Guiding Kids Through The Learning Pit With Confidence And Care

Struggle doesn’t mean something’s wrong; it means something’s working. In this week's episode, we dive into the Learning Pit—the messy middle where confusion turns into real understanding—and show how parents and teachers can coach without rescuing, so kids learn to climb out on their own.

We start by naming the Learning Pit as a normal, research‑backed part of how the brain builds durable knowledge. You’ll hear how to spot the difference between healthy challenge and overload, why speed-based rewards backfire, and how to replace panic with calm next steps. At home, we share simple, powerful scripts that reframe “I can’t” into forward motion, plus concrete moves like letting an error land, asking for process explanations, and celebrating the climb rather than the final answer.

In the classroom, we offer language that normalizes productive struggle—“Who’s in the pit right now?”—and strategy menus that teach students what to try when they’re stuck. Along the way, we model how educators can share their own struggles to reduce student shame and build an authentic growth mindset.

By the end, you’ll have reflection prompts that cement progress—“What helped you climb out?”—and a toolkit for teaching kids to ask for help, not answers. Expect less rescuing, more resilience, and deeper learning that sticks far beyond a single assignment. If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with a fellow parent or educator, and leave a review to tell us the one phrase you’ll use the next time a child says, “I’m stuck.”

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Tuesday Talks is hosted by Dr. Tiffany. She has been a Speech/Language Pathologist for 20 years. She's also a speaker and educational consultant. Dr. Tiffany hosts webinars and in-person workshops for teachers and parents.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Tuesday Talks, your educational podcast helping parents become strong advocates for their kids and teachers to make big impacts in the classroom. Here we go. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to another Tuesday Talks with me, Dr. Tiffany. And I want to ask you a question. I want you to think back. If you've ever watched a child hit a wall with learning and immediately thought they don't get it. Or even worse, maybe they can't do it, whatever it is for that learning task. Or maybe you've been the adult in a room as the teacher or the parent thinking, if I just explain it one more way, if I just step in real quick and guide them away from this mistake I see them about to make. What if I told you that moment, that stuck, uncomfortable, frustrating moment, is actually where learning is supposed to happen. And today we're talking about something called the learning pit or the learning hole, as my son refers to it. And once you understand this, it will completely change how you respond to struggle at home and at school. So this term, the late the learning pit, if you've never heard of it before, it's this visual metaphor for the learning process. And what it refers to is this idea backed by research is that learning is not this linear thing. It doesn't just steadily happen, progress, progress, progress, and keep going up. You know it if you witnessed your own child learning, if you're a teacher witnessing your students learn. I saw it in my speech therapy sessions in school. Learning happens like this, it goes up and down. They might be on this really great trajectory and then dip down, and you might be thinking, what is going on? And that is a part of learning for any kid. And if you watch last week's episode, we did a check-in with my son, fifth grader, and he talked about what he terms the learning hole, which is something that his school has taught him about. His guys in his classroom have talked to him about this learning hole. And he shared, like, hey, mom, when I get into this learning hole, I don't want you to come and pull me out. I want you to help me, guide me, ask me questions in that learning hole so I can learn how to get myself out. So when I, he didn't use this word, but inevitably go back into the hole again. I'll know how to get myself out. Isn't that what we want for all of our kids, whether it be your student or your child? You don't want them latched on to you to guide them out of every difficult learning moment. That is so handicapping to a child for them to constantly look to or wait for the adult to come and help them figure out every moment of confusion or struggle. And so when my son talked about that, that's what he was referring to. This notion learning should be very linear when in fact it's not. Because learners often start confident, then enter confusion, then feel frustrated or stuck. And then with some support and persistence, they climb out with deeper understanding. But notice I didn't say adults stepping in to solve, fix, or give answers, right? The learning pit shows us that confusion isn't this red flag, but it's actually a green light that tells us the brain is working. The pit is not where learning stops, it's where learning really starts to stick. And so I think of it like this when your kid was smaller and they're learning how to crawl or to walk. As the parent, we didn't step in and move their knees while they're trying to learn how to crawl, right? My son face down on the floor, just kind of like