Galinsky led a freewheeling discussion with audience members, asking them their concerns as educators and parents.

Jim McGaw

PORTSMOUTH — Nearly 60 percent of parents use a negative word to describe the adolescent brain, the most frequent being “immature.”

That’s according to research from Ellen Galinsky, the bestseller author and president of Families and Work Institute, who spoke to about 20 parents and educators at The Pennfield School last Thursday, Jan. 30. The Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing research for living in today’s changing workplace, changing family, and changing community. Galinsky’s 2024 book, “The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens,” challenges common stereotypes about teens and tweens. She gave it that title because brain development actually doesn’t plateau until about the age of 25, she said.

During a discussion and presentation on parenting and educating adolescents, Galinsky said it’s unfortunate that so many adults, including child development researchers, use dismissive language when talking about teens’ behavior, when adolescence is such an important time in their growth.

“There are three studies of positive risk for teenagers, while there are millions of studies on negative risk,” Galinsky said, adding it’s important for teens to sustain their sense of adventure to help them develop their passion to explore.

And if they fail? Well that’s fine, too.

“Mistakes aren’t just an opportunity for learning. Mistakes are learning,” she said. “Learning is trial and error.”

Paul Amadio, head of school at Pennfield, said he was thrilled Galinsky agreed to speak at such a small school. Galinsky has connections here, however: Her daughter and Lizz de Villegas, director of development, were friends growing up, and another one of her colleagues, Kimberly Ripa, teaches kindergarten at the school.

Pennfield partnered with Portsmouth Abbey in hosting Galinsky, who also spoke at the latter school on Saturday. “Ellen’s insights into adolescence are transformative,” said Meghan Fonts, director of parent relations at the Abbey. “We were thrilled to offer our parents the opportunity to learn from one of the most respected voices in child development and family dynamics.”

COVID setbacks

One of the missions of Families and Work Institute, Galinsky said, is to explore “what kind of children will we leave our world?” Currently, there are major concerns around the state of education, she said, since national proficiency in reading and mathematics declined during the COVID-19 pandemic and hasn’t bounced back.

What also haven’t bounced back are children’s executive functions — their set of mental skills that help them plan, solve problems, and manage their emotions (i.e. working memory, attention, and self-control), she said.

“I think this is all recoverable, but we have to really pay attention to it for it to recover, and I don’t think we are,” Galinsky said. “Too few kids are engaged in learning; that’s our own data. Teachers are saying that kids are struggling with self regulations, and mental health challenges are increasing. They feel like they’re growing up in a grind culture. They said they should know what they’re supposed to do in life.” Over half of these children, she said, don’t feel prepared to enter the “real world.”

Parents, educators speak

For much of her presentation, Galinsky led a freewheeling discussion with members of the audience. At one point she asked what they believed were the biggest challenges children and teens were dealing with today.

Karen Lambert, the assistant head of school for students and faculty, said it’s anxiety — kids are placing too much pressure on themselves to be successful.

“We keep going back to them that it’s the effort, the trying that matters. I’m at a loss as to where it’s coming from,” said Lambert, adding she doesn’t believe most parents are to blame.

Karyn Jimenez-Elliot, a parent who teaches in higher ed, said expectations seem to be much higher today. “Kids in seventh grade have résumés,” she said. A bachelor’s degree once was OK, but today a master’s degree no longer cuts it, she said.

When she was young, Jimenez-Elliot said, kids were allowed to screw up once in a while. “Now I’m feeling that kids aren’t allowed to make mistakes … and they’re terrified of failing,” even though you learn more through your mistakes than your successes, she said.

She also sees a lack of imagination in many kids today. In her day, you were given a box of Legos and could build anything. “Now, everything has instructions,” she said. “They don’t know how to be resourceful, because everything is told to them.”

Emily Skeehan remembers riding her bike from one end of town to the other on her own; if the chain broke, she had to figure things out. With social media and video games, today’s kids don’t have as many possibilities for real problem-solving, she said. 

‘Possibilities mindset’

Galinsky spoke of children and their parents having a “possibilities mindset” — the belief that things can get better — and how stress can impact that attitude. A parent with a possibilities mindset is more likely to have children with the same mindset, she said, and those students tended to do much better during the pandemic, research has shown.

Tied into all this is her belief that parents need to let their children explore more and make mistakes. In one of the short video clips she showed, a 14-year-old girl says parents hold the “leash” too much — they should walk with the lease instead of holding it still.

“I think there are opportunities all day long for kids to take on a challenge,” Galinsky said, who invited parents to also allow kids to share their own solutions to their problems.

Galinsky also reminded her audience that children also worry about their parents. She cited a study in which children were asked about their parents’ work environment, and then asked parents what they believed their kids had said. More than half of the adults polled said they believed children wished for their parents to be home more.

But children’s actual biggest wish was that their parents were less tired and stressed, Galinsky said. Only 2 percent of parents guessed that.

“Parents’ work environment absolutely affects their kids. They don’t mind that we work,” said Galinsky, “but they worry about their parents.”