I've had to console grown men and women who were crying in frustration.
Let me tell you about Miguel.
Twenty-six years old. College degree. Good grades his whole life. He'd just failed at getting his third self-assessment project to work per the requirements. He was breaking down.
"I don't understand," he said, voice cracking. "I've never failed at anything. Why can't I do this?"
I knew the answer. I've seen it hundreds of times over 11 years running a software development bootcamp. The problem wasn't that he couldn't learn to code. The problem was that he'd never learned to think.
Your child is heading down the same path right now. I need to tell you about it before it's too late.
Oh, and Miguel? About a year after he graduated, he made a LinkedIn post where he explained that he finally realized what I had done for six months, and the pieces all clicked for him.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
What I Actually Do (And What Your Child Needs)
Ok, so I worked for 11 years leading a team of software development coaches in a bootcamp. When I hired instructors, I always told them the same thing:
"Your job is not to teach people how to code. Your job is to coach people through the process of learning how to become an analytical and algorithmic thinker."
If they learn to think analytically and algorithmically, coding follows naturally. Without thinking skills, they fail the moment they hit a problem we didn't explicitly teach.
This is what Miguel didn't understand for six months. This is what schools stopped prioritizing 23 years ago. And this is what your child needs more than good grades.
I'm not just an educator. I'm also a parent of two teenagers. I've spent their entire childhood building the thinking skills that school won't teach. It worked. And it can work for you too.
The Crisis I See Every Day
My students arrive with impressive credentials. They were the "smart kid." Teachers loved them. Honor roll, AP classes, never below a B.
Then they encounter something genuinely difficult, and they completely fall apart.
Not because the material is impossibly hard. Because their identity shatters. They've spent 18 years learning that success means "getting it done" and smart people "get it" immediately. Now they're discovering that wasn't intelligence—it was just an easy curriculum.
The behaviors I see:
- "Just tell me the answer!" (they're 24 years old)
- Complete shutdown when frustrated
- "I'm just not a technical person"
- Giving up after one attempt
- Plagiarism (what they learned when the goal was "right answer by Friday, don't care how")
Teachers: You see this too. The gifted student who melts down when challenged. The honor student who'd rather cheat than risk being wrong. The kid asking "Will this be on the test?" about everything.
Here's what we actually taught people to do:
- How to break problems into pieces (they couldn't)
- How to learn efficiently (they didn't know how)
- How to handle ambiguity without panicking (they've never done it)
- How to learn from mistakes (they saw mistakes as failure)
All of this should be automatic by age 16, but we were teaching it all, from the ground up, at 25.
On top of it all, some didn't make it through. Not because they're not smart—because they couldn't let go of their ego and adopt a growth mindset. Their minds had been poisoned their entire life.
These are your kids in 10 years.
How We Got Here: The Testing Era
If your child is in school now, their education has been shaped by a 2001 law: No Child Left Behind.
In the most simple of terms, here's how it worked. Schools get money based on test scores. Teachers get evaluated on test scores. Principals keep jobs based on test scores.
Result? Everyone optimizes for test scores.
The problem is that test scores and thinking skills are not the same thing. They are mutually exclusive. Teaching kids to think takes time, exploration, mistakes. Tests reward speed, pattern-matching, one "correct" answer.
The Incentive Trap
Your child's school is like a hedge fund manager of mediocrity, optimizing for students hovering around "proficient."
If your kid is already proficient, then mission accomplished.
If your kid is advanced and bored and needs further development, forget about it. The system is not incentived to provide resources or time for them.
Is your kid below proficiency? That's where every resource goes.
"But Didn't They Fix This in 2015?"
Sort of. Not really.
The Every Student Succeeds Act replaced NCLB in 2015, giving states more control. However, the only thing that actually changed was who manages the system—the states. What didn't change was the annual testing requirements, funding tied to performance, and teaching-to-the-test culture deeply embedded.
You can't reverse 13 years of institutional momentum with a new law. The first NCLB kids were already adults by 2015. They're in my bootcamp now.
The law changed. The culture didn't.
What Got Cut
Everything that develops thinking:
- Gifted programs (already proficient = no funding incentive)
- Art, music, recess (not quantifiable)
- Science experiments (too messy, facts are easier to test)
- Essay writing (multiple choice is faster to grade)
- Class discussions (can't attach a defensible number to discussion quality)
- Student questions (off-script, wastes test-prep time)
- Deep exploration (coverage matters more than understanding)
Your child is being trained to be really good at something that doesn't matter.
Why Every Child Is Being Failed
Gifted Kids: Quietly Neglected
Imagine your child is naturally fast at running. So fast, the gym teacher never makes them practice—just tells them to sit on the bench.
Then there's an actual race. Your kid discovers being fast and knowing how to race are different. They've never learned pacing, strategy, fatigue management. They lose. They're devastated. They conclude they're not actually good at running.
