33: The Happiness Crisis: Rethinking How We See Our Kids’ Struggles with Dr. Jonathan Eckert
When your kid is already struggling at school, being told they need to “learn to struggle” can be hard to hear.
In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Jon Eckert, professor at Baylor University, former teacher, and author of The Happiness Crisis: How Adversity Can Build a Resilient and Joyful Next Generation, to talk about what it actually means to support kids through hard things.
We talk about why not all struggle is productive, the idea of “gritty optimism,” and how getting curious about what’s behind a kid’s struggle can change the way we support them—at home and at school.
Key Takeaways:
Struggle isn’t automatically productive. The goal isn’t to make kids struggle more, but to help them move through the struggles they’re already facing in ways that build confidence and resilience.
“Gritty optimism” grows from evidence and experience. When kids can look back and see what they can do now that they couldn’t do before, they build a more grounded belief in themselves.
Before reacting to a behavior, ask: “Do we have the story?” Curiosity can uncover what’s actually behind a struggle—and completely change how adults respond.
Kids need places to build confidence and purpose beyond school. Jobs, sports, service, camp, and other experiences can give kids meaningful ways to contribute, connect, and see themselves differently.
As kids get older, being seen as capable matters. Finding healthy ways for tweens and teens to have independence, contribute, and build status can shape how we support and connect with them.
Connect with Jon:
The Happiness Crisis book (affiliate link)
Baylor Center for School Leadership
Book Recommendations:
David Brooks’ - How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (affiliate link)
Angela Duckworth’s - Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best (affiliate link)
Connect with Scotti:
Website
Instagram
Threads
LinkedIn
Ask a Question:
Got a school question on your mind?
Submit it as a listener question for a future episode
Transcript
33: Podcast - Jonathan Eckert
[00:00:00] What we want is gritty optimism. We want the belief that we can become more of who we're meant to be based on evidence and experience.
[00:00:09] And sometimes the kids who struggle the most are the ones who develop the most evidence that, oh, I actually, I didn't think I could do that. Now I think I can.
[00:00:19] Welcome to Unlocking School Success, a podcast with the smart strategies and support parents need to help their kids thrive. I'm your host, Scotti Weintraub, parent coach, school navigator, and your go-to guide for turning School Stress and Chaos into clear strategies that work. Let's get started.
[00:00:42] Hi there, and welcome to another episode of Unlocking School Success. It is, of course, my pleasure to welcome another guest. I love having guests on this podcast, but today is a special guest. Dr. Jon Eckert is a professor at Baylor University. He's also the author of a new book that we're gonna be discussing, and he's a former teacher.
[00:01:05] So welcome, Jon.
[00:01:07] Hey, thank you for having me, Scotti
[00:01:10] it is so fun because your new book, which is called The Happiness Crisis: How Adversity Can Build a Resilient and Joyful Next Generation, had me really interested from the title. So w- give us just the brief overview. W- what is this book about and why did you write it?
[00:01:29] Yeah. No, I think the over 30 years in teaching and then 23 years as a parent has helped me realize a lot of kids are trying to find happiness, and they're finding it in places where it just doesn't exist. It's all circumstantial. It's all comparison based. And so what we really wanna call into is joy.
[00:01:45] There's a more joyful way to live, and sometimes that means there's gonna be struggle, and we can still be joyful. And a lot of times, those hard times can lead to joy. So having taught kids for years, having watched my own kids struggle through things, [00:02:00] seeing what comes on the backside of how they grow through it is amazing.
[00:02:04] And I also wanna fully acknowledge that sometimes struggle is just struggle, and it is hard, and it is hard to be in it with them, but there is a connection that comes through that. We all know this. Our best friends are the ones that show up when it's hard. We have friends that are fun to be around that are funny, but what we really want are those joyful connections where we do hard things with each other because that builds belonging and then cultivates curiosity.
[00:02:25] So it's kind of a pushback on happiness that's circumstantial and self-focused and fleeting, and a call toward joy, which is something deeper. So that was the, that's the 30-plus years all kinda rolled into a book. Here's my hope for kids and for the people that support kids.
[00:02:43] I love this idea of focusing not so much on happiness, but on the deeper, more complex piece, first I wanna just acknowledge that I know folks in, who may be listening in my audience, their kids are often already struggling.
