Here’s what the researchers actually did: Using brain imaging data from over a thousand children, they identified structural differences in brain networks that were associated with different clinical profiles and trajectories of ADHD. One of the networks they identified was associated with a profile characterized by emotion dysregulation, and people who fit that profile tended to have the worst outcomes over time.

That is a meaningful neuroimaging contribution. But they didn’t identify a brand new “subtype” of ADHD that includes emotion dysregulation. We have known for decades—clinically and empirically—that a substantial proportion of people with ADHD struggle with managing their emotions. Ask any parent of a child with ADHD or any professional who works with these kids. Emotion dysregulation is an extremely common and impairing feature of the disorder.

The fact that emotion dysregulation is commonly identified in people with ADHD makes a lot of sense. Emotion regulation is a core component of executive functioning, and ADHD, at its heart, is a disorder of executive functioning.

Let me back up a little bit and explain what I mean.

Executive functioning is the set of higher-order cognitive processes that allows for self-regulation. Self-regulation has three distinct components:

1. Cognitive regulation involves managing attention and thinking: things like shifting focus when something changes, holding information in mind, and filtering out irrelevant distractions. This is the domain most people associate with ADHD since it encompasses inattention, poor focus, and mind wandering.

2. Behavior regulation is the ability to manage and modulate your actions: things like stopping yourself from blurting something out, waiting your turn, and not slamming a door when you’re frustrated. Kids who struggle here often look impulsive or oppositional.

3. Emotion regulation is the ability to modulate emotional responses so they are proportional to the situation. People who struggle with emotion regulation have trouble tolerating frustration without falling apart, recovering from disappointment, and not letting a bad mood derail an entire afternoon. They tend to have explosive reactions, experience prolonged distress over seemingly small things, and struggle to soothe themselves after getting upset.

All three parts of EF are compromised to varying degrees in people with ADHD. The neuroimaging study confirms this at the level of brain structure, which is valuable. And it confirms that emotion dysregulation puts people with ADHD at elevated risk for persistent problems over time, as well as for higher rates of comorbidities with other psychopathologies, which should raise red flags for everyone involved in treatment.

So I think the takeaway about this study is: Emotion dysregulation is a core, neurobiologically distinct feature of ADHD for a great many kids, and therefore, emotion dysregulation must be a main treatment target.

Therapists must work with kids with ADHD to help them recognize when an emotion is escalating, to tolerate frustration, to understand why they react the way they do, and to repair relationships after an outburst. These are all learnable skills, and therapy should build them with deliberate, supported practice.

Also, we should consider reframing how we discuss ADHD more generally. When we talk about it primarily as an attention disorder, we implicitly signal that the emotional dimensions of the diagnosis are secondary. They’re not. For many kids, they’re the part that does the most damage to friendships, family relationships, and self-concept over time.

So, ultimately, I’m glad this study is getting some press. But the moral of the story isn’t “there’s a new subtype”; it’s that the emotional dimension of ADHD is real. Research keeps pointing us toward a more comprehensive model of treatment, so it seems about time that we act on it.

I still haven’t seen Ragtime, but I loved Caissie Levy in this! So excited about her Tony!

Why these sorts of policies exist at independent schools is really beyond me. Independent schools are allowed to do more or less whatever they want when it comes to supporting their students, so why are they requiring families to get private evaluations? Teachers are with these kids every day. They can see who’s struggling, and presumably they can fairly judge when and how to help.

Also, anecdotally, it seems that the overwhelming majority of neuropsych reports recommend extra time on tests, regardless of whether the kid in question demonstrates a functional impairment in school. So, by making the neuropsych recommendation the sole criteria, disability accommodations are being granted to many, many kids in independent schools who don’t have disabilities.

Ultimately, my impression is that outsourcing the decision making to a private evaluator, who the family selected and is paying, isn’t making the accommodations process more rigorous. It’s just making it more shady and expensive. And this matters, for reasons that go well beyond any individual student or school.

Public schools—which educate the vast majority of students in this country, including a disproportionate share of students with disabilities and limited financial resources—operate under an entirely different framework. Under Section 504 and IDEA, getting an accommodation like extended time requires meeting a legal definition of disability and demonstrating actual functional impairment in the school setting. You can’t get it just because a clinician your parents hired put it in a report.

And a downstream consequence of these misaligned systems is unequal access to accommodations on tests like the SAT and ACT. Many standardized testing companies grant accommodations at least in part based on whether a kid has gotten them at school. If a student has a documented history of receiving extended time, they have a track record to support the accommodation, and it’s basically rubber stamped. If they have no such history, they have a much harder time getting it.

So what we end up with is a world where students from independent schools—who, on average, arrive at college admissions with significant advantages in terms of resources, tutoring, and preparation—are also disproportionately taking standardized tests with extended time. Meanwhile, public school students, who had to clear a much higher bar to receive any accommodation at all, are not.

We are not measuring the same thing. We are not looking at a level playing field. We are looking at a system in which the conditions of a high-stakes test vary based on family wealth and school type, and we pretend like it’s fair.

Independent schools have fewer legal obligations to students with disabilities than public schools do. That’s true, and there are good reasons for it. But fewer legal obligations doesn’t mean no ethical ones. In this particular instance, independent schools should be playing by the same rules as everyone else, not because the law requires it, but because the alternative is using disability rights infrastructure to give already-advantaged kids another leg up.

Accommodations are not a commodity. They’re a civil rights protection. So when they’re available for purchase, something has gone seriously wrong.

Love!!!

Lucy is a 10th grader at a competitive independent school. She’s doing okay: this year, she got mostly As and Bs and a C+ in advanced chemistry that she’s not happy about. She and her parents came to me because Lucy has been struggling with anxiety and noticed that she tends to run out of time on tests. She tried extended time on a few exams through informal arrangements with teachers, and she felt like she was finally able to show what she knew. The Joneses wanted me to do an evaluation to support a formal accommodation for time-and-a-half.

Testing showed average abilities across the board. Behavior rating scales and clinical interviews indicated significant anxiety, but even so, Lucy’s academic skills appeared appropriately developed even under timed conditions. Her academic fluency scores—like her grades—were solid. So while the data did support an anxiety diagnosis, they did not support functional impairment in academics. And, in the absence of a functional impairment, I didn’t think the extended time recommendation was appropriate.

I’ve seen cases like this almost every week for the past several years. The details change–sometimes it’s attention, sometimes it’s anxiety, sometimes it’s both–but the shape of my conversation with the family is pretty similar. And I want to walk you through it, because I think it gets at something important that we need to discuss honestly and openly.

At our feedback session, I deliver the news that, despite her anxiety, Lucy's academic skills look good and she doesn't need testing accommodations. Lucy and her parents push back hard, imploring me to change my mind; the school won't grant extra time unless I recommend it.1

So I ask Lucy to review, in her own words, what’s going on. She’s articulate about it. Time pressure stresses her out. She second-guesses herself. She knows the material but feels rushed, and that anxiety compounds. With more time, she feels calmer and performs better. She believes–and her parents believe–that standard time limits are getting in the way of her reaching her full potential.

Honestly, she’s probably right.

