To his credit, Davis Guggenheim’s new documentary Waiting for Superman has generated real buzz far outside the usual sphere of policy wonks, professional educators, and concerned parents. Unfortunately, to his fault, his film is also a biased, revisionist, and propagandist take on what really ails public education in America, rife with self-serving anecdotes, cherry picking [...]
Not long ago, I was posed four questions by a parenting magazine that I thought readers of Kids & Culture Alert! would find interesting. I'm afraid that I've turned my kids into "reward junkies" by praising, rewarding, and buying them gift constantly. I thought this would show them how much I love them and help [...]
The next time you're walking down the street, at the gym, in an elevator, out for a run, or even at your local coffee shop, look at the people around you and tell me what you see. What I notice is the ubiquity of people with headphones in their ears. Though not quite in the [...]
Please be prepared. I'm going to go on a bit of rant now. I just can't hold it in any longer. I see parents doing this constantly and it's killing me because they know not what they do and they are actually hurting their children's personal and ski racing development. What am I referring to? [...]
Confidence is the single most important mental factor in ski racing. Confidence is also a mental area that is ripe for change and, between now and the new year, I will not only be offering you insights into how confidence impacts your ski racing, but also many practical tools for developing confidence. Confidence is so [...]
We live in an achievement culture in which many parents feel pressure to “fast forward” their children’s development as ski racers (and students, for that matter). Unfortunately, in their efforts to speed up their children’s progress, parents are in danger of setting them up for failure and slowing rather than speeding up their development. By [...]
As distasteful as it was to see the financial, insurance, and automotive industries bailed out for their greedy and reckless behavior, it seems clear that President Bush's and President Obama's decisions to do so were correct. Allowing the "too big to fail" companies to fail, however much they deserved to die a slow and painful [...]
Motivation is the foundation of all of your efforts to achieve your ski-racing goals. Without your desire and determination to become a better ski racer, everything else you do won't matter. It's simple. To become the best ski racer you can be, you must be motivated to do what it takes to maximize your ability. [...]
In my very first Kids & Culture Alert! e-newsletter published in April of 2005, I discussed the sad epidemic of fear of failure that I found to be rampant in America at that time. Well, over five years later, fear of failure is still the most pervasive and debilitating issue among young athletes and other [...]
The first step toward achieving your ski racing goals involves gaining a better understanding of yourself as an ski racer. Becoming the best ski racer you can is complicated; there's conditioning, technique, tactics, equipment, and more. And you probably have a busy life filled with ski racing, school, work, family, social life, and other activities. [...]