[00:02:59] And you and I were just mentioning this before we pushed record, that when they hear you talk about this, there might be a little bit of bristling of- Oh ... "Oh, but my kid's already struggling." Yeah. Because the implication that we get from the, the broader culture is, you need to let your kids struggle.
[00:03:18] But maybe they're already struggling.
[00:03:20] Yeah.
[00:03:21] And that isn't about us not letting them.
[00:03:23] Yeah. Yeah. It's not letting them or not let them. Kids are gonna struggle. You go into a middle school, kid- Oh. I coach I coach middle school girls and boys basketball. I taught middle school science labs with kids that were, every day is an up and down hormonal mess.
[00:03:40] It is just wild the landscape that's going on internally that then comes out externally. So this is not a celebration of struggle. The, struggle does not equal joy. Struggle is struggle. It's how do we help kids struggle better through those things? So as a teacher and as a parent, it's really [00:04:00] easy to tell other people they should let their kids struggle.
[00:04:03] It's like, but when we live with it, a- or when I was teaching fifth grade, I had those kids for six and a half hours a day. I was the adult spending the most time with those kids, but I can tell you some of those kids that struggled the most are the most memorable kids I'll ever work with. They're kids I'll never forget because it wasn't easy for them, and just showing up at school was amazing.
[00:04:25] And I think sometimes as adults we can forget how hard it is to be a kid. So this is by no means saying, "Oh, yeah, just do hard things," kind of Boomer style. You just need to do hard things. Suck it up and do it. It's like they're doing hard things- Yes ... every day, and so how do we celebrate that?
[00:04:42] How do we respect that? How do we encourage that in a way that isn't the thing that causes people to bristle? Because that is 100% true. Kids are doing hard things every day. The fact is, in life, we're not gonna ever miss struggle. It's what do we do with the struggle when it comes?
[00:05:01] I read because I've already gotten a copy of your great book you have this phrase called gritty optimism.
[00:05:07] Yeah.
[00:05:08] And that resonated with me 'cause I thought it encapsulated what my own experience has been around supporting kids who really are genuinely struggling already. So tell me a little bit about this concept.
[00:05:23] Yeah. You have three options in 2026. There's three options. You can be a pessimist.
[00:05:27] Real easy to be a pessimist. News cycles, algorithms are all built to feed that negativity bias that we have. Or you can be a naive optimist, which a lot of tea- I got into teaching, I was the ultimate naive optimist. When you read some of the stories about me, it's like, wow, that guy decided to be a teacher?
[00:05:43] I looked like I was 12 years old when I started teaching. I was 22 at the time, and I was like, "Hey, I'm gonna help these kids become more of who they were created to be just because. Like I'm just gonna do it." And that's great. Don't ever discourage that in your kids. We love naive optimism, but reality [00:06:00] can take a sledgehammer to that.
[00:06:01] We can think things are gonna be a certain way, and then reality hits oh no, that's not it. And so then naive optimism can go the way of happiness, where it's like, oh I can't do this. I'm out. What we want is gritty optimism. We want the belief that we can become more of who we're meant to be based on evidence and experience.
[00:06:20] And sometimes the kids who struggle the most are the ones who develop the most evidence that, oh, I actually, I didn't think I could do that. Now I think I can. The last chapter 13, is chasing progress, not success. Kids that celebrate progress and are able to articulate, "Here's what I didn't think I could do.
[00:06:41] Here's what I did by myself or with the help of others, and here's what I can do now," that's what leads to resilience. And so sometimes the kids that I've had that have struggled the most are the most gritty optimists that I've ever met. And so we need to give kids a ca- chance to collect that experience.
[00:06:58] If you have kids that you're constantly knocking down any obstacle in their way, which some parents think they can do. Not true. You can't do that. But they think they can. They don't get a chance to build those muscles around the backbone that allow them to carry those heavy things. And so what that looks like for a six-year-old is different than a 12-year-old, is different than an 18-year-old, and then every kid is made differently.
[00:07:20] And so how do we give the kids the right amount of struggle that allows them to build that gritty optimism that they need?
[00:07:29] Yeah, it's... i'm laughing at the idea that we could try to keep struggle from our kids- ... because I think you're right that seems impossible And I know some people do try, but it is very challenging.