Research suggests that most students perform better when given more time on tests. This isn’t a Lucy problem. It’s an everyone problem. When kids sit down to take a test, they are being asked to demonstrate mastery of skills they have just recently learned. At that point, most of those skills aren’t yet automatic, and working through problems takes effort and time. Plus, time pressure introduces stress, and stress interferes with performance. When you remove the clock, kids tend to do better. So Lucy tried extended time and it helped. That is real. I’m not going to tell her she imagined it or that it doesn’t matter.

So I tell her I hear and trust what she is saying. But then I say something that tends to meaningfully shift the direction of the conversation.

“Even though I agree with everything you’ve told me, I don’t think you’re disabled.”

She looks at me like I’ve said something strange. No, of course I’m not.

“Let’s talk about that,” I say. “Because what you’re asking for is a disability accommodation.”

Families seeking testing accommodations must understand that academic accommodations like extended time aren’t a school support or a wellness intervention. They fall under disability rights legislation–specifically Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and IDEA–and exist to protect people with disabilities from discrimination and to ensure equal access to major life activities, including education.

Lucy is getting As and Bs. She’s completing her coursework. Her academic skills are nicely developed. She’s accessing school. According to my clinical judgement–and, in my understanding, the law–she does not have a disability. She has anxiety that is unpleasant and real and worth treating. She has a preference for modified testing conditions that is completely understandable, and a demonstrated experience of doing better under those conditions. But, since she is not disabled, she’s not entitled to extra time.

The Joneses push back hard. Of course they’re not arguing that Lucy is disabled. But she does better with more time, the accommodation helps her, and the school should want to support her. Plus, lots of kids without disabilities are already getting extra time, so if she doesn’t have it, she’s actually at a disadvantage.

At this point, I have to hold the line. Those things are all true—and I especially agree with their assessment of systems-level problems at Lucy’s school—but I still cannot recommend that she needs testing accommodations. The word “need,” in this context, means something specific: that without it, she cannot access her education. But the overwhelming evidence in front of us says she can.

I hope I don’t sound too judgey and unsympathetic, because the truth is, I genuinely believe Lucy is stressed, and she needs real treatment for her anxiety. I think she is attending a school where accommodations are abused. And I am a firm believer that the fairest solution for all kids would be for schools to rethink how they administer assessments. If a test isn’t measuring speed, why impose a time limit for anyone at all? But that’s a different conversation than the one about Lucy’s specific need for disability accommodations. And the last thing I want to do is to further damage the integrity of a system designed to protect people who genuinely cannot access school without support.

In the end, I referred the Joneses to a therapist who specializes in adolescent anxiety. I told Lucy that what she was experiencing was real and worth addressing. She left disappointed. Her parents left frustrated. It was as if I was refusing to give them the thing they had paid for.

That’s okay. Because, in my office, disability accommodations aren’t for sale.

So excited for this theater kid’s new album!

That said, she acknowledged that his presentation at school was very different. His teacher saw a totally different kid. There, he was reportedly cooperative and engaged. But, she said, Ethan was good at masking. He worked so hard all day to hold it together, and then he got home and totally lost it.

Unsurprisingly, on behavior rating scales, Maya’s ratings were significantly elevated across almost every domain: inattention, hyperactivity, emotional regulation, flexibility, working memory. But Ethan’s teacher, Ms. Reyes, rated him squarely within normal limits on every scale.

This kind of discrepancy isn’t uncommon. Parents and teachers see kids in very different environments with different demands. Even though they describe very different behaviors, both reporters may very well be right.

So I went to observe Ethan in his classroom.

He wasn’t particularly easy to find; nothing about him stood out. He was seated with a small group during a math activity, engaged, taking turns, raising his hand. When the class transitioned to reading, he moved with them without incident. He chatted appropriately with a classmate during a brief break. Ms. Reyes redirected him once, gently, when he got a little silly, and he pulled it back. Nothing I saw was outside the range of a typical third grader.

Direct testing told the same story. Ethan’s cognitive profile was unremarkable. His processing speed was fine. His working memory was fine. His attention was fine. Qualitatively, he looked good, and his social skills during our sessions seemed age-appropriate.

So he didn’t meet criteria for either of Maya’s suggested diagnoses. ADHD and ASD both require that symptoms be present and impairing in multiple settings. They weren’t, so the diagnostic thresholds simply weren’t met. And lowering the bar to accommodate a single-setting presentation would mean the diagnosis explained nothing, because it would apply to almost any child who struggles at home.

What the evaluation did reveal was a child who did well in high-structure environments. School, with its predictable schedule, clear expectations, consistent adult presence, and built-in transitions, was working for Ethan. Home, with its more open-ended rhythms and fewer external organizers, was asking him to provide his own structure, and that was difficult for him.

This is not how a kid with ADHD or ASD would present. They don’t get to leave their difficulties at the classroom door. Sure, structure helps these kids, but they continue to show signs of their disorders when provided typical school supports. Ethan, on the other hand, was indistinguishable from his peers.

When I shared this with Maya, I was careful. I didn’t tell her the behaviors at home weren’t real. They were. I didn’t tell her there was nothing to address. There was. But I asked her to reframe: not “Ethan is masking a disorder at school,” but “Ethan is responding to supports and structure at school, and home he needs more of both.”

That reframe opened the door to solutions. It stopped the search for a diagnosis that didn’t fit and started a conversation about what this particular kid actually needed, which, in this case, was a more predictable after-school routine, an earlier and more consistent bedtime, and a lot less unstructured time between school pickup and dinner.

It wasn’t what Maya came in expecting to hear, but it was the more honest answer, and the one that actually pointed somewhere useful.

Thanks to my mom for sending me this one!

Charlie had created the study guide after her teacher encouraged the class to color-code their notes as an organizational strategy: a way of sorting information visually to make it stick. Charlie had taken this directive very seriously.

“Can you quiz me?” she asked, uncapping a teal pen. “I want to make sure I know everything.”

We began. And within minutes it was clear that something had gone wrong. She could barely recall isolated facts, and she certainly could not connect them; she seemed to have no idea how to explain why something led to something else or how specific ideas related.

Charlie was deflated. She’d put real time and care into the study guide and had expected, reasonably, to be rewarded for it. But she’d spent so much time making the information look beautiful that she never actually thought deeply about it.

I see this sort of thing all the time. A student spends an hour preparing to study–organizing, highlighting, color-coding, whatever–and then fails to actually study, having conflated the preparation with the task itself.

This isn’t totally irrational. Organizing feels like learning. It’s active, it involves the material, and it produces something tangible at the end. And, of course, visual organization of information is helpful: notes should be legible, and related material should be grouped.

But, while creating a study guide can be a solid first step in studying, it is never the whole process. Study guides make learning possible; they don’t make learning happen. You need a tidy workspace before you can cook, but cleaning the kitchen doesn’t make dinner!

When kids study, the organizational strategies that most effectively support memory are cognitive rather than physical. They target how we consolidate and store information, not how the page looks. Chunking and mnemonics are good examples. And the most effective organizational systems are the ones you barely notice: the ones that keep focus on the content rather than drawing attention to themselves. A student’s system for managing information should never be so elaborate that it consumes the cognitive energy that should be going toward the content.

But remember that no single organizational strategy is ever a substitute for repetition, rehearsal, and retrieval practice. Once you feel like you have the information organized, test yourself. Close the book. Try to explain the concept out loud, write it from memory, or teach it to someone else. If you can do that, you’re ready.

