Analysis Paralysis
Hello from the back to school ether
Virgo new moon blessings, big shout out to this goal setting Huberman Lab episode and this Mel Robbins episode with the founder of IT Cosmetics for giving me the PUSH to hit publish. (Algorithms are tricky witchs but IG did just put Mel Robbins in my feed and I really love her! Late to the party as usual :)
I'm sitting next to my half sleeping-half coughing toddler. She's home and starting a second round of antibiotics for a persistant ear infection. Starting the new school year and a new position has brought a lot of overwhelm, dispair, ennuie. Being deep inside a department and not just on a campus has been eye opening in ways I wish it wasn't.
I'm reducing this to vaguaries because 1) education is dysfunctional everywhere and 2) My entire purpose in life has gotten pushed aside as I teach myself the minutiae of my new job (is the entire attendance system going to burst into flames because I can't turn in hard copy attendance today?? I don't know! but if you're a nice person and have personally known an attendance clerk you might say a prayer for me right now.)
But this brings us back to my purpose in life and The Basics. I'm about to drop a link to a Substack from Parenting Translator who I enjoy but who can also be very TLDR. (Also on IG for more short form) And the study that she discects in a very clear, well written, and purposeful way, explains why the internet overflow of parenting advice is NOT serving parents. (At least these 214 highly educated Swedish parents of 4 year olds)
Where this hits the most to me, as an avid reader, writer, educator and something I really struggle with every time I make copies of The Basics handouts- is can the typical parent read this? If a former student, now parent, never learned how to read well or write well, or how to determine a trust-worthy source- how on earth are they going to find good information on parenting? Any drive they might have to be a better parent is going to quickly be squashed by their embarrassment and bitterness towards a system that failed them.
It always feels good when your lived experience matches the data, as it did in this study. But in the end, it's just scratching the surface of a very deep societal issue.
Check it out, and let me know what you think.
I think this is an especially difficult issue for parents of kids with special needs. My son was diagnosed with autism when he was nearly ten! We had tried for 10 years to understand certain behaviors and academic difficulties, so it was good to have the diagnosis. However, most of the advice doctors gave us was not helpful. Things I read provided diagnostic terms for things he struggled with, but no suggestions as to what to do. I still see so much misinformation today, such as descriptions of autism that are way too specific to be accurate or too negative to be helpful.