scooting. You didn't jump in to move their knees, put their arms in the right spot, right? You let them figure it out. When your kid was learning how to walk and pulling themselves up and they wobble wobble and they fall, you didn't rush over to show them how to stand up. You didn't take your hands on their ankles and move their feet for them. No way, right? You didn't let them hold on to your little fingers, and that's how they learn how to take step after step after step. No, you made sure they had a free, clear space to crawl, right? Or to learn how to crawl. Maybe you put an object out in front of them to entice them to kind of inch forward towards it. Maybe if they're learning how to pull themselves up and stand up, you made sure they had a stable, sturdy surface to pull themselves up on. And you watch them go through that learning pit that I fell, maybe they cried, maybe they just sat there, but eventually they learn how to crawl and how to walk. And it wasn't because we moved their knees or their little feet for them. They figured it out because they fought through the struggle and they were learning with every fall, with every wobble, they learned. And so keep that in mind as we're talking about the learning pit, because the goal is not to avoid the pit, the goal is to teach learners how to sit safely in it. And so when we think about this as adults, why kids hate this learning pit, because we've all seen kids get very frustrated. You start to see kids feeling anxious. Maybe you have a kid with some perfectionism tendencies and they want to get everything right the first time that they do it. Or maybe they have this fear of failure. They don't want to get things wrong because to them it says they're dumb, they can't learn. You might see shutdown behaviors where they just totally disengage from the learning, from the homework, all that. Maybe they even say it out loud. I'm dumb, I can't do this, I don't even know why I have to do this. You hear those types of words spoken, or you see those anxious or perfectionism tendencies, or this avoidance of getting things wrong. And I think about this. Most kids don't hate learning, they hate the feeling of not knowing yet, especially when you're in a classroom situation and other kids there, it's all everything's clicking for them, and you start to think, well, why didn't I? Why am I not getting it? Maybe at home you have one sibling that gets things really easily and another sibling that doesn't. They can start to hate that feeling of not knowing, but it appears on the surface to be this feeling of, I hate learning. And really, if we're being honest, a lot of us as adults were never taught how to struggle productively, right? We think about school systems that were speed. Gosh, I remember, and you know, I'm an adult now, fully grown. I remember the dread of math class when the teacher would split the class up into two groups and we'd have to line up. The first person in the line would have to answer the flashcard math problem that the teacher flipped up, whether it be addition, multiple track, multiplication, subtraction, whatever. And if you got it right, your team got a point. Oh, how I hated that game. The the anxiety that I felt, which I didn't have the word back then, but I absolutely dreaded that. If I could get a pass, go to the bathroom during it, I was doing that. I was in the back of the line, like trying to make sure I'm I'm paying attention to the question that the persons, the people in front of me just got asked, so I can make sure I'm not the reason why my team failed. And we were rewarding speed. That's what the teacher was rewarding. She wanted that automaticity with math facts, but we were rewarding speed, and it took me a little longer to get the answer. That was traumatizing for me. In schools, we also grade value grades over process. We've talked here about the whole pacing guide for teachers and how you're steadily moving along throughout the school year. As teachers, that's something that keeps you on track to make sure milestones are being met, to make sure state standards are being attained. You as a teacher are responsible for that. And so those grades that we give along the way are prioritized more over the process that kids are going through to actually learn a concept deeply. And then we give praises for right answers instead of effort. And of course, you don't want to always just praise the effort, but you do want to acknowledge it, right? So at home, this learning pit, if you're a parent thinking, okay, what does this look like at home? I got you. Think about this homework meltdowns, reading frustration, math shutdowns, the I can't do this spiral thing. As teachers, as parents, I mean, when we are at home with our kids, we can reframe all of those kind of negative associations with learning that we see at home in these types of ways. Instead of, you know, if a kid says, I'm stuck, I just don't get it. Reframing how we approach that. You're not stuck, you're thinking. You're thinking. Keep thinking through it. It helps reframe in their mind how they're visualizing the struggle as well. You could also try saying, This is the part where your brain grows. Let's figure out our next step. Not the ultimate answer, but what is the next step that we need to do? And instead of reacting super quickly, which I am guilty of doing for sure, because I can stand over the shoulder of my kid