That's happening academically.
Your gifted child never learns to struggle, never develops persistence, never learns study strategies. Identity built on effortless success. Hits college or work and falls apart.
This could have been my daughters. I saw it coming and intervened.
Struggling Kids: Trained, Not Educated
Your child gets intense focus on test-taking strategies—bubbling techniques, keyword recognition, process of elimination.
These help with tests. They are not thinking skills. When they leave school and face real problems that aren't multiple choice, they're lost.
Average Kids: Hitting Benchmarks, Not Learning
Your child gets the most resources, the most test prep. And they're learning:
- Right answers matter more than understanding why
- Speed matters more than depth
- Compliance matters more than curiosity
They'll probably graduate. They'll probably go to college. And then they'll be in my bootcamp at 25, unable to solve problems.
The Five Missing Skills
1. Metacognition: The Dashboard
Your child's ability to monitor their own understanding. "Wait, I don't actually get this."
When Present: "I thought I understood but now I'm not sure"
When Missing: Can't identify what they're confused about, surprised by bad grades
Quick check: Ask "How do you know you're right?" If they can't explain their thinking → red flag.
2. Productive Struggle: Embracing Difficulty
Staying engaged with hard problems without panicking or giving up.
When Present: Tries multiple approaches, says "This is frustrating but I can figure it out"
When Missing: Immediately says "I can't," cries, demands you solve it
Quick check: Give a slightly-too-hard puzzle. Do they engage or give up?
My daughters have emotional reactions—they're teenagers. But they work through it.
3. Problem Decomposition: One Bite at a Time
Breaking complex problems into manageable chunks.
Ask someone to "eat an elephant" and they freeze. Ask them to "take one bite" and they can do it. We're handing kids elephants and timing them.
When Present: "First I need to..., then I can..."
When Missing: "This is too much," can't identify where to start
Quick check: Multi-step task. Can they sequence the steps?
4. Assumption Validation: Debugging Your Thinking
Testing whether your reasoning is actually correct.
When Present: "Let me check if this works," tests edge cases
When Missing: Assumes first answer is correct, doesn't check work
Quick check: After homework, ask "How did you check if it's right?"
5. Growth Mindset: Intelligence Is Developable
Belief that abilities develop through effort, not fixed traits.
When Present: "I keep getting these problems wrong, so I need to review the material again"
When Missing: "I'm just not a math person"
The fixed mindset: "I tried once, didn't get it → I'm not good at this." Like going to the gym once and concluding you're "not a fitness person."
Quick check: Listen to how they talk about challenges.
Summary: Without these five skills, your child can memorize facts and pass tests but can't think. With them, they can learn anything.
The good news is that these can all be taught at home, but you have to start early—as soon as your child starts school. If you don't catch these before your child is 13, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Why Waiting Makes It Harder
Your child's brain is most flexible during childhood and adolescence. Ages 10-25 for prefrontal cortex development—executive function, planning, problem-solving.
This is the window. Miss it, and you're trying to develop skills after the easy period has closed.
Teaching adults thinking skills they should have begun to learn at 10 is like teaching someone to use a computer when they are 70. Possible, but so much harder.
In the bootcamp:
- Adults need 3 months just to believe thinking is learnable
- Some plateau after 6 months despite intensive coaching
- We're building in 6 months what should have taken 15 years
The identity problem: By adulthood, identity is built around academic experience. Start early and it's just how they learn. Start late and it's identity warfare.
What Actually Works: Five Strategies for Tonight
Strategy 1: Socratic Questioning
Don't give answers. Ask questions that guide them to answers.
Home example:
Kid: "I don't get this math problem."
- "What is the problem asking for?"
- "What information do you have?"
- "What's your first step?"
- "How can you check if that's right?"
Strategy 2: Process Praise Over Outcome Praise
| Good | Bad |
|---|---|
| "You worked hard for 3 days to understand dividing decimals. Look at how that paid off on that test." | "You're so smart! A+ on your test!" |
| "I"m proud that you didn't give up when you were struggling with organic chemistry." | "You're a natural at science." |
Look, I get it. You're proud when your child succeeds, and it took years of practice to make sure that I always praised mine for effort. Telling your child that she is smart feels good, and may make her feel good momentarily, but it's a road to failure and frustration.
Strategy 3: Model Thinking Out Loud
Narrate your problem-solving so they hear what thinking sounds like.
Thinking is usually invisible. Make it visible.
Personal example: Internet kept dropping. Both daughters home. I talked through my troubleshooting out loud:
"Okay, internet's out. Let me figure this out. Just my device or everything? Let me check my phone. Phone's out too. So router or service. Let me restart the router first—easiest thing to test..."
Older daughter: "Or call them?"
Me: "Good thinking. What info would I need before calling?"
Her: "Account number?"
What happened: She heard me break down a problem, test hypotheses in order, involve her in problem-solving. She learned how to approach ambiguous problems.
