2027 Academic Support & Student Well-Being Conference

Name the call you take three times a week: the parent convinced something is wrong with their kid, when what is actually wrong is that their kid is 11 and the door just closed for the first time. From 17 years as an independent school dean, walk through the exact conversations, the voicemail, the pickup-line ambush, the 10 p.m. email, and the specific words that turned a spiraling parent back into a capable one. Distinguish the parent trying to stay close from the parent managing their own anxiety, two things that look identical from the inside and completely different from where the kid is standing. Learn the WILD Compass, a framework you can use in the doorway Monday morning to run these redirects yourself. Leave understanding why this call was never yours to carry, how to hand the load back, and what it takes to shift a whole parent community, not one call at a time.