[00:07:44] The challenge for us as parents of kids who struggle in school is that we send them off to school and we are not there.
[00:07:52] Yeah.
[00:07:52] We send them off basically with a hope and a prayer that things will go smoothly- Yeah ... because we [00:08:00] have no control-
[00:08:01] Yeah ...
[00:08:02] over that, over the- Yeah ... what happens to them, over the system, the bigger systems at work.
[00:08:08] So I loved that you also talked about curiosity. Yeah. And I think that's a piece that I talk a lot to parents about, is using that curiosity, because we don't have a lot of control, can really open up those conversations.
[00:08:26] Yeah.
[00:08:26] So talk to us a little bit about that piece and how you see- Yeah ... that playing.
[00:08:30] Yeah. I'll give you two quick stories. They're in the book. The first one, I spent 12 years as a teacher doing parent-teacher conferences, and then when our first child went to kindergarten, it was an all-day kindergarten. We'd moved to Virginia, 'cause I was in Washington DC at the time, and so we didn't know anybody.
[00:08:46] And so we come in a couple months after we've moved, and we're meeting with the teacher. And as we walk in, the kindergarten teacher, like any great kindergarten teacher, has lined the walls with these kindergarten self-portraits, so these really happy pictures of little kids with pets and rainbows and houses.
[00:09:01] And it said on a plaque, "These are the kindergartners in their favorite places to be." So when we get to the end and we see this one, it's done all in black crayon. The, the eyes on the kid look like they're demented. There's something not right. It looks like he, looks like he's in a coffin. And then over to the side there's a fetal Voldemort from Harry Potter eight kind of lurking over on the side, if you've watched the Harry Potter movies.
[00:09:27] And oh man, that kid looks emotionally disturbed. What is wrong with that kid? And then we scan down lower, and at the bottom of it, underneath the coffin, what looked like a coffin was the name Ben E., E as in Eckert. This was our genetic contribution to the world. And we're walking into this conference and we're like, "Oh man, I bet this teacher's curious about the parents that produced a kid that did that."
[00:09:52] And so she was very kind. We had a fine parent-teacher conference. But we went back and we're like, "Hey, Ben, what's this picture of..." We snapped a picture of it and took it home. We're like [00:10:00] what's the deal with your self-portrait? It kinda looks like you're in a coffin." He's like, "Oh, no, that's me in my bed.
[00:10:05] That's my favorite place to be." And I was like who's fetal Voldemort next to you?" And he said, "Oh, that's my sister Sarah," because Sarah at the time, she was sharing a bedroom with him 'cause she was three. We were living in an apartment, and so we had a infant, so that, the infant got the other bedroom, so Ben and Sarah were there.
[00:10:22] Sarah has still not forgiven Ben for making her into fetal Voldemort. And so it's that kinda stuff that here I'm a educator, longtime educator, who's there at the US Department of Ed to help improve educat- in the system, and I've got a kid who looks like he's mentally unstable. If a psychologist would have analyzed that drawing and said, "Oh, that's not there."
[00:10:40] So if the teacher's not curious and they think that, if the teacher thinks that she knows the story of my kid, it's like, "Oh, no, you miss it." Now, he's not good at art. He just graduated from college with four different majors. None of them were art or graphic design. Kids can't be anything they want to be.
[00:10:58] They have certain skills that they can develop over time, and they need adults who are curious about those skills that can be developed. So that's where that curiosity is, as a parent, that's where kids are fascinating. As a teacher, that's where kids are fascinating. We need teachers who are curious about them.
[00:11:12] So I'll pause there. I have one other story that I can give you that kind of gets into the dyslexia story and some of those pieces, but I'll stop there and see if you have any reaction to that example.
[00:11:23] I- it makes me laugh because it does bring me back to the point in your book where you said, "Do we have the story?"
[00:11:29] And I wrote this down specifically 'cause I think it's such an, a, a valuable phrase. Do we have the story? And clearly you did not have the story-
[00:11:37] ...
[00:11:37] Of that picture.
[00:11:38] I did not.
[00:11:39] And what it brought up for me was another, was a story from my own child- Yeah. Good ... when he was maybe in fifth grade, and they were learning about idioms.