watching what he's doing, and I could see here's the mistake coming. And I have jumped in to say, oh, boa, boob, oh, wait, think about that. Or labeling the struggle, like saying, you know, this is why you're having a hard time with it. You're not focusing, you're being lazy, not doing and saying those types of things and not confusing support with saving. Because when we jump in too fast, we steal that climb out of the pit. So if you are that parent who is just like, I gotta say something, I have to do something, sit on your hands, walk out of the room, let them struggle in that moment, let them reach the wrong answer, and then see how they respond. Do they just stop working? Do they say, Oh, okay, let me go back and do it? Do they seek you out to help them figure out what they did wrong? And if they do, I don't think you should turn your back on your kids at all to say, no, go figure it out. Maybe they need some guiding questions. Maybe you go back and have them explain the steps or the process that they use to get them to the wrong answer and ask them questions to see where they can identify things went wrong. And that way you're helping them learn the types of questions to ask themselves when they struggle with either getting the answer right or even making it to the point where they have an answer. In schools, the learning pit, I know teachers have seen this many, many times. Through the educator lens, it looks like you know, kids who are just confused all the time. And I encourage teachers, normalize that confusion. It is part of the learning process. Name the pit explicitly. Like my son's school, they have named it. You're in the learning hole, learning pit, whatever, whatever phrase you put it. You're in this place where you're struggling, but also you're learning. It feels hard, it feels challenging, but this is where you're learning. This is where your brain is really digging deep to figure out how to understand this specific concept. And really in the classrooms, celebrating effort in the pit, acknowledging it. I've done that with my own kid at home working on things. And I see him struggling. We've even been to the point of tears where I'm like, okay, now you need to just step away for a moment because your brain is so frustrated, you can't even receive any thoughts about how to get out of this pit right now. So take a break, right? But celebrate the effort in the pit. When he came back to that task, that concept, whatever he was working on, and I saw him work through it and he's celebrating the product, the end result that he got. I don't just celebrate the right answer. I don't celebrate the product that looks pristine at the end. I celebrate and acknowledge his effort in the pit. I saw how you worked really hard to understand whatever you were doing, to find out where your mistake was. And I acknowledge and celebrate that because that is what he's going to hold on to the next time he finds himself in a challenging predicament. And then I, as an educator, I would recommend that you model your own struggle. Maybe there's something challenging for you as the educator to learn how to teach a concept, how to maybe change it up. Acknowledge that too so kids know it's not just kids that struggle in this learning pit, but adults do too, and that is okay. And model how you worked your way out of a pit. Maybe you give a personal example on something that you've learned, a new way of doing things, a new task, something like that, so that kids can see their struggle in you as well. And it's normalized, right? The language shifts for teachers, like ask in the class, who's in the pit right now? Who is in the pit right now? Not who's struggling, who's in the pit. Because you've already laid the foundation for them that the pit is where learning happens. So now when you ask that question, who's in the pit right now? It'll become synonymous with learning and not a struggle, right? What strategies might help you climb out? That could be another question that you ask to those who've raised their hand and said, I'm in the pit. And then reminding them that being stuck is part of the process, right? We're when you do those things, you're really connecting to that growth mindset, which we've done the episode on here before. Growth mindset versus fixed mindset. You are also tying and connecting them to a productive struggle. We're not just struggling just to be in the struggle. We're struggling to help learn. We're struggling to help go deeper into something. You're also connecting with your students who might be receiving special education services or intervention services as well, because they're going to struggle as well. Also, a couple weeks ago did an episode there on talking about special education testing. That learning pit for students with an IEP, it might happen more often because they can't, it's not because they can't learn, but it's because the learning demands are higher. We're working with a system that isn't functioning properly or normally, as some might say. We are wanting them to avoid equating that struggle with inability. School has been challenging for them. If your kid is qualified for special education services, there is something that has been identified through the testing that shows they are struggling. But it's not because they don't have the inability to do it. It's just because they're learning differently. Maybe they need