. Doing so will support them to feel well,and ultimately to live well. 

At its core, it is a book about how to develop agency: the ability to set meaningful goals, and marshal resources to meet them. Young people need this: It’s the armor that will protect them from the alarming hopelessness and anxiety they might sometimes feel, and one of the tools  most necessary when navigating an AI-driven world. 

Learning re­quires courage; we show you ways to help them be brave.

Think about what it takes to really learn something. You might need to ask questions in front of your peers; admit that you don’t understand something; test different ways of doing things (which might fail) and seek new strategies to try and succeed, or remove whatever obstacles are standing in your way. 

That’s why, at the same time as launching this book, I’m also launching this newsletter on Substack: How to Be Brave. It will take an expansive look at the intersection of learning, education, technology, and parenting — while also leaving plenty of room for the humor, joy and curiosity that often gets lost when we talk about how humans learn. I’ll be sharing lots of insights from the book, and also weighing in on timely topics, from smart phone bans to navigating cancel culture, to building a love of reading and helping every young person find a spark. I hope you’ll follow along and be part of the conversation. 

After thousands of interviews and conversations, and a lot of wonky research, here’s what I want parents to know most: You don’t have to be teachers or experts to support your teens to be better learners. You have everything you need: Deep love, a boatload of experience with your own kids and all the motivation in the world to help them learn well AND be well. The book sifts through the complex research in a lot of different fields (student engagement, motivation, learning science) to distill how to do this in practical, useful and realistic ways. 

The good news is that young people are hungry for knowledge: they actually want to develop the mindsets, dispositions and habits that will help them succeed in an age where agency, and not just relentless achievement will be valued. We call these Explorer skills (we developed four modes of learning, which I will talk about in my next post). We coach you on how to feed their minds, even when they act like they would rather eat nails than take advice from you. 

If the book sounds interesting (IT IS: I PROMISE) please pre-order here. If you do it now you get a sneak peek of some tips from the book and some extra goodies not in the book, including:

• For Parents: Signs your Child is in Passenger, Achiever, Resister, Explorer Mode

• For Teachers: Signs your Student is in Passenger, Achiever, Resister, Explorer Mode

• How to Have Better Conversations with your Child about school: Tips from Top Teachers

• Bridging the Divide between Belonging and Learning.

You will also be my new best friend.