Challenge Your Mind, Change The World
A Parent's Portal to Learn How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills at Home, Communication Strategies & How Young People Can Find Their Voice - collated from years of experience of a high school teacher.
Welcome to "Challenge Your Mind, Change the World" a podcast specifically designed for parents who are eager to foster a culture of critical thinking and academic excellence within their home. Hosted by The Classic High School Teacher, a seasoned English Literature, Drama, Social Studies and Ancient History teacher and a distinguished writer of teaching resources with over 20 years experience, as well as extensive experience in the business world, this podcast aims to bridge the gap between parental support, academic success and life beyond school for our next generation.
In today’s rapidly changing educational and business landscapes, the ability to think critically is not just a skill but a necessity for academic achievement and beyond. Each episode of our podcast delves into practical strategies, insightful discussions, and actionable advice on how parents can effectively encourage and nurture critical thinking skills in their teenagers as well as learning how to balance life out of school, and well being.
We focus on simplifying complex theories of critical thinking into manageable lessons that can be easily integrated into daily academic support, as well as other pressures currently facing teenagers and their families.
By listening to our podcast, you will discover:
- Expert techniques to enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills in teenagers.
- Engaging methods to inspire a love for learning and intellectual curiosity.
- Tips for fostering effective communication and argumentation skills for academic essays and discussions.
- Real-world applications of critical thinking skills for academic success and lifelong learning.
- Preparation for life beyond High School
Join us on this journey to empower your teenager to excel both socially and personally by mastering the art of critical thinking. Together, we can lay a solid foundation for their success, not just in school, but in life.
Challenge Your Mind, Change The World
Why Essay Writing Feels So Hard For Teens —And What to Do About It
The moment a student sits down to write an essay, what appears to be a simple academic task transforms into a complex psychological experience. As a former high school English teacher, I've witnessed thousands of teens freeze when facing a blank page – not because they lack intelligence or writing ability, but because of something much deeper happening beneath the surface.
What your teen isn't telling you is that when they say "I don't know how to start," what they actually mean is "I'm afraid what I write won't be good enough" or "I've already failed before I've begun." Essay writing requires students to extract invisible thoughts from their minds and translate them into something tangible that will be evaluated – an inherently vulnerable position that triggers anxiety, perfectionism, and a fear of judgment.
The breakthrough comes when we stop seeing essay struggles as a skill deficit and recognize them as cognitive overload. Your teen's mind is already cluttered with social worries, academic pressure, and digital distractions – asking them to compose a structured analysis of Shakespeare while mentally juggling these concerns is like building a sandcastle in a windstorm without proper tools.
The good news? Essay writing isn't mysterious – it's mechanical. Most high-achieving essay writers aren't born with special talents; they've simply learned to play what I call "the essay game." Essays follow predictable patterns and formulas, and when students understand these structures, writing transforms from an intimidating creative endeavor into a manageable step-by-step process.
What your teen needs isn't more pressure or vague encouragement to "just write anything." They need clear systems that make the invisible process visible – sentence starters, paragraph frames, planning tools, and structured support that helps them see writing as a process rather than a performance. These aren't shortcuts; they're essential on-ramps that allow students to join the flow of writing when they've been stuck too long.
Download my free guide "The Five Secret Habits of Teens Who Succeed" from the show notes and join the Essay Clinic waitlist to transform your teen's relationship with writing. Remember, your presence – calm, supportive, and believing – matters more than your editing skills. You don't need to fix your teen; you just need to help them find their way forward, one sentence at a time.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please take the time to rate our podcast. Your rating means the world to us and it allows us to continue to share and grow our message of support to other fabulous humans out there!
For more free resources, check out my guide to the 5 secret habits of teens who succeed. Jam packed with advice, tips and strategies. Yours free!