So Charlie and I spent the rest of our time together doing something not-so-beautiful: I’d ask a question, she’d try to answer it without looking at the study guide, and then we’d check, rinse, and repeat. She got things wrong. We talked through why. The connections that hadn’t formed on paper started forming in conversation. By the end she knew considerably more because she finally stopped working on the study guide and started working with the ideas that it contained.

She didn’t use a single jelly pen the whole time.

Did you know she’s on Substack?

The most common sleep disorder in childhood is behavioral insomnia of childhood, affecting an estimated 10–30% of children. Decades of research consistently show that behavioral interventions—whether implemented by caregivers or directly with the child—are the most effective, evidence-based treatment for these sleep difficulties. That said, I’m frequently asked about faster, easier solutions. Parents and caregivers understandably want something that works now. Traditionally, those questions center around medications or supplements, but more recently, I’ve been hearing a new one: could dental or orthodontic treatment be the missing piece to better sleep? Is this an overlooked, insurance-covered solution, or just another “quick fix” that doesn’t live up to the hype?

Before we even answer that question, it’s important to note that when we work with children on sleep behaviorally, we always begin by screening for underlying medical concerns, including sleep-disordered breathing and obstructive sleep apnea. Some of the most common red flags we look for are snoring, pauses in breathing during sleep, and night sweats. If those symptoms are present, further medical evaluation is absolutely warranted.

So where do dental and orthodontic interventions fit in? The answer is that they can be very helpful, but only for the right group of children. There is solid evidence supporting the use of oral appliances—such as palate expanders, Twin Blocks, and mandibular advancement “mouthguards”—in reducing snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. However, research also tells us that sleep apnea and related breathing disorders affect only about 1–4% of children. When you step back and look at those numbers, it becomes clear that the vast majority of children presenting to me with sleep concerns are not experiencing apnea—they are experiencing behavioral insomnia.

So, will a retainer fix Bobby’s sleep? Probably not. But what will are consistency, predictability, clear routines, and thoughtful parental responses. These are the interventions that are most strongly supported by research and most likely to lead to meaningful, lasting change. And yes, those approaches take time, effort, and follow-through. I say this not just as a clinician, but as a parent: life is busy, and the appeal of a quick fix is very real. But when it comes to children’s sleep, the evidence is clear—lasting improvement comes from putting in the work, not bypassing it.

lol

That said, given what I know about Gaynor, I am fairly confident that what I read in The Free Press does not accurately represent why Dr. Levkoff lost her job there.

In the piece, Dr. Levkoff frames her departure as ideological persecution, arguing that she lost her job because she gave voice to perspectives outside progressive orthodoxy. Though it’s a compelling narrative, I don’t think it’s completely accurate; instead, I imagine Dr. Levkoff was let go after she reposted content on social media that denied the identity of nonbinary people, and families of nonbinary students at the school reasonably found it offensive.

Now, I think the more interesting question is whether what someone posts on their personal social media should factor into their professional employment at all. A reasonable person might argue that it shouldn’t, and employment shouldn’t limit free speech. I understand that argument, but I think it fails to consider the specific nature of Dr. Levkoff’s work.

Dr. Levkoff is a sex educator, not an accountant or a software developer. She claims to have built her career on the premise that young people deserve honest, affirming, expert guidance about sex and identity. Therefore, she should be aware of her position, her platform, and the effect of that platform on her students.

At Gaynor, she was working with children and adolescents who are, by definition, in the middle of one of the most vulnerable periods of identity development. That vulnerability is especially acute for young people who belong to sexual and gender minority groups. So, as a sex educator, she, of all people, should understand that a teenager who identifies as nonbinary might suffer real harm if they are forced to attend a class on gender and sexuality that is facilitated by someone who has publicly broadcast skepticism about whether their specific identity is real. When Dr. Levkoff’s personal speech started to materially undermine her ability to serve the families at Gaynor, it became a legitimate professional problem.

Truthfully, the main point I want to make here extends way beyond Logan Levkoff. I think anyone who works with kids takes on a responsibility that doesn’t simply end at close of business. We all have a duty to be thoughtful about how our public and private communications might affect the kids in our care.

Of course I need to acknowledge that there are real conversations to be had about the limits of employer reach into private life and about ideological conformity in schools. But this story is about a sex educator who denigrated students she was charged with supporting. The school made a call, and based on what I know about Gaynor—and what I know about the obligations that come with this kind of work—I think it was the right one.

speaking of sex ed…

But I want to be clear: what they did isn’t research, and it isn’t a substitute for expertise.

The main problem is confirmation bias. It’s remarkably easy to find a study that confirms what you already hope or believe is true. But science is an argument, not a chorus. For every study pointing in one direction, there is another pointing in the opposite. The truth accumulates slowly through consensus across a large body of work. That means you have to read broadly enough to encounter the full landscape of a topic, beyond what appeared in your first search. And breadth alone isn’t sufficient. You have to read critically, weighing things like study design, author credentials, sample size, recency, and risk of bias. So–setting aside the difficulty of doing research–evaluating it is a genuine skill that takes time to develop.

So what should a non-expert actually do? My recommendation is to seek out a systematic review. Unlike a conventional literature summary, a systematic review follows rigorous, transparent methodology. Authors document precisely how studies were identified, what criteria governed their inclusion, and how they evaluated the quality of the evidence. Much of what makes independent research so difficult for a non-specialist is handled for you. And a well-conducted systematic review tells you what the literature says overall, helping make sense of the contradictions within it.

So if you want a simple starting point: open Google Scholar, search “systematic review” alongside whatever topic you’re investigating, and find the most recent one available. It won’t make you an expert, but it will give you a much more solid foundation than a headline.

Leaving you this week with "Body Electric" from Fame. Enjoy!

Before we talk about it, though, I want to be clear about one common misconception: dyslexia is not a visual disorder. It is a language-based learning disorder typically rooted in phonological processing deficits. Reversing letters and seeing words “move on the page” are myths. Still, though, making text physically larger tends to help enormously. Here’s why.

Even though dyslexia isn’t primarily visual, the visual environment on a page still matters. Visual crowding—the way tightly packed letters interfere with our ability to identify individual characters—is a real challenge for many struggling readers. When letters are small and crammed together, we have to work to isolate each one before we can begin the work of decoding. When students have baseline difficulty matching letter symbols to sounds, this can be one more demand stacked on top of an already taxing process. Increasing font size and letter spacing reduces the crowding effect so the reader can spend less effort on visual parsing and more on the actual task of reading.

The benefits don’t stop at reading. Writing big is equally powerful as a math intervention.

Math requires students to manage spatial relationships on the page: columns that must stay aligned, digits that carry from one place to the next, fractions that need clearly separated numerators and denominators, etc. When a student writes small and cramped, the spatial relationships collapse. When students write larger, the work becomes more organized. The spatial structure of the problem is preserved on the page so they can see and keep track of what they wrote down.

The reasons for these benefits are twofold. First, writing big reduces fine motor demands. Many students with learning disorders also have co-occurring difficulties with fine motor control, so writing small symbols requires a level of control and precision that can be exhausting. Larger writing allows looser, more fluid movements. The physical act of writing becomes less taxing, leaving more cognitive bandwidth for the content itself.

Also, writing big supports attention to detail. When numbers and letters are larger, a student can easily spot the difference between a plus sign and a multiplication sign and keep track of negatives. Errors that come from not quite seeing what you’ve written drop dramatically.