[00:11:48] And each child was assigned an idiom to draw a picture of. You can imagine where this might be going. I can see where this
[00:11:56] is going. I love it. Y- keep going.
[00:11:57] And the it turns out that h- the [00:12:00] draw- the idiom that he received was beating a dead horse.
[00:12:04] Oh, no.
[00:12:05] And as you can imagine, the resulting drawing had a lot of blood and gore.
[00:12:12] As it would.
[00:12:13] As it would. But then the teacher came to me and said, "This is not appropriate for school."
[00:12:18] He assigned it. He assigned it
[00:12:20] Yes, that was the, that was my point. Do we have the story? The story was that was, he was, he's a literal thinker And you asked him to draw a picture of eating a dead horse, so-
[00:12:33] Yeah
[00:12:33] there we are.
[00:12:34] That's a perfect example. And so I'll tie that to the next story. I'll try to tell this quickly, but it's me in first grade art, so now 46 years ago. Still remember this vividly. We're cutting out witches' heads, and I loved art. Art was, there weren't a lot of words. It was a great place to be, and it's Halloween time, and we're cutting out these witches' heads, and so the teacher's passing out, her name was Mrs.
[00:12:54] Frisky, she's passing out scissors, and I, this is back in the time when left-handed scissors were the green-handled scissors. I don't know if you remember that. And I knew I needed the green-handled scissors, so I told her I needed those, and then I proceeded to try to put them on my right hand 'cause I could never tell my left from my right.
[00:13:09] And she snatched them off my hand. She's like, "You don't need those." And so then she gave me the silver-handled scissors, so I put those on my left hand, and I tried to cut the construction paper, and all I'm getting it to do is tear and bend 'cause you can't cut with the wrong hand with those kind of scissors.
[00:13:23] And so I start, just liquid frustration and shame just start pouring down my cheeks. I'm in the back of the class. She sees me. She's like, "Hey, if you're gonna cry, get out of class," and she kicks me out- ... of class. So I go out. I get as small as I can on the wall. I can still feel the cold cinder block wall on my back, and I'm trying to keep myself covered up 'cause sixth graders are walking by.
[00:13:43] The girls are trying to comfort me, and the boys are making fun of me, and I'm not sure which is worse. And I'm out there for what feels like an hour. It was probably 10 minutes. And my first grade teacher, Mrs. Thayer, comes by, and she sees me, and she's like, "Hey, what's wrong?" And I can't get it out 'cause I'm just , and you-
[00:13:58] Right
[00:13:59] can't get... And [00:14:00] she's she just takes me by the hand, takes me back to class, sits me down in one of those little first grade chairs. She sits opposite of me. She puts her hands on my shoulders, looks me in the eye, and she's like, "Can you tell me what happened?" And I proceed to get it out through some halting bursts, and then she looks me in the eye, and she breaks adult code.
[00:14:16] She breaks teacher code, and she tells me, "What Mrs. Frisky did to you was wrong."
[00:14:20] And after that I'd run through a wall for Mrs. Thayer. I still would. 46 years later, I still get chills every time I say that, when she says, "What she did to you was wrong." And then she gives me this big hug and wraps me up in that grandmotherly smell, which I can still smell.
[00:14:35] And she then figured out over the course of the year that I I would reverse letters all the time. I was and saw, I knew they were different words. I couldn't tell the difference. B and D felt like evil adults had made those up. Six and nine the, what, why would you make numbers look like the same thing?
[00:14:51] And so because she was patient and persistent, my struggle was productive. It was productive struggle because she was curious. With Mrs. Frisky, the struggle was destructive. I was- ... struggling, and she kicked me out. She was the opposite of curious. But because Mrs. Thayer was curious, she realized I was dealing with dyslexia, so she sent me, that, that summer, she had a retired teacher friend.
[00:15:14] I rode my bike there as a seven-year-old- Every, every week, and I did workbook after workbook all summer, and by second grade I was on reading level because Mrs. Thayer was curious. And we live in an incurious world. We dismiss people we disagree with. We dismiss people that we don't know their story, and it's man, if we do that to kids, oh, that's tragic.
