Raising Boys & Girls Episode 373: Capable the High School Years with David and Sissy
May 7, 2026
They explore a widening capability gap in high schoolers and why some teens retreat while others overperform. Conversation covers how screens and online norms lower relational standards and blunt resilience. They discuss real-world fixes like responsibility, healthy risk-taking, mentors, and rituals to build coping skills and steadier relationships.
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Create Pressure Free Rest Spaces
- Give teens relief and respite: scheduled spaces to rest without performance pressure.
- Sissy Goff emphasizes rest sustains capability and suggests occasional 'personal days' to prevent emotional sickness from chronic stress.
Use Jobs As Capability Training
- Encourage healthy risk and real-world hard things like part-time jobs to build capability.
- David Thomas highlights jobs for practicing feedback, accountability, and problem-solving before vocational life demands it.
Trapeze Class Modeled Healthy Risk
- A mom took a trapeze class with her risk-taking daughter to model healthy risk and vulnerability.
- Sissy Goff shares the daughter's mom did the trapeze too, showing courage and creating shared learning.