different strategies, maybe they need different approaches. And the data that you're tracking as the educator should really be connected to the strategies used so that kids can demonstrate knowledge, not just accuracy. And so I had a consultation with a tutoring center that reached out, wanting to just talk through how they could better support one particular student. And the scenario was this the student had been coming for individual sessions for a while, working on math. And part of the tutoring structure was a pretest, tutoring, and then a post-test once they got closer to the end of their session pack that parents had purchased. He did so great in his one-on-one sessions. But in that post-test, it completely bombed it. Right. And so maybe I talked to the the um tutoring specialist to say, hey, all the problems on this post-test were all mixed up. When you did your one-on-one sessions, you're working on borrowing, then you worked on carrying. Everything was separated, right? But now on the post-test, everything was mixed up and the student bomb. So I asked the question was the purpose of the post-test to assess skill in a targeted math concept, or was the purpose of the test to assess the understanding of the differences between each type of math problem? And the tutor said, both. So being able to isolate information, being able to, you know, focus in on those attention to detail, categorize things. And so the difference between the students' performance in that one-on-one tutoring session chunk that they went through for weeks and that post-test assessment, that indicated a discrepancy, not in skill, but truly in processing and attention to detail. And you as a teacher might see that in your own classroom. If you're a general education teacher and you have students with who are receiving special education services in your class for specific times of the day, or maybe you're a special education teacher, maybe you're at home watching your kids struggle. Think about what the purpose of an assessment, a quiz, even a homework assignment is. And so my recommendation to the tutor was that if you want to know that the student has learned a skill and a particular math concept, give that student a post-test with that one specific math concept. Once he's demonstrated solid skills there, then move on to the next math concept. So now the student has experienced this post-test success, which kids already know success on tests in schools is meaningful. That's just the nature of public school education here in America. Kids know whether they have an IEP or they don't, they know that a test means something important. They are demonstrating knowledge of a skill. And whatever grade comes out on that test is synonymous with what their smartness is. And so if a student has felt some success on that post-test, then that is a surefire confidence boost. We didn't make it easy. We still are identifying that he knows how to borrow, how to carry. But now we have that data to take back to the IAP team to support skill knowledge, not this multi-concept kind of situation that most tests are. We're mixing up types of questions. We're really looking at how well they can read, but we're asking them comprehension questions too. Um, we want to know a specific math concept, but we're mixing that in with other math concepts. So if you can isolate the skill, now you have data to come back to the IEP team to say, hey, this is what happened when we gave a post test or any type of quiz on one specific math concept. And this is what it looked like when we isolated those skills. The pit is going to look different for every learner, but everybody belongs in it. And so we're not taking the pit away from this student and the specific specific example that I'm giving. We are letting them demonstrate skill, letting them struggle, because the kid has struggled up until the point, um, especially through that post-test, the skills that the kid demonstrated in the one-on-one sessions. They had struggled through them, struggled through them, but they got to a point where he felt confident in it. It's time for the post-test, and now everything went to the wayside. We don't see that as not learning, we see that now as being in the pit. How do we decide for this specific learner to get them out of the pit while also tracking the data that we really need to report back to the IEP team? So think about the pit, especially if you're if you have students with IEPs in your classrooms. Think about the learning pit not being something to avoid with them, but something that they're going to learn how to get themselves out of. But it also gives you key information as the educator to see where that point of confusion is happening. And it's up to us as the educators to tease out where that point of Skill and ability is kind of separating, so then we can differentiate the types of work that we're giving them going forward. So, in talking about helping kids climb out of the pit, those scripts, the self-talk scripts. Remember, kids in the pit may say, Oh, I'm so dumb. I can't do this, and I'll never learn it. Think about the types of self-talk scripts. We've shared some here today. You're not struggling, you're learning, you know, that you're not stuck, you're thinking. This is the part where your brain is growing. Think about maybe some strategy menus, for instance. If you have specific kids or specific subject area