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Hey there, I'm your host, francesca, a former high school English teacher, drama director, confidence coach and now your digital guide for all things teen learning, motivation and mindset. And today we're talking about one of those topics that makes parents sigh deeply and teens roll their eyes. It's essay writing. And, more specifically, why does essay writing feel so hard for teens and for the parents trying to help them? I hear this all the time from parents who say you're smart. I know they are, but they freeze up the moment they sit down to write. And I also hear from teenagers who tell me I just don't know where to start. What if it sounds stupid, I write a whole paragraph and then delete it because it's not good enough. And I see you, the parent, sitting at the kitchen table after dinner trying to remember what a thesis statement even is, wondering if you're helping or just making things worse. So if you've ever found yourself in that awkward, frustrating place where your teenager is stuck, you're stuck and it feels like writing an essay has become a full-blown emotional event you are in the right place, my friend, because here's the spoiler it's not just about grammar and, no, it's not about laziness, and it's definitely not about being a bad writer. There's something deeper going on, something cognitive, emotional, even identity based, and in today's episode I'm going to unpack what's really behind the essay struggle, why it feels so overwhelming, what's happening beneath the surface for your team and, most importantly, what you can do to shift the energy from confusion and dread to calm, clarity and a sense of I've got this. By the end of this episode. My hope is that you'll feel both relieved and empowered, because understanding why this is hard is the first step to making essay writing easier. We're not just going to talk strategies today. We're going to talk about stories, student psychology and the quiet beliefs your teen might be carrying that are making that blank page feel heavier than it should. So grab a cup of tea or take me on your school run and let's dig into what's really going on with essay writing and how to help your teen find their way through it. Let's jump in.
Speaker 1:One of the most overlooked truths I've learned in all my years as a high school English teacher is this Essay writing doesn't start on the page, it starts in the mind, in that mind. For most teens, it's exhausted, overstimulated, under-supported. It's a swirling cloud of thoughts, feelings, expectations and distractions, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with English class. Let me paint a picture for you. Your teen walks into the classroom or sits down at the kitchen table to do homework and they've already had a full day, not just in terms of the subjects they've covered, but in terms of mental tabs left open. Imagine your laptop at home with all the tabs open. I'm guilty of this. I have 100 tabs open on my laptop. Well, imagine if that's your teenager's mind at the end of a school day. And here's what might be running in the background. Did that text I sent get left unread? Was my answer in chemistry wrong? Why was my friend quiet at lunch? Did I bomb that science test? I should be posting on TikTok, but I haven't edited the video yet. I hope I don't get called on in class. I can't think straight today.
Speaker 1:And then, as educators and as parents supporting them in their homework, we ask them to sit down and compose a structured, coherent, persuasive argument on the representation of power in Macbeth. It's like asking them to build a sand castle in the middle of a windstorm with no shovel, no bucket and no clear picture of what the castle should even look like. And then we wonder why they shut down. Now I want to talk to the parents who hear their teen say things like I don't know what to write, I can't start, this is too hard. And immediately they think but you've been taught this, you've done this before. What's the problem? Here's what's really going on underneath those words. I don't know how to order my thoughts. I'm scared what I write won't be good enough. I've already failed before. I've even begun. Now your teenager is not being dramatic. They're not lazy and they're definitely not stupid. They're overwhelmed. Because here's the quiet truth that no one is talking about.