Ultimately, writing big may not be fancy, but it’s accessible. It costs nothing. It requires no special software or equipment. But the benefits touch nearly every academic challenge a student with a learning disorder faces.

So thankful that these are not my colleagues

As I wrap up writing, there is one major theme that I have been thinking a lot about which is: we’ve made a lot of progress reducing stigma around diagnoses, but we haven’t necessarily reduced stigma around the underlying struggles. As a result, diagnostic labels are often necessary to provide people cover, grace, and a framework for making sense of the things in life that are really hard. For example, it’s understandable to fail an English test if you’re dyslexic—it’s not your fault, and it doesn’t mean you’re a terrible student—but if you don’t have that diagnosis, then you don’t have an explanation when you struggle the same way. I don’t say this to sound patronizing or to cast doubt on the validity of the diagnoses; instead, I’m pointing this out as a meaningful aspect of diagnosis that many people find really helpful and that clinicians should take into account when using diagnostic labels (or not).

At the same time, I’ve been sitting with a worry that diagnosis can sometimes slip into something that forecloses growth. If dyslexia means something is wrong with your brain and you just can’t read, full stop, there’s a ceiling on what you can accomplish. If ADHD means something is wrong with your brain and you just can’t manage your time, same problem. I think we have to be really intentional, especially when we’re working with kids, about holding competing ideas at once: this is real, this is hard, this is not your fault AND you can learn to read, you can develop the executive function skills you need, you are not stuck. Even if we don’t frame this as assigning fault or personal responsibility, we should frame it as maintaining agency, and we should celebrate and validate the hard work inherent in treating these disorders.

Then I read this piece about Tourette’s Disorder. TLDR: At the BAFTAs, John Davidson, an activist with Tourette’s whose life inspired an award-winning film, involuntarily shouted a racial slur while two Black actors were on stage presenting an award. The audience had been warned in advance that this sort of thing might happen, but even so, Davidson left out of shame and embarrassment and later issued a public apology for what happened. The piece argues that shouting the slur wasn’t Davison’s fault, and he never should have been expected to apologize for something he didn’t choose to do and couldn’t control.

I’ll be upfront that I did not follow this story closely and I am not a TD expert. But I found myself agreeing with the author’s framing and feeling that an apology wasn’t owed. And then I caught myself because I don’t feel this way about other disorders. I think, for instance, a kid with dyslexia who avoided weeks of schoolwork should be required to make it up, and a kid with ADHD who impulsively punched someone on the playground should absolutely have to make amends. Of course I think both of these kids should be given grace, empathy, and support, but we should also maintain high expectations. All of it, together, simultaneously. Both/and, not either/or.

So why does this story about TD feel different to me? Why does this diagnosis specifically feel more like something external that happened to this person, something they’re not responsible for changing? It’s not that all these diagnoses are fundamentally different in kind. They are all neurodevelopmental disorders. They all have identifiable neural correlates. They all exist on a continuum from normal to abnormal (yes, even TD; transient tics, for instance, are common in the general population).

I’ve been turning this over and I think it might come down to treatment. With dyslexia and ADHD, we have solid, evidence-based interventions, and we routinely see kids with these diagnoses make real gains. With TD, maybe the general impression (even if that impression is not entirely accurate) is that the treatment picture is murkier, and maybe that’s quietly shaping my intuitions about agency and responsibility in ways I haven’t previously examined.

Maybe the difference is also familiarity. Dyslexia and ADHD are far more common than TD, so we encounter more people who have them, we have more personal experience with them, and that shapes our impressions of what these disorders look like and what people with them are capable of.

I don’t have answers here, just questions, and my mind is currently mush. But I think it’s worth examining the possibility that our intuitions about disability, agency, and responsibility are less principled than we’d like to believe, and more shaped by exposure, treatment optimism, and our own unexamined biases than anything else.

This is pure joy and worth the full 1:22.

“There’s going to be so much sugar,” she told me anxiously. “Cereal for breakfast, juice boxes everywhere, cookies after dinner. And when Eli eats too much sugar, he becomes a different kid.”

She explained that sugar made her nine-year-old son totally hyperactive. Sometimes, if he ate too much sugar, he even got agitated, snapping at other kids or complaining loudly. Even worse than the initial hyperactivity was the crash that followed, complete with intense moodiness, tears over minor frustrations, and exhaustion that somehow made him less likely to go to bed. How could she possibly get Eli to avoid sugar when every other child would be eating their bodyweight in it?

I didn’t doubt her observations. Rachel knew her son. But when I told her that these problems probably weren’t caused by sugar, she was surprised.

She’s not alone. At this point, it’s pretty much conventional wisdom that sugar causes behavior changes in kids. But science doesn’t support it.

To be clear, when it comes to sugar and behavior, we’re not lacking evidence. This isn’t some emerging area where scientists are still piecing together preliminary findings. On the contrary, we have decades of high-quality research, including meta-analyses that synthesize results across many studies, suggesting that sugar doesn’t cause behavior problems in children. So if the evidence is this compelling, why do so many of us remain convinced otherwise?

I think the issue dates back to 1975 when pediatric allergist Benjamin Feingold published the book Why Your Child Is Hyperactive. He proposed that certain things added to our food, including sugar, were responsible for hyperactivity and other developmental problems in children. Here was a doctor offering a villain and a solution, and his book resonated with parents struggling with their kids’ difficult behaviors.

Even after subsequent research failed to validate his claims, people remained attached to this idea. And now, decades later, the message is constantly amplified on social media where clickbaity misinformation spreads faster than peer-reviewed research ever can.

But the thing that really cements the sugar-behavior connection is that our own eyes seem to routinely confirm it. Think about where children typically consume a lot of sugar. Birthday parties. Holiday gatherings. School celebrations. Temple retreats! These environments are all stimulating and exciting. Kids are running around with their friends, staying up late, and energized by noise and activity. Of course they’re hyperactive! And many get agitated and crash afterward.

But we must remember that correlation is not causation! When we test sugar consumption in calm, controlled environments, the behavior effects disappear. It’s the party, not the cake, that’s causing them to act chaotic.

When we reconceptualize the problem as behavioral and environmental, there’s actually a lot we can do to help.

For instance, I thought Eli would do better if he knew what to expect, so I suggested that Rachel spend some time reviewing the schedule and the activities with him in advance. I also figured that Eli would probably need some quiet time in the midst of a very busy schedule, so I suggested that Rachel build in breaks throughout the day. Finally, Rachel and I discussed Eli’s early signs of agitation. Rachel told me that, typically, he’d be silly and loud before he had a full meltdown. So we agreed, if she saw things moving in that direction, they should leave the activity early and avoid a problem altogether, rather than trying to power through and dealing with it afterward. None of these strategies were as simple as dietary modifications, but they directly addressed what was going on.

Rachel left our conversation reassured about the retreat, but I continued to wonder how we solve the larger problem of misinformation. Individual correction helps, but it doesn’t scale. The forces perpetuating common parenting myths are powerful and self-reinforcing.

Unfortunately, scientists bear some responsibility. Research papers sit behind paywalls, written in technical language inaccessible to most. Scientists rarely engage directly with parents, and when they do, they sometimes come across as dismissive or condescending toward people’s lived experiences. So when parents hear conflicting messages—a viral TikTok versus a study—they often trust the source that seems to understand their actual life, even if that source is technically wrong.