[00:15:37] And so because of Mrs. Thayer, now I love to read. I read for a living. I'm a professor. And when I read stuff, I remember it because my brain has to work a little harder at it still. And so that gift she gave me was based on curiosity and just patience. And a- again, 46 years later, I still remember both of those teachers vividly, and that was about a half [00:16:00] an hour's worth of interaction that has probably shaped me as probably one of the reasons why I'm a teacher and a professor who prepares teachers and leaders to do this because of Mrs.
[00:16:10] Thayer. If I would've only had Mrs. Frisky, who knows? Who knows what I would've done? I wouldn't have liked art, I'll say that. And again, that's the power that parents and teachers and coaches have in kids' lives, that as a 52-year-old, that still sticks with me.
[00:16:26] I think your example just illustrates so clearly that when we look at that surface level behavior, we're not really seeing, we're not using that curiosity and seeing what is really behind the frustration in your situation.
[00:16:44] Yeah.
[00:16:46] Is there more to the story?
[00:16:48] Yeah. And that, that story, the did you g- do you have the story, that came from a school in Colorado where it was a private school, and a kid had moved in, and he was constantly getting dress-coded.
[00:16:59] And that's a happens everywhere, but particularly in private schools. He was getting dress-coded for having sagging pants. And the dean who was over it was, told him he needed to stand up, and he checked him, and the guy's like, he's "Pull your pants up." And he's like, "I can't." He's like, "N- I need you to pull your pants up."
[00:17:13] He's like, "I c- I can't." And he finally does, and the pants are six inches too short.
[00:17:18] And he's like, "I don't..." And he started to cry. He's like, "I don't have any other pants." And so the dean was just like, "Oh." So he told his teachers, he's like, "Hey, if there's an issue, come and see me." He's like, "We don't have the whole story."
[00:17:31] He went home and he had, he was roughly the same size. He had six jeans, six pairs of jeans that he didn't really need. He brought them to school the next day, called the kid to his office, and he gave him a bag with all six jeans, six pairs of jeans in it. And the guy, the kid's like, "Are these for me?" And he's "Can I put some of these on now?"
[00:17:47] And he put them on, and he, different kid. Different kid after that because Taj is the, Taj Watson is the administrator. He's like he got the story and that became their mantra. Do you have the story? [00:18:00] And so often we think we have the story, and we don't. And it's why teaching is infinitely interesting and also really hard, Yes
[00:18:08] because there are so many stories you come across every day, and you've gotta have the patience to stick with it to be r- really get the story.
[00:18:15] And this, the same can be said about parents.
[00:18:18] That's absolutely right ...
[00:18:20] that we think we know why something's happening, but do we really? Maybe not.
[00:18:27] Yeah.
[00:18:27] And I, I- the most depressing story I tell, and it is about my own daughter she was, I think, about 14, and found in the trash this really self-critical thing you are selfish, lazy," all these things, like all these accusations, and then she ended with, "And you are a disappointment to your teachers- to your friends to your parents, and most of all," in all caps, "to yourself." And she had wadded it up and put it in the trash, and I happened to find it in the trash. And I was like, "Oh, my goodness. How do I have a kid that believes these lies about herself?" And so we had some conversations. We talked.
[00:19:05] She... And she did some counseling, which was helpful. But the main thing that she did, she started serving at a s- a horse stable down the road from us that had students with special needs and disabilities that could come and ride on horses, that kind of the equine therapy stuff. And she wasn't even trained well enough to be able to walk alongside and help the kids ride.
[00:19:26] She would just go and muck horse stalls. And just getting outside of herself and not focusing on self-comfort, but really addressing self-care that was focused on others, like she would come back in a better head space all the time, and she's now become this amazing kid. She's now a freshman at Baylor.
[00:19:43] She's going into nursing. She wants to go wherever she's called around the world to help other people, because that's where she finds joy and meaning in others. And so it's not focusing on you. She's focusing on herself when she does that, but by... She's becoming [00:20:00] healthier by focusing on other people and just getting outside of herself, and that was huge for her.
[00:20:05] Now, that's very different than her other two, her si- her older brother and older sister. Very different wiring. And so as parents, we've got to be curious, and when we see our kids needing something, we can't come and fix it. We can't fix everything, but we can come alongside and help them and support them, and they need to know we're there no matter what.
