Culture, Parenting, technology

Earlier this month, the ABC network aired a special called “ScreenTime” hosted by Diane Sawyer. For six months, Sawyer and her team toured the U.S. talking to doctors, families, teachers and tech insiders in pursuit of answers to questions about how our smart phones are affecting us.  What they discovered may not surprise you: Today, the average adult spends 49

Culture, Leadership

I turn 60 years old this year. I share this fact because it will explain my next few sentences. As a teen, I listened to the rock band, Queen. They were eccentric, even edgy, and their tunes got stuck in my head. (It’s precisely what musicians want.) A few months ago, I saw the movie, “Bohemian Rhapsody” (twice) and later,

Culture, Generation Z, Parenting

Today’s blog is from Andrew McPeak. Andrew is a next gen researcher, speaker, and author for Growing Leaders. I recently read a commentary from a parent in the Chicago Tribune that was equally troubling and hilarious. This dad detailed the strange habits of his “Fortnite-obsessed” kids: waking up early to play the game, using strange words like “epic” and “legendary,” and moving around the

Culture, Education, Generation iY®, Generation Y, Habitudes, Leadership, Parenting, Students, Youth

Follow @TimElmore A few short years ago, corporate executives were asked what single word best describes the recent college graduates entering their workplace. The word they selected? Entitled. Interestingly, when recent graduates were asked to guess what descriptive word these executives had chosen that begins with the letter “e,” they guessed: exciting, enterprising, entrepreneurial and energetic. None of them guessed how

Culture, Generation iY®, Parenting

I spent the last few days studying thirty years of student trends and patterns. While both K-12 and Higher Education have gone through transitions—the greatest shift in three decades of childhood is the parents. Parents are doing their job differently than they did forty years ago. We’ve all heard the term, “Helicopter Parent.” It’s a title we’ve affectionately bestowed upon moms and

Culture

Consider this reality. What the computer was for the Millennial Generation, social media is for Generation Z. The youngest cohort being measured today are those growing up since the turn of the 21st century; many call them Generation Z, following Gen. Y. Some call them the “touch screen generation” because they don’t manipulate the screen with a keyboard as much

Culture, Parenting, technology, Youth

Today's blog is from Andrew McPeak. Andrew is a next gen researcher, speaker, and author for Growing Leaders. A few weeks ago I was having dinner with some friends and their kids did something hilarious. These two young boys moved some furniture around in the dining room and started doing what could be only described as a series of strange dances. Some were dances

Athletics, Culture, Generation Z, Leadership

You may remember Tyler Hilinski, the Washington State University quarterback who took his own life last January. His football team took a knee as they launched a new season this year—visually acknowledging their fallen teammate, and further shining a spotlight on a significant and growing issue for student athletes: The mental health crisis. Certainly, athlete suicides are not new, but the frequency

Culture, Education, Leadership, Workplace

After meeting with a national champion athletic coach, a president of a growing university and an amazing principal of a 3,600-student high school—I’ve drawn at least one conclusion about quality leadership: Great leaders create the campus culture. This means, when you arrive, you are the “Chief Culture Officer.” You improve the culture, through your own style and personality, and lift everyone to

Culture, Students, Youth

If you work with students, you already know they have their own language. I suppose my generation did too, when I was a teenager, but language expansion must be on steroids today. Pause and think for a moment about the common phrases a high school or college student may use today: - Netflix and Chill - I Literally Can’t Even - Turn Down

Culture, Education, Leadership

Sometimes, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry when I read some news stories today. Our world is more educated, more sophisticated, more modernized and more industrialized than ever before—but in our race to make progress, we often leave one important quality behind: common sense. Webster defines common sense as: “the ability to think and behave in a reasonable way

Culture, Growth, Leadership, Workplace

I’m not sure if you caught it, but actor Geoffrey Owens recently appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” after an incident that took place in New York. You might remember Owens as the actor known for his comedic role as Elvin Tibideaux on The Cosby Show, between 1985 and 1992. But recently, Owens was “job shamed.” Photos of Geoffrey, working in a Trader Joe's, were published by The

Culture, Education, Leadership, Purpose, Serving others, Students

A new survey was taken among both educators and parents—which revealed that each has different perspectives when it comes to our kids. We gain a fresh perspective when we see life from the classroom as well as the family room. Both teachers and parents, however, agree on one thing for sure: that schools should assess students on both “academic knowledge”

Culture, Students

Last fall, ESPN ran a very funny piece on how NCAA football coaches did not understand the slang terms of their players. From Nick Saban to Tom Allen, coaches admitted that the terminology their youth athletes used to communicate was a little like a foreign language to them. Sometimes they said it felt like they needed a translator to explain