We need scientists who are also skilled communicators, who can meet parents with empathy and evidence. They must not dismiss parents’ observations—Rachel really does see Eli struggle when he’s amped up on junk food—but instead reframe what those observations mean.

Loved seeing this surprise guest at halftime yesterday!

For example, she needed to photograph some furniture she wanted to sell and post it on Facebook Marketplace. It seemed simple, but it had been sitting undone for weeks, and as her new furniture began to arrive, her apartment became cluttered with duplicate dressers and chairs. I suggested she invite a friend over after work that evening, treat her to dinner, and tackle it together.

She looked at me confused. “Why would I ask someone to help with something so easy?”

“You can do it alone,” I said. “But you don’t. Your friend won’t let you put this off for another week.”

This is advice I find myself giving often. Need to return shoes at Bloomingdales? Schedule lunch and shopping with a friend. Want to work out more? Find a workout buddy, sign up for a class, or, if you can swing it, hire a trainer.

The benefits are threefold. First, this approach clears mental clutter. Once you know exactly when you’ll handle something, you can focus on what’s in front of you right now without that nagging feeling of everything else you could or should be doing. And you’re no longer staring down an endless to-do list wondering where to even begin.

Second, there’s accountability. There’s social pressure in showing up for someone else. And, with something like an exercise class or a trainer, there’s financial pressure, too; you’re not just skipping a workout, you’re wasting money. These external forces tend to be more motivating than sheer willpower alone.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, doing tasks with others makes them more fun. You’re not just doing chores if you’re also spending time with a friend. And you’re less likely to avoid tasks when you have a reason to look forward to doing them.

It’s a real bummer to feel paralyzed when you want to feel productive. An appointment in your calendar, especially one involving another person, is a commitment. And commitments, unlike intentions, have a way of actually happening.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I’m so jealous of people who haven’t watched Schitt’s Creek yet because I’m in a real TV drought and wish I could start over and see it for the first time now.

Contrast my response to autistic Barbie with my reaction to the bald American Girl Doll, which was entirely positive. Eleanor and I visited the store in midtown for a birthday party last weekend, and when Eleanor pointed out the doll to me in the long display case that housed all the Truly Me dolls, I found myself thinking how profound it must be for girls who have lost their hair to see themselves reflected there, and to have their experience acknowledged as simply one way of being in the world.

It wasn’t until days later, thinking about my contradictory reactions, that I realized the difference was in how the dolls were packaged and presented. Autistic Barbie (named as such by Mattel, not me) is precisely that: a conventionally beautiful woman in a mini dress who arrives in her box with noise-cancelling headphones, a fidget spinner, and an AAC device. The doll encourages play that centers her diagnosis and her functional support needs as her defining features. She is Autistic Barbie and virtually nothing else.

The bald American Girl, by contrast, is a blank slate. Like the other Truly Me dolls, she comes in a box wearing the standard American Girl uniform, and everything else is sold separately. She has no hair, but otherwise, who she is remains open to interpretation. The child is invited to build her story (yes, by purchasing other outfits and accessories, but that’s the American Girl business model!), and the play is open-ended in a way that autistic Barbie’s seems closed.

So while I applaud Mattel for representing autistic people with this new Barbie doll, I wish they had taken the American Girl approach: sell Barbies in generic outfits and offer the adaptive accessories separately. Imagine how a girl can own the American Girl Doll with no hair, and then she might purchase the gymnastics set and sleepover set, constructing a narrative about a girl with a medical condition who is athletic and devoted to her friendships. Likewise, imagine a girl assembling her Barbie’s identity, buying the noise-canceling headphones alongside the vet kit and a soccer ball to create a story of an autistic woman who is intellectually curious, professionally accomplished, and passionate about animals and sports.

People contain multitudes and contradictions, and it matters that our toys encourage storytelling about characters who contain multitudes and contradictions, too. But, somehow, we’ve become so committed to increasing representation and visibility that we’ve created an essentializing narrative that suggests people are defined by diagnoses and disabilities, rather than by the full complexity of who they are. The toys we give our children should invite them to imagine richer stories than that because their play informs how they come to understand themselves and those around them.

Let me know if you can find the full version of this gem!

Both thought the other’s approach was actively harmful. Sarah criticized Maya for disconnecting from the children, referring to Maya’s tendency to walk away from conflicts as passive-aggressive avoidance. Maya criticized Sarah for failing to notice when things were too heated to be productive, when Sarah’s own agitation was making things worse, and when the “talks” had devolved into screaming matches that left everyone feeling even worse than when they started.

I sided with Maya. I thought her instinct was right: that sometimes the most connecting thing you can do is give everyone space to calm down. She and her kids had a secure attachment. They could tolerate her brief absence. What they couldn’t tolerate was being trapped in an escalating fight with a parent who was also having a temper tantrum.

Later that week, I saw another mother, Jennifer, whose eight-year-old son, Isaac, would, like Sarah, Maya, and their kids, lose his cool. Isaac’s occupational therapist had taught Jennifer a thousand co-regulation strategies–deep breathing, sensory tools, muscle relaxation, calm voices, you name it–but every attempt to co-regulate seemed to agitate him further. He didn’t want Jennifer close; he wanted space.

Both stories illustrate that taking time out is part of healthy coping.

Most people think of time out as a punishment. They picture a child sitting miserably on a step or in a corner, banished for bad behavior. But that’s not what time out is supposed to be.

Time out should be reconceptualized as time out from positive reinforcement. In other words, when someone is engaging in undesired behavior, they’re often getting something out of it—attention, a reaction, engagement–even if it seems negative. Time out removes that payoff temporarily; it breaks whatever cycle is maintaining the behavior. So people who take time out need not suffer. Instead, they should take a brief, boring pause that helps everyone reset.

Kids don’t really know how to use time outs effectively on their own, so sometimes parents need to enforce time outs to teach them. Here are some principles you need to follow when you’re implementing time out for your child:

• Don’t make it punishing. Speak calmly and matter-of-factly, and keep it brief. No lectures, no yelling, no lengthy conversations about feelings. Think of yourself as a referee calling a brief pause in a game rather than a judge handing down a sentence.

• Make it boring. Time out shouldn’t be stimulating or interesting. It’s not entertainment. It’s just a neutral pause.

• Make it brief. A good rule of thumb is one minute of time out per year of age. A five-year-old gets five minutes. Any longer and it becomes punishing.

• Reinforce the positive once it’s done. This is the part most people skip, and it’s the most important. When time out ends, reconnect positively. Return quickly to warmth and praise. Don’t dwell on the misbehavior or demand lengthy apologies or explanations. The point isn’t to make sure they’ve really learned their lesson; it’s simply to help everyone get back to baseline.

Taking time out for yourself as a parent requires a different approach, but the underlying principle is the same: you’re creating space to chill out so you can reconnect effectively.

• Name it clearly. Tell your child what you’re doing and why. “I’m feeling too upset to talk about this right now. I’m going to take a few minutes to calm down, and then we’ll figure this out together.” Model emotional awareness and healthy boundaries.

• Make it predictable. If you regularly take time to cool down, your kids learn that your absence is temporary and purposeful, not a rejection. Secure attachment can absolutely tolerate a parent stepping away briefly.

• Keep it proportionate. You don’t need an hour. Usually 10ish minutes is long enough to calm down, short enough that you’re not avoiding.