[00:20:24] Yeah. It's, it struck me, too, in reading that- There are so many other ways for kids to find that satisfaction, and sometimes when we focus on school as the place where self-worth or aptitude can be measured, it leaves out all of these other amazing places. Service jobs. For my own kid, getting a job as a teen- Yeah
[00:20:55] was one of the best things he ever did.
[00:20:57] Yep.
[00:20:58] Or going to camp. I'm also a big fan of summer camp for that- Yep ... same reason. That there are so many other ways for kids to find, m- and not through simplicity and not through ease, because we both know having a job is not easy.
[00:21:16] Nope.
[00:21:17] Doing a sport is not easy.
[00:21:20] There's lots of challenge.
[00:21:22] So w- how do you encourage parents to look beyond the scope of just school as that place?
[00:21:30] Yeah. I'm gonna go into some of the research on this. I've given some anecdotes- Great ... 'cause sometimes those stick more. But the research out there is half of girls that are seniors in high school in the United States are not satisfied with themselves.
[00:21:40] A third of boys are not satisfied with themselves. , The messaging isn't working. Whatever we think we're doing isn't working. And so David Yeager, he's a professor at University of Texas. He worked with Carol Dweck at Stanford for a number of years. She was the growth mindset person, that hey- intelligence is not fixed. Intelligence is [00:22:00] something that's grown and developed. Powerful, came out in 2006. Kind of a seismic shift in the way we approach things. He's gone on and done some really interesting work in kids ages 10 to 25. And so if you have kids that are that age, it changes the way you talk to them.
[00:22:15] He said at 10, in both boys and girls, testosterone starts to be produced way more significantly, and so it changes the way they respond to you. You tell a five-year-old to put his coat on before he goes outside, he'll probably do it. He's not gonna be defiant. You tell a 12-year-old to do that, you may get some defiance because what that indicates is "Hey, I don't think you're capable of taking care of yourself.
[00:22:38] I think you need to be parented in some way." And it's like they might like, "No, I'm not doing that." Our son, we lived in Chicago. He would go to school, to high school, it would be zero degrees outside, and he'd go in shorts.
[00:22:51] Oh, yes.
[00:22:52] A- and he would not hear anything else. He's like it's hot in school."
[00:22:55] I'm like, "I believe that, but you are going outdoors, and it's zero." He didn't care. And it's like, okay, I'm not fighting that because here's what they're doing. At age 10, they are seeking status among their peers and am- in the adult world. So if we do anything that erodes their status, humiliates, denigrates the work that they're doing, makes them feel less than, that's gonna be a problem.
[00:23:18] And that's why most societies have these rites of passage built in at around age 13, because kids wanna be seen as valid contributors to their community. So their peers matter and adults matter. They may not act like they care what adults think, but they do. So if we remember that they're seeking status, getting that job outside of school is important.
[00:23:39] Being on that team, doing something that gives them credibility among their peers. It's how I ended up running with the bulls with my son in Pamplona, Spain. It's the dumbest thing I've ever done. But he's 18, and that is ultimate status-seeking behavior To be able to do it. And he wanted me to do it with him, so I did.
[00:23:58] Because sometimes we end [00:24:00] up doing stupid things with our kids because it's a way that we will connect with them, and that'll be a memory we'll have for the rest of our lives. So it's like, hey, how do we lean into healthy ways to give kids status? Because if we don't lean into the healthy ways, they're gonna find it other ways.
[00:24:14] And so I think that's an important way to frame, especially when kids hit about age 10, and that really goes till 25 because the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex of males is at play until at least 25. My wife says it's even longer. But at least 25
[00:24:32] I love that you did that with your son. I can imagine it might have been frightening too.
[00:24:36] Oh, it's so dumb. It's so dumb. It was very frightening. There's 12 of them, and they do it, it's ... And they're 1,500 pounds with really sharp horns, and they do it for eight mornings in a row at 8:00 AM in Pamplona, Spain, and they've been doing it for over 500 years. And so now they video and see how close they can get to the bulls, so all day they just watch replays in the bars and the cafes how close they got to the bulls.
[00:24:58] Oh, geez. I was like, "This is insane." But again, it's all status seeking. That's what it is. Yeah. That's what it is.
[00:25:05] And I especially love that you embraced the opportunity in that- Yep ... and didn't just say, "No, that's ridiculous."