I didn't sit her down for a "lesson." I just made thinking visible during normal life.
Strategy 4: Normalize Struggle and Mistakes
Make it clear difficulty is normal and mistakes are information.
When struggling:
- "This is hard, isn't it? Hard things are where learning happens."
- "Mistakes are how we debug our thinking."
When frustrated:
- "Frustration means you're at your learning edge—that's the learning zone."
Personal example—where teenagers really test you:
Younger daughter learning algebra, crying: "I'm so stupid! I can't do this!"
I didn't say: "Don't say that, you're not stupid!" (Doesn't help)
I didn't say: "This is easy once you get it." (Makes her feel worse)
I said: "Yeah, algebra is genuinely hard. Your brain is doing something new—dealing with unknowns. That's uncomfortable. But uncomfortable is where learning happens. Let's take a break, then break this down."
I let her cry for a minute. The emotion is information—she's at her learning edge. That's good, even though it doesn't feel good.
Strategy 5: Let Them Fail (The Hardest One)
This separates parents who build thinking skills from parents who just talk about it. A few years ago, my daughter had a big project due that was worth 30% of her total grade. She left it to the last minute—the night before if I recall.
Her: "I need help! I can't finish this!"
Every instinct: RESCUE HER. STAY UP ALL NIGHT. PREVENT FAILURE.
What I did:
Me: "That's tough. What do you think you should do?"
Her: "I don't know! Can you help me?"
Me: "I can answer questions you have about it and point you in the right direction, but I can't do it for you. What are your options?"
Her (crying, angry): "I don't have options! I'm going to fail!"
She made a plan, and executed it poorly because she was exhausted. She ended up failing that project. I did not rescue her.
Three weeks later, a new project was assigned. She started immediately, planned it out, and finished two days early.
Me: "I noticed you started this one right away."
Her: "Yeah, I didn't want to do that panic thing again. That sucked."
What she learned:
- Consequences are real
- She can survive failure
- She can learn from mistakes
- She can plan ahead
- Mom won't rescue her, so she needs to rescue herself
I ensured that she learned something worth more than any grade: Agency.
A year later, she manages her time well, plans ahead, asks for help strategically not desperately.
Short-term rescue would have felt better. Long-term lesson was better.
Real Transformations: What Changes
Here's what my graduates tell me:
"I came to learn to code. But what I actually learned was how to think. Now I approach my entire life differently."
- "I feel more in control" of careers, decisions, lives
- "I can solve problems now" not just coding—life problems
- "I don't panic anymore" when things get hard, they have strategies
- "I'm a different person" calmer, more confident, more capable
One student: "I thought you were teaching me JavaScript. You were actually teaching me how to be an effective learner."
Sarah: From Panic to Agency
Twenty-three, college degree, smart. First hard coding problem led to a full panic attack. In the first month, she cried twice a week, and almost quit. I wouldn't let her.
Six months later and she was talking my ear off on how she no longer made decisions emotionally. She could think through difficult decisions and feel comfident she made smart choices.
Her whole life was different from that point on.
From One Parent to Another: The Hard Truth
It's slower. Letting them think takes longer than telling the answer.
It's frustrating. You KNOW the answer. You can SEE what they need to do. And you have to watch them struggle.
They get mad at you. "Just TELL me!" is something I hear weekly. Sometimes with tears. Sometimes yelling.
You doubt yourself constantly. Am I being too hard? Should I just help?
Teenagers are especially challenging. Emotional intensity plus cognitive development. It's a lot.
Other parents will judge. I've gotten comments: "You let her turn in that project? You could have helped more." Yes. I could have. I chose not to.
But It Works
Are they perfect? No. Do they still have meltdowns? Yes, they're teenagers. Do they make bad decisions? Absolutely.
But they have tools. And I watch them use those tools more as they grow.
If it works for me—juggling a demanding job, parenting chaos, two different kids—it can work for you.
You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be intentional.
Start where you are. Your kids will thank you. Maybe not this year. Maybe not until they're 25.
But they will.
Miguel's Epiphany
Remember Miguel from the beginning? Frustrated with me for six months?
A year after graduation, I saw his LinkedIn post. His company was training him to mentor junior developers. He'd taken an introductory coaching class.
His post:
Something clicked today. I recently started taking a few courses in professional coaching and I realize that this is what my instructor was doing for six months.
He never gave me the answers. He just asked me questions and made me come up with the answers. I thought he was being difficult. Or didn't want to help. Or liked watching us struggle.
Turns out he was coaching me on how to think.
I sat at my desk and smiled.
Quick Start: Five Things for Tonight
- Ask one Socratic question instead of giving one answer
- Praise one process instead of one outcome
- Model one piece of thinking out loud
- Normalize one struggle instead of fixing it
- Let them work through one problem themselves
That's it. Start small. Be consistent. Your child's future self will thank you.