that kids are struggling in, maybe have something up in your room with those guiding questions on it as a menu of sorts. How do you talk yourself through or question yourself through this point of being in the learning pit? How this point of thinking, this point of the brain growing. What can you do in this moment to help think your way out of it without reaching out to an adult or a teacher to help give you the answers and really helping kids learn that they need to ask for help, not the answer, right? They need to come to you with specific questions, not just, I don't know how to do this. That's not specific enough. I've even said that to my own son. He'll just come and be like, I don't know how to do this. Okay. What exactly do you need help understanding? And then that has prompted him to now not come to me anymore to say, I don't know how to do this, but to ask me a specific question. What is your specific question? What is confusing to you right now? Well, I don't know how to do this, this, and this. Okay, well, what did you do on a previous problem? If you've seen them have success in a previous problem, look back at that. Well, what have you learned in class that could help you right now figure out what your next step might be? Asking them those types of reflective questions is going to be much better in the long run because giving them the answer right then could be really quick, quick and easy, right? Here's your mistake. This is what you need to do. Bing, bang, bong, you're done. But that is not going to help kids develop that growth mindset that will help guide them out of the next inevitable learning pit that they get themselves into. So the most important part here is that reflection after the struggle. So remember, I said I celebrate and acknowledge that my kid finally got the answer right, but more importantly, how they persisted through the learning pit, how they kept pushing through. Maybe they did have to take a break and come back to it. I honor that as well. I like the way you walked away for a minute and then came back to it. That's great. That's a strategy. So I am reflecting after the struggle to come out of that learning pit to show them and ask them questions on how well they worked through that. I want him to be able to see that. And I want you to be able to see that for your kid and your students too. So the question at the end of the pit moment for any student or any kid is what helped you climb out? What helped you climb out? Maybe it was a tool. Maybe it was a question that you asked them to help them reflect. That's an important question because you need them to understand what helped them climb out. But that's also information for you too. Because sometimes kids have short memories. And the next time they get in the pit, here we go. Oh, I don't know how to do this. And now you know what they said the last time to help them climb out of a pit, and you can remind them of what they said. Well, last time you said X, Y, and Z helped you climb out of the pit. So what do you think about using that this time? And that can help spark that moment of thought, that moment of growth in learning to help them get out of whatever next pit is gonna come because that's what learning is. It's this up and down. So if you think about learning this way, you're always gonna see the struggle as this alarm going off that needs to be addressed through meetings with teachers, interventions, tutoring, all those, and they all have their place. But remembering that learning is supposed to look like this. It's not supposed to look like that. If there's one thing that I want you to remember today, it's that struggle is not the opposite of learning, it's actually the doorway. So the next time your kid is stuck, the next time your kid shuts down, tears start flowing, everybody's frustrated. I just want you to pause before the panic. They might just be right where the learning is supposed to happen. Whether it is learning how to get out of the learning pit, whether it is learning how to deal with their emotions in that situation, whether it is connecting back to a concept, there are all sorts of things happening in that learning pit that are not just tied to the concept that they're working on for whatever assignment, test, project, but also to life skills. The learning pit happens outside of school too. And so then when we can help our kids reflect instead of sit and waddle in this learning pit and look for someone else to pull them out of, we're not only setting them up for success for that specific academic skill, but we're setting them up for success for life. So be sure to share this episode with a parent who maybe worries too fast, maybe that's you, a teacher navigating frustration because you're just not understanding why the kids just aren't getting it, or a student who just needs permission to struggle. Reach out. Let me know how you respond when learning gets hard. How do you respond to your kid when learning gets hard for them? Be sure to share this episode. Thank you so much for joining me for another great Tuesday talks. I always appreciate you joining, sharing, subscribing, commenting, asking questions because we're all in this together and we're here to support one another through it. And with that, I'll see you next week for another Tuesday talks. Bye. Be sure to share this episode and join me next week for a brand new Tuesday Talks.