Speaker 1:Essay writing is an act of courage. What, yes, it is? That requires teens to pull something invisible from inside their minds an idea, a belief, a connection and translate it into something tangible, readable and graded. Now, that's a very vulnerable thing to do, especially if they had bad feedback in the past, especially if they're perfectionists and especially if they believe that a bad sentence means they are bad at writing. So the real block isn't about punctuation or grammar. It's mental clutter, it's emotional noise and it's the unspoken belief that they're going to mess it up before they even begin. And here's where things shift for both of you, when we stop seeing our teenager struggle as a failure of skill and start seeing it as a sign of cognitive overload. We respond differently. We go from just write anything to let's pause, let's breathe, let's figure out what you're really trying to say before we even worry about how to say it. Because good writing doesn't start with a sentence. It starts with clarity of thought, and if we want our teens to become better writers, we need to help them clear the mental decks so their ideas can actually land on the page.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you something that might surprise you and, honestly, something I wish more teachers and parents would say out loud. Most of the students who got A's in my class they weren't these magical, born with a pen in their hand, natural writers, they didn't walk in quoting Shakespeare or crafting beautiful metaphors from age 12. They were just regular students who, somewhere along the line, learned how to play the essay game. Because that's what essay writing is in most school systems. It's not an artistic endeavor, it's not about having a voice or style or even being especially creative. It's a game with rules, patterns and formulas. And once a teen understands the shape of an essay, so how to start, what goes in the middle, how to wrap it up in a way that signals to the teacher I've understood the task. It's when they finally stop guessing and start thinking. I used to tell my students all the time an essay is not a mystery novel. Your job isn't to keep me guessing, it's to make your thinking as easy to follow as a yellow brick road. Because when you're writing an essay, especially for school, the goal isn't to impress the reader with your originality, it's to make your argument so clear and well supported that your teacher doesn't have to work to understand it.
Speaker 1:The challenge is most schools introduce the essay format once, often in year nine, and then expect students to remember, apply, adapt and master it forever. But writing doesn't work that way. Let's make a comparison that's more honest. Writing isn't like riding a bike, where once you've learned the basics, you're good for life. It's more like cooking. You don't just learn how to cook once and then magically know how to make every dish. You follow recipes, you need steps, you need examples, you experiment and taste and tweak, and every time you try something new, maybe a more complex dish or a twist on an old favorite you go back to those core instructions again and again until it becomes second nature. And essay writing is the same. Students need scaffolding. They need the same Students need scaffolding. They need the recipe, they need sentence starters, they need paragraph frames, outlines, planning tools, not because they're incapable of writing independently, but because those tools give their thinking a home, a structure, a shape.
Speaker 1:But here's where the myth really does damage. When we say some kids are just better at writing, what we're actually saying, often unintentionally, is if your child struggles with writing, it must mean they're not wired for it, and that's simply not true. Most students struggle not because they lack talent, but because they lack clarity. They've never been shown how to reverse engineer a good essay. They don't know how to build an argument like a staircase, step by step, sentence by sentence. They don't understand that an essay is a machine and every part has a purpose. And when we give them those tools, when we show them there's a recipe, they don't just become better writers, they become calmer writers, more confident thinkers, more willing to begin, because suddenly the blank page is an avoid. It's a space with boundaries and it's a space that they've been trained to fill. So when we talk about writing, resources like templates or frameworks or sentence stems, resources like templates or frameworks or sentence stems, let's stop treating them like crutches or cheats. They're not shortcuts, they're on ramps, and for the teen who's been stuck at the edge of the road for far too long, an on-ramp is the exact support they need to finally start moving forward.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about something that's really spoken about in classrooms or staff meetings or even parent-teacher interviews, but it's something that I've seen over and over again the deep, silent shame of not knowing how to begin when a teenager is starting to write an essay. It's quiet, it's hidden and it's powerful. There's that moment, the one that so many teenagers know all too well, when they open up their laptop and they stare at the blinking cursor and nothing. Their fingers hover over the keys, their brain goes foggy and that tight feeling creeps in Panic, maybe pressure, but most of all, shame. The shame is saying you should know this. Why is everyone else already typing? What's wrong with you? Maybe you're just not cut out for this? And that shame.
Speaker 1:It doesn't stay at the desk. It follows them into their identity, into the stories they start telling themselves about what kind of student they are, what they're good at, what they'll never be able to do, and before long, that blinking cursor becomes more than just a writing tool. It becomes a mirror, reflecting back every doubt they've been too afraid to say out loud. Here's what I want you to know as a parent, when your teen says can you help me? They're often not really asking for help with the task. They're asking for help with the feeling, the stuckness, the self-doubt, the belief that they've already failed before they've even begun.