• Come back. This is non-negotiable. When you’ve calmed down, return and re-engage. Your child needs to learn that taking space means creating conditions to solve a problem rather than abandoning it.

Taking time out is a totally healthy thing to do when we’re overwhelmed. We step back, regulate, and return. It’s not weak, it’s not passive-aggressive, and it’s not abusive; instead, it’s wisdom worth passing on.

***

Happy Holidays!

Lili wasn’t the type of parent to ignore a problem. She was thoughtful and clinically minded. She kept up with the latest research and joined a local parenting group. So when Colin’s temper would start to flare, she knew what she needed to do: she encouraged him to go to his room and take out his frustration on his Nugget couch. She suggested a similar approach to his preschool teacher, who created a “feelings corner” where Colin could bang on a pillow when he got upset. The other moms in her parenting group thought this was exactly right. They agreed that Colin just needed a safe outlet for his anger. Once he got it all out, he’d be fine.

But he wasn’t fine. As the weeks went by, Colin seemed angrier and more aggressive than ever. Lili came to me frustrated and confused.

Lili isn’t alone. In my practice, I encounter versions of this story nearly every day. Fifteen-year-olds who insist they need to slam their bedroom doors and scream expletives. Parents who say that yelling helps to blow off steam. The underlying assumption is always the same: letting out aggression in a relatively harmless way is a healthy, productive way of handling our angry impulses.

It seems reasonable. But it’s wrong.

The roots of this misconception stretch back all the way to Aristotle, who wrote about “katharsis”—a form of emotional release through drama. Sigmund Freud extended this idea, theorizing that negative emotions build up within individuals like pressure in a vessel, and that discharging those emotions is the best way to reduce them. Today, we’ve fully bought into the therapeutic benefits of catharsis. We think we operate like pressure cookers: if we don’t vent the steam, we’ll explode. This idea has been popularized by everyone from pop culture figures to self-help writers to mental health professionals themselves.

But study after study demonstrates that venting anger does not, in fact, reduce it. Research shows no reduction in physiological arousal after venting. And venting doesn’t help us treat other people better afterward.

Some people argue, “What’s the harm? If beating up a Nugget couch or pillow isn’t hurting anyone, why not let people do it?”

The problem is that it can be harmful. Venting often increases hostility and aggression rather than reducing it. It makes the anger persist longer than it would otherwise and elevates both psychological and physiological arousal.

So why do we keep doing it?

First, there’s social learning. We see other people reacting to anger with expressions of aggression and hostility—screaming, cursing, stomping their feet. We’re told this is a safe and acceptable way to deal with anger, so we do the same. Over time, it becomes a habit.

Second, there’s a weird short-term payoff. It genuinely feels good to act angrily and aggressively in the moment. That pleasant feeling reinforces the behavior, making it more likely to occur in the future.

Finally, anger always dissipates on its own. Over time, we inevitably feel less angry and return to baseline. And then we mistakenly credit the venting for what was really just the passage of time.

So what should we do instead? If we’re going to stick with the pressure cooker metaphor, the best way to avoid an explosion isn’t to vent the steam; it’s to lower the heat. The evidence supports what we might call the “fake it til you make it” approach: act calm, and the calm feelings will follow.

Here are some strategies that actually work, many borrowed from cognitive behavioral therapy:

• Cognitive restructuring: Challenging and reframing angry thoughts

• Thought stopping: Interrupting angry ruminations

• Deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation: Lowering physiological arousal

• Taking a time-out: Pausing to reset

• Turning attention to pleasant topics and activities: Redirecting focus

• Doing the opposite: Actively do something kind instead of hostile

Now, let me be clear: if a child is routinely acting physically aggressive toward other children, expecting them to eliminate all aggressive behavior immediately is unrealistic. In that context, redirecting them to hit a pillow instead of a person is a reasonable intermediate step. But it shouldn’t be the end goal, because hitting the pillow isn’t actually teaching them to cope with anger effectively.

So, when Lili came into my office saying that Colin just needed to let his anger out, I told her that her instinct to help was right. But the strategy was wrong, and it was bound to only make things harder.

The next time your child is angry—or you are—try something different. Take a breath. Lower the heat. The pressure will dissipate on its own.

***

He’s perfect!

I’ve come to believe this model is not just flawed; it’s harmful.

First, let’s acknowledge the simplest issue: the discrepancy model isn’t supported by research. But there’s a deeper issue that cuts to the heart of educational equity and disability rights. The discrepancy model operates on a dangerous assumption about human potential. When we say that a child with a low IQ score and low academic achievement doesn’t have a “real” learning disability—that they’re simply performing “as expected”—we’re essentially saying, We already know what this child is capable of, and it isn’t much.

This should trouble us deeply.

Yes, IQ correlates with academic achievement. But the correlation is far less strong than many of us assume, especially when we factor in the self-fulfilling nature of our expectations.

The history of Down syndrome offers a powerful illustration of what happens when we let our assumptions about ability limit our beliefs about what’s achievable.1

For most of the 20th century, people with Down syndrome were systematically underestimated. The prevailing wisdom was that they were incapable of meaningful learning, independence, or contribution to society. Based on these assumptions, children with Down syndrome were routinely institutionalized. They received poor care, minimal education, and virtually no opportunities for employment or independent living. And unsurprisingly, under those conditions, they accomplished little.

But, over time, families began advocating differently. Researchers began questioning old assumptions. Educators began trying new approaches. Expectations began to rise. And people with Down syndrome rose to meet them.

Today, with high expectations and appropriate support, people with Down syndrome are accomplishing things that would have been considered impossible just a few decades ago. They’re attaining high levels of education, holding competitive jobs, living independently, and contributing meaningfully to their communities. The capabilities were always there; what changed was our willingness to see and nurture them.

But the starting point is assuming that achievement is not only possible but likely. If we approach children with the assumption that their potential is already known and limited, we lower our expectations, reduce our instruction, and accept minimal progress as inevitable, and then we point to the minimal progress as proof that we were right all along. On the flip side, if we approach any child—regardless of test scores, diagnosis, or apparent limitations—with the assumption that meaningful growth is within reach, we create the conditions for that growth to occur.

***

As noted in the comments, this is proof that the last draft isn’t always the best!

Mrs. Ashford-Fox, eager to send Pembroke to the same private school she had attended as a child, delayed her child’s kindergarten entry by a year. “He needs the gift of time. It will be better for him if he’s more advanced than his classmates. He’ll feel more confident if he’s the oldest in the class rather than the youngest. I will give him an extra year to grow and develop.”

At the start of kindergarten, Pembroke towered over his classmates, both physically and cognitively. He read decodable books while others struggled to sound out simple CVC words. He traversed the monkey bars while others worked on climbing the playground’s ladder. Mrs. Ashford-Fox beamed with pride, pleased with her decision to redshirt her son. It was clear he benefitted from being the most developmentally advanced kit in the room.

Meanwhile, in the burrow next door, Mrs. Sterling-Fox prepared five-year-old Oliver to start kindergarten at exactly the same time as his six-year-old neighbor. He would be going to the neighborhood public school, which was strict about kindergarten entry dates and absolutely did not permit redshirting. When Oliver’s classroom placement was announced only two days before the first day of school, Mrs. Sterling-Fox was dismayed to see that Oliver had two teachers.

“ICT?!” she shrieked into her phone at her husband. “Oliver is a normal student! They just assigned him to ICT because they needed to fill the gen ed seats!”