[00:25:16] I know. I
[00:25:16] wanted- But you saw it as a point of connection.
[00:25:18] It was, and he ... and it was amazing, and it's been the best intro story to every keynote I've done for the last three years.
[00:25:25] Because every parent knows, they've all been there. "Oh man, we're in it with our kid." And so I've got this great video four minutes before the gun goes off to release them. We've got our red neckerchiefs on. We're ready to run. There's thousands of people in these cobblestone streets, and I record it.
[00:25:40] And I'm like, "Hey, Ben, how are you feeling right now?" And he, it's finally set in what he's doing. He's like a little jittery. Little jittery." "This is real now. It's definitely here." And then I, the, the phone, just as I angle it away, it pauses at an angle and I'm smiling. And it's not a smile of happiness or joy.
[00:25:58] It is just complete [00:26:00] resignation that here I am as a parent in this thing with my kid who's doing something crazy and I'm in it, and every parent has been in that moment. And so that smile, as soon as it freezes on that, every parent in the audience, "Oh, yep, I know what that is." Yep. I've been there."
[00:26:16] That is so relatable, and then unfortunately we've got to wrap up after that. But I know I'm so pleased to let everybody know that you are also gonna be a speaker in my upcoming School Support That Sticks Summit. So w- you'll get to hear even more from you, which is really exciting. And in that session I wanna dig into that last chapter about progress not success, 'cause I think we're gonna be talking all about rethinking school struggles.
[00:26:44] That's great.
[00:26:44] I look forward to it. I'm looking forward to that very much. Tell folks where they can find more about your work and where they can find your book, and of course the links will all be in the show notes.
[00:26:53] Yeah. The book is at thehappinesscrisis.com. You can find out where to get it.
[00:26:58] There's free resources there. There's discussion guides. There's free chapters so you can get a little bit of a taste of it before you dive in. It's sold everywhere on any online platforms and in bookstores. And then me jonathaneckert.org. That's where all of my stuff is. You can find that and there are resources there, and then you can always find me at Baylor University, the Baylor Center for School Leadership.
[00:27:20] Thank you so much for having me. Scotti, can't wait for the conference.
[00:27:23] Yes. Thank you. And before we wrap up, I always like to ask my guests just, I know your book is a tremendous resource, but what's one website, podcast-
[00:27:33] ...
[00:27:33] Book that you might suggest for people who want to dig in a little more into some of the stuff that we've been discussing?
[00:27:39] Yeah. So I already mentioned David Yeager's 10 to 25 book, but David Brooks wrote a book called How to Know a Person, that kinda changed the way I think about being curious about others. It's not ex- it's not his parenting book or teaching book, it's just kinda how do we know, how are we better human beings.
[00:27:54] Found that helpful. And then I just finished Angela Duckworth's book, Situated. It came out two weeks [00:28:00] ago. A amazing book about how we think about changing the way we wanna live. And so Situated, another really good one. Sorry, I kinda gave you three, but-
[00:28:10] Oh ...
[00:28:10] there you go. I love- There you go ...
[00:28:11] I love learning about new resources, so I'll put all of those links in the show notes so other folks can find them, too.
[00:28:17] Thanks for sharing those. And thanks for writing such an interesting book, and doing all the work that you do with not just with students, but with educators, too, 'cause I think that's also super important.
[00:28:29] It's a joy. Thanks for having me.
[00:28:31] You're very welcome. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of Unlocking School Success.
[00:28:37] If you have enjoyed my conversation with D- Dr. Eckert, please follow along on your favorite podcast player, or leave a review. It helps other parents find these kind of useful conversations. Thanks. We'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:28:52] Thanks for tuning in to Unlocking School Success. If you're finding these episodes helpful, please hit follow, leave a review, or send it to another parent who's also navigating the school maze because no one should have to figure this out alone. You'll find full show notes@reframeparenting.com slash podcast and you can come say hi on Instagram at Reframe Parenting.
[00:29:18] Thanks again for listening. See you next time.
What do kids really need from us when school—and life—is hard? I’m joined by Dr. Jon Eckert, professor at Baylor University, former teacher, and author of The Happiness Crisis: How Adversity Can Build a Resilient and Joyful Next Generation, to talk about struggle, resilience, and the power of getting curious about what’s really going on.