Speaker 1:Because writing isn't just an academic skill, it's a psychological experience. And that first step, it takes courage, especially when they're carrying past failures, critical feedback or a long-held story that they're carrying past failures, critical feedback or a long-held story that they're just not good at writing. So how do we help them? Well, we don't hover, we don't edit their first sentence while they're still forming the thought, and we definitely don't say just write anything, Because to them it's not just anything, it's a test, a performance, a chance to prove that they're capable. So what we do instead is this, as parents and as educators we zoom out, we make writing feel less mysterious and more mechanical.
Speaker 1:I often say to parents and teachers let's make the invisible visible, let's make the process something that you can see, understand and repeat. It's a bit like following Ikea instructions, step by step, picture by picture, until suddenly the flat pack becomes a bookshelf. We break it into easy parts. We break the essay into parts. We give them sentence starters, not just suggestions. We give them a plan, a flow, a map. And when they start to see writing as a process, not a performance, then the pressure really begins to lift. That's why I created the Essay Clinic, for example, and that's why I've built tools like the Essay Booster Toolkit and the Essay Structure Blueprint.
Speaker 1:Not because teens need more drills or drills or drills, but because they need a container for their thinking, a structure they can lean on when the weight of their own doubt feels too heavy. And these tools give them something tangible to hold on to. They say you're not broken, you're just missing the instructions. This is learnable, this is doable, you can do this. And when they finally get that first sentence down, when they feel the click of clarity instead of the frack of panic, it's not just about the essay anymore, it's about trust, trust in themselves, trust that they can face a challenge and find a way through it, and trust that they don't have to be perfect to get started.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now I want to speak directly to you, the parent, the carer, the one listening to this episode while holding laundry or driving between activities. Here's what I need you to know, my friend. You don't need to be your teen's editor and you don't need to be their grandma guru, and you definitely don't need to know the difference between an analytical paragraph and a comparative response. Do not worry. What your teen really needs it's not your red pen, it's your presence. They need someone calm when they feel chaotic. They need someone who believes in them when they're caught in self-doubt, they need someone to say hey, it's okay to need help. That doesn't make you any less capable.
Speaker 1:Your role is not to teach the lesson. It's to open the door to the lesson, to say here's a tool, here's a strategy, here's a space where you don't have to feel alone. And even if you feel out of your depth like English wasn't your strong suit or essays weren't your thing in school, that's okay. That's totally normal, because this journey, it's not about you having all the answers. It's about helping your teen find theirs.
Speaker 1:So if your teen is struggling with writing, please hear this. It's not too late. They are not behind some invisible curve. They don't need to be fixed. They just need someone to show them a way forward that feels doable. One paragraph, one sentence, one clear thought at the time. That's what I really believe in here at the Classic High School Teacher Not miracle makeovers, but consistent, practical, confidence building support that actually meets teens where they are.
Speaker 1:And if you're wondering where to start, what will help your teen beyond just writing, I'd love to gift you one of our most loved free resources the five secret habits of teens who succeed. Now, this guide isn't just about academics. It's about what's underneath success, like mindset, motivation, confidence and routines that set students up for the long-term wins. I will link it in the show notes. It's free, it's thoughtful and it's a really great.
Speaker 1:Next step, after this episode, I'll also link the waitlist to the SA Clinic if you are interested in taking your writing support further for your teenager. Doors are currently closed, but if you join the waitlist, you will go on a priority list to be notified when the SA Clinic opens next. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today and if this episode resonated with you, please send it to another parent who might be feeling the same pressure, that same worry, that same weight of trying to support their teen without knowing where to start. You never know who needs to hear you're not alone. And if you want more grounded, human-centered resources that actually help, head over to the classic high school teacher doc and grab our free guide the five secret habits Habits of Teens who Succeed. I will also link it in the show notes, as well as the Essay Clinic waitlist, because small shifts can lead to big transformation. Until next time, I'm Francesca Hudson, your classic high school teacher, reminding you you don't have to do it perfectly, you just have to keep showing up. Bye for now.