“What’s ICT again?” Mr. Sterling-Fox asked, distracted.

“Integrated Co-Teaching! It’s where they mix special education students with general education students! He will be in a room with kids who have disabilities, so a regular teacher and a special ed teacher lead the class together!”

“That sounds... better? Two teachers? One with additional training?”

“It’s a special education classroom, Gerald! Our son doesn’t need special education! This is what happens when you insist on public school!”

She’d wanted private school. Begged for it. But her in-laws, who controlled the trust fund, had put their paws down.

Mrs. Sterling-Fox hung up the phone as she watched Mrs. Ashford-Fox return to the burrow. She felt her tail bristle with jealousy and resentment.

“You’ll never believe it,” Mrs. Sterling-Fox called to her neighbor. “Oliver got assigned to ICT!”

Mrs. Ashford-Fox looked up, her expression carefully calibrated between sympathy and condescension. “Oh no. That’s... unfortunate. Did you request to switch classes?”

“Of course I did! But they won’t budge. They said they thought I’d be happy with two teachers, better differentiation, and more small-group instruction. Can you imagine? As if that makes up for—” She lowered her voice, glancing around. “—the environment.”

“Well,” Mrs. Ashford-Fox said delicately, “I suppose they have to find typical children somewhere. Otherwise who would the special ed students model appropriate behavior from?”

Mrs. Sterling-Fox seized on this. “Exactly! Oliver is going to spend his kindergarten year being a peer model. He’s going to get bored. I want him in a room with kids who are more advanced than him so that he can be appropriately challenged!”

Mrs. Ashford-Fox nodded sympathetically as her smile turned pitying. “I totally get that. Nobody wants their kid being held back by peers who are less advanced. Well. I’m sure Oliver will be fine. They do say the ICT teachers are very... dedicated.”

By June, both Pembroke and Oliver wrapped up the year with academic skills that were at or above grade level. And they both continued to be strong students as they progressed through school, though any gap that existed between them and their classmates became less and less noticeable as time went by.

***

Devastating!!!!!

Fast forward a few weeks when my daughter’s class WhatsApp chat exploded as the kids started coming home talking about “WIN groups,” with some kids seemingly traveling to other classrooms for reading, others for math, and others for handwriting practice. It slowly dawned on everyone that the kids had been sorted into ability groups, but nobody knew why, how, or what came next, and many parents in the chat understandably expressed some anxiety about it.

Then, a few weeks after that, a kid walked into my office for a neuropsych evaluation. His mom was convinced he had a math learning disorder and wanted documentation to start the IEP process. When I asked about his grades and test scores and whether the school had tried any interventions, she said his report cards had 3’s, indicating grade-level skills, she wasn’t aware of any test scores, and no, the school hadn’t tried anything yet. I had to tell her not to waste her time and money on the neuropsych; the school wasn’t going to agree to special ed services right away, no matter what the results of the evaluation showed.

All three situations pointed to the same thing: Parents don’t understand MTSS. And honestly, why would they? Schools rarely explain it well. So let me try.

What Is MTSS?

MTSS stands for Multi-Tiered System of Supports. It’s not an intervention itself but instead a framework for organizing resources to provide prevention and intervention programs matched to student needs. Many schools are legally obligated to follow MTSS (New York State, for instance, mandates it in their public schools), and many more choose to do so even without such a requirement.

There are two main types:

• RTI (Response to Intervention) for academic concerns

• SWPBS/PBIS (Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports) for social, emotional, and behavioral issues

The defining features are (1) interventions organized along a tiered continuum that increases in intensity, (2) regular, systematic screening to identify struggling students, and (3) data-based decision-making for tracking progress and adjusting interventions.

• Tier 1: Universal Prevention
  This is for everyone. About 85% of students thrive here with good, effective teaching. Think clear instruction, explicit classroom rules, and solid curriculum. The goal is to prevent problems before they start.

• Tier 2: Targeted Interventions
  A student starts showing difficulties with academic or behavioral expectations. They begin receiving informal interventions: small group instruction and in-class modifications. While they receive those interventions, their progress is monitored closely over several weeks. Most kids who dip into Tier 2 will catch back up and return to Tier 1.

• Tier 3: Intensive Support
  Problems are more serious now. The kid didn’t progress with Tier 2 interventions, so it’s clear they need a more dramatic change to their educational program: one-on-one or very small group instruction, sometimes including wraparound services involving outside agencies. This is where IEP teams and formal special education interventions come into play.

Here’s what this might look like in real life:

At the start of the year, teachers give math and reading screeners to all students.1 Assuming kids have received adequate instruction, the vast majority will show grade-level skills.

Those who don’t get flagged for Tier 2. They join small groups, get targeted instruction, and their progress gets monitored regularly.

If all goes according to plan in Tier 2, most of these kids catch up. With good intervention, they remediate their skills and go back to Tier 1. Only a small minority continue to struggle despite high-quality intervention. Those are the students who move to Tier 3 and begin the IEP process for formal special education services.

So let’s go back to the three stories I told you earlier.

My friend’s son was referred for Tier 2 interventions based on an early reading screener. The way the school described their plan was textbook MTSS. I told her the school was doing exactly what they should do, and of course we all worry about our kids, but in this case, the school was catching something early and addressing it before it became a real problem. So, from my perspective, everything looked good. Assuming the intervention they provided was a good one, I gave the school 10/10, no notes.

The WIN groups in my daughter’s school represented time set aside to implement MTSS. Most of the kids were using the time for “Tier 1 enhancement;” in other words, extra time to practice grade-level skills. Some of the students were using the time to receive Tier 2 interventions, with appropriate progress monitoring.

Finally, the mom who came to my office wanted to bypass Tier 2 and move straight to Tier 3, but that’s not how it works—and for good reason. Schools need to see that a child doesn’t respond to high-quality interventions at Tiers 1 and 2 before referring to special education. This is critical for making sure the right kids receive the right types of support.

One might think that there’s no harm in opening up an IEP and moving to special ed the minute a kid shows signs of trouble. But, in reality, it’s more complicated than that. If interventions are more intensive than the problem needs, we risk overpathologizing the kid. Also, the IEP process takes a long time, so we risk delaying appropriate interventions for struggling students. Finally, we risk misallocating finite resources. Think about it like this: If everyone says they need a handicapped parking spot, who really gets to park next to the front entrance of the building?

I’m sure you can tell that I’m a big fan of MTSS. I just want to point out one caveat: MTSS is only as good as the interventions within it. It’s a framework, not magic. If the instruction is poor or the interventions aren’t evidence-based, kids won’t make progress. The system depends entirely on quality teaching and research-supported interventions at every tier.

What This Means for You

If your child’s teacher reaches out about extra support, that’s a good thing. Early intervention prevents small gaps from becoming big problems.

If your child mentions going to a different group or classroom for extra practice in reading or math, ask the teacher about it—but don’t panic. Chances are, even if it’s a Tier 2 intervention, it’s supportive and temporary.

And if you’re thinking about pursuing testing or an IEP, talk to the school first. Ask about screening results, what interventions have been tried, and how your child has responded. The data will tell you whether it’s time for more intensive evaluation or whether your child just needs a little extra time and support.

The system isn’t perfect, but when it works—when schools catch issues early, provide quality interventions, and communicate clearly with parents—it prevents a lot of kids from falling through the cracks. And that’s exactly what we want.

***

Let the countdown begin!

Traditionally, math has been taught through an “I do, we do, you do” approach: the teacher provides explicit instruction and modeling on a problem, then works through the problem with the class, and finally—once students have achieved mastery with teacher scaffolding—withdraws support so they can complete problems independently before starting the process again with a harder mathematical concept.

In theory, this should work. But clearly something has been going wrong. Fewer and fewer kids are achieving mastery of the foundational concepts they need to accumulate and build knowledge toward higher level concepts. As a result, students are unable to progress through the math curriculum as we would like.

One important factor that contributes to declining math achievement is low engagement and negative attitudes toward math. This may seem obvious, but if students hate math, think they are bad at it, and avoid it, then their achievement suffers. Attitudes, expectancy beliefs, and engagement are important across all subject areas, but research suggests they are particularly relevant in mathematics.

In response, many schools have turned away from direct, explicit instructional approaches and toward inquiry-based learning. In this model, students explore mathematical concepts and discover patterns and relationships through investigation rather than direct teaching. They work on open-ended problems and are encouraged to develop their own solution strategies. Proponents of inquiry-based learning seem to be correct that the approach increases engagement and improves attitudes about math.

The problem is inquiry-based approaches do not actually improve math skills. Most kids cannot actually “discover” new mathematical knowledge on their own, and explicit instruction is necessary to teach novice mathematicians.

So if inquiry-based approaches are ineffective at teaching new concepts, and direct instructional approaches are disengaging, what are we supposed to do? The answer is to use both approaches strategically at different points in the learning process.

First, teach new concepts with direct, explicit instruction. When students are encountering material for the first time, they need clear teacher-led guidance.

Second, use objective assessment data (i.e. tests!) to inform movement from one level to the next. Make sure that students achieve 90-95% mastery with scaffolding before moving to independent practice. Then ensure students achieve 90-95% mastery independently before moving to a higher level concept.1

Third, once students achieve mastery, provide inquiry-based learning and problem-solving opportunities for enrichment. These activities should involve integrating and thinking differently about previously mastered concepts. Here, teachers can get creative. These activities can involve group work and peer-to-peer learning, as well as connecting math to other academic subject areas. They should be fun and engaging and should reward creativity in problem solving.

The debate between traditional and progressive math instruction has been framed as if we must choose a side. But the real question isn’t which approach is better; it’s when each approach works best. Students need explicit instruction to learn new concepts and inquiry-based enrichment to deepen their understanding of what they’ve already mastered. Stop treating these as competing philosophies, and start treating them as complementary tools.

***

Not as good as the 2003 Northern Valley Demarest production.

The school is making such a backwards decision because the class size mandate was passed at the urging of the teachers’ union, and an alternative solution—repurposing specialty spaces as classrooms—would anger elementary school parents who outnumber the families of younger children. In other words, the loudest, most organized stakeholders are driving policy, not evidence or the community’s broader interests.

This is exactly why I believe that state and local governments must ensure that public schools work deliberately to benefit their surrounding communities. To that end, elected officials should implement educational policies that yield (or at least intend to yield) the greatest return on investment of taxpayer dollars.1 The decision makers in government should include people with experience and expertise in education, of course, but they should be serving as policymakers, not educators. They should be making decisions based on empirical research and doing so largely independent of teacher and parent organizations who will inevitably lobby for their own preferences.

I know this isn’t a viewpoint that’s always warmly (or at least publicly) embraced by either political party who seem to be focused on increasing either union strength or “parental rights” (or both), and thus, it isn’t bound to win me many friends. But it’s one that I hold strongly nonetheless. Let me explain why.

People tend to have strong opinions and lots of skin in the game when it comes to public education. Everyone has firsthand experience with education that shapes how they believe schools should operate. School staff, understandably, have strong convictions about how things should run—both because they possess expertise in education and because their work environment affects them directly. Parents hold equally strong views because there is nothing more emotionally charged than their children’s wellbeing, and schools play an outsized role in that.

But public schools are not intended to serve individual children or families; they are meant to serve the community as a whole. Teachers and administrators are public servants, employed by the government and paid with taxpayer money, and thus are obligated to serve the public interest, not the preferences of any particular group.

Therefore, state and local governments need to cut through a whole lot of noise and make objective decisions on behalf of the entire community—not on behalf of these individual (often vocal, often passionate) stakeholders with competing agendas.

Example 1: When Teacher Unions Drive Policy

The class size mandate was passed at the urging of the United Federation of Teachers. Of course teachers want smaller classes—reduced class sizes make their jobs considerably easier and more pleasant. There is some research suggesting benefits to smaller classes, but the findings are generally mixed and modest at best. The UFT appears to have cherry-picked and exaggerated findings that support their position while ignoring contradictory evidence.

More importantly, the UFT certainly didn’t conduct a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of what program cuts would be necessary to accommodate class size reductions. For example, our school, like many others, is now proposing to eliminate early childhood programs—specifically 3K and Pre-K classes—which have far stronger empirical support than class size reductions do. It makes no sense whatsoever to cut these early childhood programs simply to satisfy the UFT’s preference for this mandate. If we sacrifice early childhood education to make room for slightly smaller elementary classes, it will represent a net loss to our community and a poor use of taxpayer dollars.

Example 2: When Parent Preferences Drive Policy

Now let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that the class size mandate wasn’t passed in response to UFT lobbying and that class size reductions would be unambiguously beneficial to the community. There’s another way to accommodate reduced class sizes: repurpose specialty spaces in the school to create additional classrooms.2

Our school is fortunate to have dedicated spaces like a music room, art room, and therapy offices that could be converted into classrooms. The music and art teachers and related professionals could float from classroom to classroom to see students. This approach wouldn’t eliminate any programming—it would simply mean these programs wouldn’t have their own designated facilities.

I cannot point to research on the benefits of having a designated music room versus teaching music in a regular classroom because such research simply doesn’t exist. But, regardless, I can say with confidence that a complete program cut is far more damaging than a change of venue.

Yet what’s being proposed is cutting early childhood programs entirely, not repurposing specialty rooms. Why? Because parents of elementary students (who far outnumber parents of 3K and Pre-K students) will be upset about losing the music and art spaces. They will complain. They’ll show up at meetings and make their displeasure known. Again, this is decision-making designed to appease vocal stakeholders, not to benefit the broader community.

What makes this conversation so fraught is that parents love their children fiercely, and teachers care deeply about their students and their working conditions. These are not villains. They have legitimate concerns and powerful emotional investments. Their passion is understandable and, in many ways, admirable.

But emotional investment does not equal sound policy. The loudest voices are not always the wisest ones. When we allow whoever can organize most effectively, lobby most persistently, or complain most loudly to drive education policy, we don’t necessarily get better schools, but we do certainly get schools that cater to special interest groups, often at the expense of evidence, equity, and the community’s long-term interests.

Government officials need to examine data dispassionately, weigh tradeoffs honestly, and make unpopular calls. They should be insulated enough from immediate political pressure to base decisions on the most rigorous analyses and strongest empirical research that’s available.

We elect representatives to make difficult choices on behalf of everyone, including the people who aren’t in the room, and we deserve policies grounded in evidence rather than in the preferences of whomever can make the most noise.

***

The whole album is awesome, but this one is my favorite!